Phuc Long's Blog

Everything about Digital Marketing

  • TRADITIONAL ADVERTISEMENT: IS IT DEAD?

    Digital platforms have successfully reshaped marketing communication, which now provides significant opportunities for marketers to reach the potential audience and in creative directions. Digital platforms have the powerful capability of real-time campaign tracking, it also made advertising affordable for all companies, no longer requiring a big investment.

    As a result, traditional advertising spending decreased by 1.4% from 2012 to 2022, compared to an annual increase of 7.8% for total marketing expenditure during the same period. Therefore, people always said, “Traditional media or old marketing is dead”.

    But, is it really dead?

    Fortunately, the answer is NO. In 2022, the spending for business-to-business traditional advertising rose 5.8% from the previous year. Why does the “one thing” as printed magazines, TV ads, radio, and outdoor billboards still have high consumption like this?

    . Breaking through the digital clutter

    Users are less inclined to read articles, watch videos, or surf websites of their frustration when exposed to digital advertising clutter. They even dislike companies that abuse this promotion type. For example, with the big number of ads like the below example, will you continue to have the mood to read this article?

    Traditional advertising, on the other hand, is virtually monitored by the company which allows only planned campaigns by the company can be shown. It prevents 3rd cookies interference which creates extra advertisements. 

    . Capitalizing on consumers’ trust

    Without its convenience and speed, digital advertising has a potentially fatal mistake which is user identity theft. The business promotes its brand through links, QR codes, and pay-per-click advertising. Scammers then utilize these tools to redirect users to fake URLs that steal their information and even commit financial crimes. This leads to users might aware and wary of these marketing types and the brands using them.

    . Survive longer in customer mind

    Being replayed is the biggest advantage of traditional advertisements. In terms of digital marketing, if ads disturb users, they can remove them quickly with just one click. However, traditional advertising regularly appeared in TV shows, radio, magazines, or mail, thus people are frequently exposed to them and might remember them longer.

    To conclude, I believe that traditional channels are still alive. It continually takes a big role in the world of marketing and the way brands communicate with their customer. To create an effective marketing campaign, the business needs to select appropriate strategies and leverage the balance between traditional and digital marketing efficiently to build the most comprehensive and favorable promotion campaign.

    What do you think? Still Survive or Dead?

  • INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION UNDER DIGITAL ERA

    In the past few years, integrated marketing communication (IMC) has taken over and shaped business communication and marketing strategies. IMC is the combination of marketing communication sectors including advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, etc. with an aim to deliver a consistent message to clients. It has supported businesses in effectively building their brand appeal, brand equity, and brand performance.

    However,

    Thanks to the expansion of the Internet and technical advancements, everything is now easily connected. This is the reason why businesses are investing more in digital marketing.

    Digital marketing is the practice of selling and promoting products/services by utilizing various online marketing tactics such as social media marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and so on.

    It enables two-way communication for both brand and client including creating channels for customer interactions, cooperation, knowledge exchange, and information sharing to support brands and data collection. Since the accessibility and variety of communication channels and methods, digital marketing has changed IMC.

    . Flexibility

    A few years ago, for content marketing, the company virtually monitored its certain time schedule and media. But for now, when the brand run a campaign on social media, customer can be informed and interact through multiple platforms at any time. This has encouraged business-to-consumer interaction in the marketplace.

    . Effectiveness

    Traditionally, a consumer would use word-of-mouth to influence or inform a small group of friends/family. However, the brand now has the power to reach hundreds or thousands, or even millions of consumers based on their activity on social media or utilizing the influence of Key Opinion Leaders among customers. Take Kylie Jenner and her own brand Kylie Cosmetic as an example.

    . Convenience

    When conducting traditional IMC strategies, companies need a lot of time and money to employ research to gain client preference, it might lack accuracy. Multiple channels’ convenience has, however, significantly sped up this process. For example, users post their opinions about purchase and usage process on social media as a discussion, then companies can gain valuable real-time insights.

    To conclude, I believe that digital marketing has revolutionized IMC – the way that businesses connect and communicate with their audiences. By transferring traditional marketing strategies through digital channels, businesses can develop a more comprehensive approach to marketing and reach more customers.

    How do you think about this opinion?

  • IoT, BIG DATA AND THE CHANGE OF THE MARKETING FUTURE

    Have you ever wondered why, after seeing reviewed clips about a skin care product on a smart TV, 5 minutes later, the shopping app on your phone recommends it with a great deal?

    The above example describes the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) on people’s lives, but IoT will also revolutionize marketing too. There are an increasing number of connected devices and services that provide real-time data regarding usage, habits, and experiences.

