Successful digital marketing needs 360 degrees approach

Successful digital marketing needs 360 degrees approach

In the era of big data, any brand that seeks to succeed needs to adopt a 360 degrees digital marketing strategy that should run both online and offline.

This was said by Carole Kimutai, Managing Editor, Digital at Standard Group Plc, last week at our After-Office Hours Session (AOH) held at our co-working space on Ngong’ Road. Ms Kimutai was talking about how businesses and brands can easily connect, interact and attract customers through digital marketing.

After Office Hours is a monthly event, where members of Nairobi Garage, business owners and professionals from around Nairobi, learn from and engage with, speakers who are exceptional in their areas of business.

“A successful 360-degree digital marketing approach refers to all digital tactics – inbound and outbound, social, content, SMS and more. This basically involves taking an informed and holistic view of the entire customer journey from discovery, all the way through to purchase, with an informed and data-led action plan,” explained Carole Kimutai.

She also added that unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing involves the use of channels and methods that enable an organization to analyze marketing campaigns and understand what is working and what is not, typically in real-time.

According to Ms. Kimutai, the key challenge marketing teams face when entering the digital space is to integrate their digital aspect of marketing into the marketing decision, making process and know exactly how all digital activities must contribute to general marketing goals and what results to expect.

Social Media Marketing as part of Digital Marketing

Carole Kimutai on Digital Marketing

Ms. Kimutai also touched on the major marketing communication assignments that brands and businesses have for advertising (including Digital and Social Media Marketing {SMM}). On  Social Media Marketing Ms Kimutai said that brands need to push the consumer through consumption funnel and have something more than “we need something digital”

“This is achieved through, brands creating awareness, then walking customers through the purchase of the product and still remaining loyal to them way after the purchase,” she said.

She also took the attendees through how they can reach the people who really matter to their businesses through Social Media Marketing. One good tool was the Facebook Audience Insights which is accessed through Facebook Ads Manager.

“Audience Insights is free to use and provides a huge amount of demographic and behavior data about your audience and that of your competitors. The data comes from two main sources: Self-reported Facebook data and Third-party data partners,” she said.

She added that the more customer insights a business has, the better they are equipped to deliver meaningful messages to people. The tool is designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more.

“This tool was created to enable advertisers to target their ads more effectively, but you can use this tool to learn about your audience, even if you are not advertising to them. This data can help you build stronger buyer personas, create more compelling content, and uncover some gems for your competitive research,” she said.

During the same event, Carole also walked people through her career journey from a freelance journalist to the Managing Editor, Digital at Standard Media Plc,Kenya’s second largest media house,  a journey that she described as zealous and passion driven. Saying that life has taught her that being scared doesn’t mean she is gutless but what she has done MATTERS.

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