Multichannel digital marketing: the basics

When planning your digital strategy, it helps to understand the lingo.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)—Improves site rankings on search engines. Identifies consumers’ intent in the moment. Falls into 2 categories: SEO (organic search) and paid search. SEO is an iterative process by which rankings are influenced by quality, popularity, trustworthiness and authority of the website. Paid search is remuneration for higher rankings/positions.

Display–banner ads (in its many sizes and configurations) that can appear on websites relevant to the target as well as newspaper/magazine sites. Programmatic media can be applied to deliver the right ad to the right person at exactly the moment of website access.

Social Media Marketing–use of social platforms, that can be highly targeted, to generate awareness, leads, word of mouth, reviews, referrals and feedback. It can fall into 3 categories of application:

• network targeting: based on interest of social network, birds of a feather share together premise

• social advertising: leverages “friend likes” in proximity of a related ad

• viral marketing: essentially word of mouth, a friend tells a friend

Mobile–a device-based medium that encompasses all digital marketing channels.

Provides immediacy by delivering access between advertisers and consumers—what, when and where they require it. Time and location based, it can be the ultimate point of purchase stimuli.

Through the integrated application of the above, based on the unique and complimentary properties of each—from awareness to consideration to purchase decision, purchase execution and repeat purchase—the consumer can be systematically accessed to track and guide them through the purchase funnel.