    Precise: the right message to the right audience

    Recently, there are 13.14 billion connected devices and this number will continue to rise in the near future, which will enable an unlimited number of services. Increasingly advanced contact points mean marketers can collect more data and customize their services to fit with the current trends in order to give more profit to customers.

    For example, if customers want to sign up to receive notifications on their smartphones, the stores can send particular advertisements and promotion deals depending on the client’s interests and previous purchases.

    Predictive: understand what the customer wants before they require

    Machine learning (ML) with data – especially big data, can offer insight into the decision-making process across the sale lifecycle. And that knowledge supports companies in creating stronger customer relationships.

    Through collecting data from connected devices and services, a business can have a deep customer understanding which is better to predict client demand and problems. Then the businesses are able to offer proactive solutions or useful information to affect their purchase decision.  

    For instance, back to the mentioned question, when consumer search or only read the news or review blogs about any product/service, data from connected devices will be collected. Then marketers through AI/ML algorithms can know what consumers want and offer promotional deals which are relevant to the products they search for before via notifications on shopping apps.

    Programmatic: automated advertising

    AI/ML algorithms and predictive modeling tools assist marketers to automate advertising processes, which helps them to find a strategic method to develop their brand, increase customer engagement, and foster customer loyalty.

    Take Starbucks as an example, the brand identifies customer demands through predictive analytics. They collect customer data via loyalty cards and mobile apps, then the system will automatically create promotion deals and personalized recommendations.

    To conclude, I believe that IoT will change marketing to more precise and increasingly automated, which shorten the time for both marketers and customers in purchase decision-making and build a close client relationship. And the result won’t stay this way, it will continue to grow and reach new levels in the future.

    How do you think about the role of IoT in the industry of marketing?

  • SPREADING IDEAS AND MALCOLM GLADWELL’S PHILOSOPHY

    There are several theories that attempt to explain how ideas spread, including Jonah Berger’s message characteristics, Malcolm Gladwell’s network characteristics, and Seth Godin’s people characteristics. To my understanding, network characteristics are the best description.

    In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, there are three types of people who make change happen:

    The maven through information and ideas

    A maven is a person who is knowledgeable and eager to share their understanding, especially in the marketplace. They share by giving advice, guiding people, holding workshops, or writing a blog. They regularly are system designers, engineers, process specialists, and builders.

    The salesperson through persuasion

    Salespeople are storytellers and masters of persuasion. They are able to take an idea, make it appealing and accessible, then arrange it such that a tribe would support it. They simply have this amazing capacity to persuade you to buy whatever it is that they’re trying to offer, whether it be an idea, a strategy, or a commodity.

    They know about the things that compete for peoples’ time and funds so as to more competitively position the idea that is promoted.

    As mavens and salespersons act as trustworthy sources of information for the target audience, the usage of these two types of people stimulates word-of-mouth (WOM) for ideas and content to impact a bigger scale of audience.

    The connector through people

    The connector is properly a teacher or blogger who often shares materials on websites and social media platforms or speaker at events. They will be an individual who interacts with various networks and their members of them.  The connector serves as a link between individuals, maven to the seeker, salesperson to their client, and a network of individuals.

    We can demonstrate how having connections helps the ideas to spread and perhaps go viral due to their connection of knowing a big number of people using the six degrees of separation principle and the example of Facebook.

    The example – Factory

    The image above is an example of how the Factory uses social media to get everyone to talk about the brand with three types of people in Malcolm Gladwell’s philosophy. The maven is the fashion designer Julie Fagerholt who has a deep understanding of fashion, she can share it with her followers as a truthy source. The salesperson is the brand Factory that connects them with a model to make their promotion campaign more appealing and the connectors are the people who share this post with their group or own story.  

    To conclude, I believe that Malcolm Gladwell’s philosophy is the best way to describe how to spread ideas through social media.

    What do you think about my opinion?

  • MOBILE ADVERTISING AND ITS APPLICATION

    The world of advertising has changed along with technology. The buzzword right now is mobile advertising. Unquestionably, it is one of the best ways for any business to connect with potential customers.

    What is mobile advertising?

    Mobile ads refer to the type of advertising for goods and services that appears on consumer smartphones. These advertisements are designed to match a small display on a mobile phone. In essence, it is a component of mobile marketing that gathers data via conventional methods and tactics including consumer profiles, demographics, behaviors, etc.

    Types of mobile advertising

    There are many various platforms for mobile. According to mobile advertising techniques and efforts, different social media sites operate in different ways. The most popular mobile advertising forms are shown below.

    1. Banner advertising

    Banner ads are the earliest type of mobile ads. They are often represented by excellent visuals (or graphics with text) with vivid colors and “Call to Action” buttons in order to catch consumers’ attention. The purpose is to direct users from the recent page to the advertiser one.

