In the pre-digital era, marketing activities were planned in campaign ‘bursts’ around new product launches and promotions. My belief is that to be effective, digital marketing needs a change in mindset so businesses invest sufficient time and budget into continuously optimizing ‘always-on’ activities which can be used in an integrated way to maximise visibility and conversion through the customer lifecycle.
Always-on marketing means a planned approach to scheduling and optimizing continuous marketing activities which support customer acquisition and retention throughout the customer lifecycle.
Consider the main types of digital marketing. Think about these key digital media I define in my Digital Marketing: Strategy and Implementation book. If you operate in a market where your potential customers are continuously searching for new products and services that you offer then you can't be competitive unless you continuously work to improve them.
From the visual you can see that key always-on channels are:
All of these channels are intensely competitive, so you will only succeed if you have a plan to improve and are putting sufficient resources to review and improve these channels. This won't happen if marketers in a business only have time to work on burst campaign activities.
For Always-on marketing to be effective, efforts should be made to increase the effectiveness of different digital channels through testing, review, and optimization throughout the customer lifecycle. Our RACE Framework helps marketers condense this down into reach, act, convert, and engage.
Use our free, planning template downloads to get started with using RACE to grow your business. These will help you create a 90-day prioritized plan to improve your results from digital marketing. We recommend 25+ key marketing activities across RACE that are essential for businesses to compete by improving their digital marketing maturity.
Free digital marketing plan template Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member to download our digital marketing plan template today Access the Free digital marketing plan template
The opportunity to dynamically update and test digital media and experiences to improve effectiveness has always been claimed as a key benefit compared to traditional media but does this happen in practice? Our research on managing digital marketing highlighted the extent companies have processes in place to manage always-on marketing and optimization continuously.
The responses showed a core group of leaders has moved beyond intermittent to more regular structured testing and optimization programs across different digital media and experiences (sites and mobile).
A relatively small proportion (around a fifth) have fully embraced optimization with these leaders running a continuous, structured program. The percentage of leaders who optimized individual channels using continuous optimization or structured tests were:
Do you find it surprising that digital experiences are not optimized more frequently?
It would be good to see more people move towards evolutionary site design. The question is what is stopping businesses from investing in optimization?
Our RACE Framework empowers marketers to put in place a data-driven marketing strategy to align all digital customer touchpoints. From the full range of digital media to always-on high-performing landing, product or category pages, homepage, checkouts, blogs, and more, our Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) available via our RACE framework will help optimize your always-on activities.
Free digital marketing plan template Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member to download our digital marketing plan template today Access the Free digital marketing plan template
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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