A lot has been said about the value of traditional offline marketing methods compared to digital marketing and online PR strategies. Naturally, as an agency that works with both traditional and digital marketing clients, we get to compare notes from time to time. While there’s no question that both worlds have their place, there’s also a lot that hybrid PR agencies can do to make your life easier as a marketing manager and to let you know what’s working and what’s not – and why.
Cross-Channel Marketing
One of the biggest differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing is the approach taken to marketing on the channels and platforms that the target audience uses. Take email marketing as an example. Back in the day, you would have typically separated marketing campaigns by putting a banner ad in the middle of a newsletter. Now, with marketing moving to digital spaces and social media, you might put a discount code for a client’s product in the corner of an article or create an interactive experience around an event or campaign – all kinds of things you could do in your email marketing.
This type of cross-channel marketing can help you determine what’s resonating with your audience and allow you to connect with them on other platforms too. Facebook Ads are a great example of this. While much has been made about the effectiveness of Facebook Ads and how to run a successful campaign, the platform – along with other social media platforms – also provides you with the opportunity to cross-promote your content across different platforms. This can be valuable when determining an overall marketing campaign’s reach and ROI (Return on Investment).
If you’re running an ecommerce store, you might consider using Google Analytics to track which campaigns are driving the most revenue. With the right integrations, you can connect every channel you’re using (including email, social, and web) with store activity so you can see which campaigns are performing best and plan future campaigns around those results.
The Importance of Measurement
Measuring the success of a marketing campaign – or any sort of marketing activity – is incredibly important. Without a clear idea of how you’re performing, you can’t determine what changes need to be made (if any) for continued success. The good news is that with most digital marketing platforms available, it’s a cinch to set up automated measurement and analysis so you can see how everything is performing – and whether or not changes need to be made to continue toward your goals.
Depending on your existing workflow, you might want to consider setting up automated reporting so you can check in once or twice a week and see how all your efforts are performing. If you’re already using Google Analytics for website measurement, you can use its Universal Analytics platform to track all your marketing activities, from email marketing to social media marketing, across different platforms (including mobile).
One important point to make is that you should never rely solely on the “Growth” tab in Google Analytics to track the success of your campaigns. While this will give you an idea of the general trend for your site traffic, you should always check out the “Behavior” and “Conversions” tabs to get a better idea of the actual behavior (actions taken) of your website visitors and the effectiveness of your campaigns. The “Conversions” tab will give you a clear idea of how many people are taking the actions you’re encouraging them to take (e.g., downloading a PDF version of a white paper you’ve published, subscribing to a newsletter, making a purchase, or entering a contest).
If you’re looking to further your education on the topic of digital marketing, the Online Marketing and PR Blog is a great place to start. The blog posts regularly cover industry-leading content such as how to set up automated marketing processes using HubSpot to make your life easier as a marketer and PR professional – not to mention how to analyze and improve your marketing performance using Google Analytics.
To get inspired for your next marketing campaign, visit the blog’s archive and take a look at the past posts. You can also head over to the blog’s Twitter account @HubSpotIncEDU and join the conversation as it relates to your industry.