    2. Video advertising

    Video advertising is the utilization of video content to promote products/services including YouTube commercials, placing shopping advertising underneath the main video, and inserting sponsored adverts throughout the video length. Because this strategy provides a full visual experience, allowing consumers to acquire a better sense of the things at hand, then it effectively helps a business achieve its goal conversion rates.

    3. Interstitial mobile advertising

    Interstitial advertisements refer to the full-screen videos/images which are frequently positioned during app transition points. Therefore, they successfully grab viewers’ attention. Take video games as an example. After finishing Level 1, users wait to load the following game level. That’s when players see an image/brief video ad appear, then they get a selection to keep viewing or stop by clicking the X button.

    4. Native app-based advertising

    Similar to banner advertising, native ads do not deliver information directly, thus considered as advertisement content. The advertising is shown within the app’s organic mobile environment and fits with the action. Facebook advertisements are a specific example in which viewers can scroll through their news feed and see advertisements between two news stories or statuses.

    However, the biggest existing challenge is that page rendering speeds depend on the screen size of mobile phones. Therefore, several ads are inconsistent with certain devices and their features.

    What do you think about this marketing method?

  • SEO IS AWESOME! BUT, HOW IS THE FUTURE…?

    Search Engine Optimization or SEO – a great tool to optimize the website ranks higher on search engine results page (SERP) in order to increase site traffic, which opens new doors in not just the marketing industry. However, many people claim “SEO is dead” while others said it still there even smarter.

    So, how is its real future?

    I believe in the future, the SEO world is broken down into five key growth predictions:

    1. No-Click Searches

    It is SERP which shows the answer at the top of Google search. It is rising because the search user doesn’t need any additional clicks to get a response directly.

    Featured snippets are quick-to-search summaries that dominate Google’s search pages.

    A knowledge panel offers an enhanced featured snippet that is thorough and related to the search result.

    2. Increasing Content and Webpages

    There is fierce rivalry in practically every market. The ONLY way to set the website apart from others is to produce excellent content. Businesses should use the Google service that establishes “credibility and trustworthiness” which are E-A-T

    • Expertise: Does the author possess knowledge and proficiency in their field?
    • Authority: Is the author the authority in their field when it comes to advise?
    • Trustworthiness: Does the author offer impartial, accurate information on the subject?

    3. Mobile-friendly SEO

    It refers to website optimization for mobile devices (or tablets) users. Mobile devices now account for about 60% of all online searches and this number is increasing rapidly. Besides, users wait an average of 1.6 seconds for a mobile site to open and every 0.1 seconds the page load faster, with 8% conversion rates higher.  

    4. Backlinks

    Backlinks had become a reliable strategy to raise a site’s authority, but branding is gradually displacing them. Branding increases business development potential, fosters audience trust, and eventually established them as an authoritative source.

    5. Voice Searches

    The phrase is the website optimizing method based on the automatic speech recognition system (ASR) to transform voice signals into text. Recently, 50% of people conducting product research using voice search, which is “the next big thing” in the SEO industry. Apparently, the popularity of smart speaker as Apple HomePod and Amazon Alexa result in rising in voice searches.

    To conclude, SEO is a dynamic industry with a nonstop growth path with many different turns. The objective is to follow trends while avoiding being quickly redirected. The business should select an appropriate trend, create an action plan and keep learning about upcoming things.

    What do you think about the future of SEO?

  • Online partnership in business development, can or cannot?

    ONLINE PARTNERSHIP, CHANCE OR CHALLENGE?

    In the marketing mix, partnerships are significant, this is also true online. Virtual partnerships are long-term agreements that are created and managed to advertise the brand’s online presence on other websites or via email. Each type of partnership has its own benefits and drawbacks.   

    Affiliate marketing is an advertising method where a business pays publications from outside the firm to send traffic or leads their way. The commission payment encourages the affiliate third-party publications to look for methods to advertise the business.

    For example, Traveloka where airlines post reviews of their flights in exchange for advertising revenue when a sale is made.

    However, affiliate websites could reduce the sale volume of the main website. The corporation may choose to keep the commission paid to the affiliate websites.

    Sponsorship is when the business donates money to a person or charity in exchange for having logos and advertising shown on a website or the event poster.

    The key benefit of this is building brand awareness, which allows the brand to reach a larger audience and convince new consumers to select it over rival brands.  

    However, this marketing strategy exists a problem in that the brand cannot guarantee the event is conducted responsibly and professionally. If a participant has a negative experience with an event or person, they may not enjoy it and neither will the sponsors. The doping drug use of cyclist Lance Armstrong is an example.

