The Standard Design for Digital Marketing

This time I will explain how we think when a client asks us to design their digital marketing, using concrete case studies.

If

any company owner has concerns like these, I hope you will find this article useful.

Now, on designing digital marketing: we think about it in a very simple structure, and we design both B2C and B2B along broadly the following sequence.

② Map the existing activity is where the framework used changes, and that is B2C and B2B’s only difference.

If you want to know about digital marketing you can use to win new customers, click here

1. B2C design

① List the existing activity

Let us take an estate agency as the example.

First, list the activity currently under way.

This estate agency is struggling to attract people looking to rent. Its current marketing activity is:

If you are about to start with search advertising, Google search advertising start guide is worth a look.

② Map the existing activity

For B2C, map the existing activity listed above onto the funnel diagram below.

This funnel diagram organises the whole picture of B2C digital marketing activity and sets out the order in which to carry it out.

Here the green areas are the channels currently in use.

③ Deciding the next action

The next action is decided by weighing the priority of the activity against the character of the channel.

Starting from the priority of activity on the left of the funnel diagram, you should begin with the work aimed at the bottom layer, those closest to buying, so the next actions to take are:

.
Once that work is done, move on to approaching the aware layer in the middle of the funnel diagram.

In other words, improve the existing search advertising and website (SEO), and look at adding affiliate advertising.

On top of that, for social media you factor in the character of the channel.
Specifically, use the table below to think about user profiles and what you are communicating.

In this example,

‘for a prospective tenant, the interior of the property is probably the easiest thing to be drawn to’
‘given the area, there are probably more women’

are the hypotheses, so we decide that if social advertising is introduced, we will run interior photographs as Instagram ads.

If you want to know more about social media marketing, click here

④ Join the work up

Once you run one piece of marketing activity, it matters that you link it to other activity and channels so they work on each other.

For example, once the landing page is built,
‘can we put it on the website?’
‘can we put a QR code on the flyers?’
across a range of media.

And once the Instagram account is open,
‘shall we leave postcards announcing the new account on the desk where we meet customers?’
‘can we add it to staff business cards?’
you check,

and so on.

As above, consider whether you can tie the work to other channels and to sales activity, and mesh them together as much as you can.

⑤ PDCA in three categories

Finally, improve the work you have carried out above.

As the KGI to watch while improving, most digital marketing channels track the number of conversions (sign-ups).

Within that, set the KPIs for whoever runs the ads as

these three measures.

Then, following the same thinking as ③, as below

work up from the bottom of the flow, putting forward fixes in that order.

For example, if search advertising shows a low rate of conversion from clicks,

are the kinds of problem you can expect. Against those,

are the fixes you put in place.

In this way, keep an eye on the three measures and carry out the improvements.

As a footnote, social media is often hard to measure for conversions directly, so a customer survey is worth putting in place.

Asking ‘what prompted you to sign up?’ in that survey makes it possible to measure how much social media contributes to conversions.

2. B2B design

For B2B design, the steps are the same as B2C apart from ②.

① List the existing activity
does not change.

② Map the existing activity
For B2B, we recommend the flow diagram below.

③, ④ and ⑤ are the same as for B2C.

If you want to know more about B2B marketing,
「The complete guide: the theory behind successful B2B marketing‘. Have a look.
「[Guide] How to win more than 50 new leads a month online‘ download Get it

3. In closing

We hope that was useful.

Digital marketing, for all the name, is just a matter of taking it apart as above, setting the next action while playing to each channel’s character, joining things up and measuring them.

As remote working spreads, many companies are reviewing their sales and marketing strategies.

Spread everything out, keep the activity that is working and add something new alongside it.

Run your digital marketing with that picture in mind, turn the PDCA cycle and build competitive strength that holds up against your rivals.

At NowVillage, the company I run, we support marketing across many industries every day, driven by the idea of becoming a digital marketing team that stands up anywhere in the world and raising the strength of the country.

Through this blog and X (formerly Twitter) we will keep sharing what we learn on the ground, imperfect as it is.

I hope you will list out your own activity and put this into practice.