    Co-branding is when two or more businesses collaborate to create and advertise a new item or service together.

    The benefit is that the firms could appear more when they are exhibited together. Take Spotify-Starbucks as an example. Starbucks staff will get premium Spotify membership to create their playlist while Spotify users will gain My Starbucks Reward (MSR) Points.

    However, if the brand is not well-liked among consumers, it can prevent them from purchasing the product since it is associated with it.

    Link-building is the method by which the company obtains hyperlinks to its own website from others. A hyperlink (simply called a link) is a tool allowing users to move between websites.

    If the links are properly placed, they will target the appropriate audience, bringing interested parties to the website. The website will get more popular as more users visit it, which might cause it to rank highly in search results.

    However, it is a time-consuming strategy, and that long-term effects will become apparent. The company will take time to acquire the large number of links required to have an impact.

  • Marketing in Digital Age. Chance or Challenge?

    With only one click, the “smart customer” has the ability to make or destroy any organization, a new customer category created by the digital revolution has significantly changed consumer behavior. Despite the fact that these changes might be stressful for businesses, they also create new possibilities. Constant realization and improvement may assist lift the organization’s brand image to higher heights.

    Here are 4 points for brands to consider when jump into digital marketing area:

    Understand the buying process

    In the digital age, the buyer’s journey has grown more intricate and varied. When a need arises, a consumer knows who to contact and places an order for a product straight on a company website, as opposed to other customers who take a much longer and more complicated path to conversion. Analyzing site data and search engine analytics will allow the firm insight into what customers are hunting for.

    Put experience first

    In fact, if a consumer has a terrible experience with a firm, they are not likely to remain around, and this is easy to understand from the perspective of marketing. Therefore, customer experience must be at the heart of brand marketing activities. If a company can show customers that it values its presence and cares about the experience they have with it, it will be able to retain more of them. Optimizing the website is a primary solution, especially for mobile viewing. Besides, pages that take longer than three seconds to load lose 53% of mobile site visitors, which lowers their ranking in Google searches.

    Keep up with the trends

    Surviving in the digital market where a variety of trends are created and rising every single minute is crucial. The company can predict the next set of client behaviors by analyzing past and present customer trends. Start outlining future strategies by comparing this to concepts and emerging technology. For instance, TikTok and other video-sharing platforms have developed into important marketing platforms in numerous industries. Using it as inferential evidence, marketing using augmented reality could have a similar level of success in the decades ahead.

    Influence consumer behavior

    Don’t forget that the business may also affect this habit, even though it’s crucial to capitalize on vital customer trends and behaviors. When a new product is introduced and the brand wants to use this campaign to increase social media engagement, the company itself might choose to distribute content and offers through social channels to stimulate user action.

  • The Social Media and Marketing

    COVID-19 has changed the role of social media in our daily life completely. Social media became the preferred platform for education, job possibilities, and brand expansion.

    But what is “Social Media”?

    Social media is the interaction channels in which people create, and share information in online communities – Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey. Social media allows marketers to connect and involve clients on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and some new platforms as TikTok. Marketers can attract their audience by developing a solid social media strategy and the right content and value.

    Opportunity for social media in marketing

    The world is recording the expansion of social media users, the recent number is up to 4.62 billion. Additionally, usage of technology devices is increasing by 3,89% compared to last year, and nearly 80% of users rely on social media ads to influence their purchases.

    Under customer perspective, people follow businesses on social media to looking for new products or services (50%), be entertained (48%), or keep up with company news (40%).

    These above factors are the huge chance for businesses because the higher their online presence, the greater customer involvement the company can gain.

    Challenges in social media marketing

    Nevertheless, social media marketing has issues that businesses must address head-on or risk losing their target audience and market share:

    • Firstly, many marketers are choosing the wrong platform where their target audience is active, for example, 51% of consumers use YouTube whereas only 35% of marketers consider it. If brands don’t change their marketing tactic, they will probably fail on take more beneficial platforms.
    • Secondly, many brands do great in-store but fail terribly online, the reason is marketers often create content before identifying the target audience. Though great content gets involvement, it might damage the brand’s credibility even getting blocked or reported if it constantly provides people with irrelevant content (51%), and too many brand advertisements (43%).
    • Finally, the online world is continually evolving, constantly creating new trends and shifting consumer expectations. People, for example, want to associate themselves with brands that stand for principles they value. 71% of users claim that business advocacy is crucial, especially when it supports social problems and diversity. Social media advocacy allows the brand to build a strong online identity and gain more support from users. Brands that cannot keep up with these trends completely lose their leads as well as audiences.

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