“Digital advertising is a toolkit with all these exciting possibilities.”Did you miss this month’s episode? Or maybe you’re just looking for a short memory refresher? Either way, welcome to the Spark Compass Blog! A place where we summarize the key takeaways from every episode and share some memorable behind the scenes moments. This month’s episode featured Laura Kittner, a professor in Digital Marketing Communications and Advertising Marketing Communications programs here at St. Lawrence College. She also runs her own agency and is very passionate about her field of work. In this month’s episode, Laura helped us explore all things digital advertising. What is digital advertising?Initial impressions of digital advertising is that it’s a wild, crazy, and harried world. Despite that (or maybe because of it) digital advertising is also incredibly exciting and rewarding to participate in. When asked to describe digital advertising, Laura called it a “pay to play” experience. In short, digital advertising typically involves paying to have your message put in front of a particular audience. What sets digital advertising apart from traditional marketing is that it occurs entirely on screen. Websites, social media, email, podcasting, and more all fall into the category of digital advertising. It’s an accessible and iterative platform that allows you to experiment, pivot, and mold your approach however you’d please. Everyone has an opportunity to participate in digital advertising and see varying forms of success, regardless of budget or experience. Most digital advertising platforms have removed the learning curve by adding intuitive step-by-step guides for its users. By identifying your goals or objectives, these platforms can auto-generate and suggest what your next steps should be. Digital advertising can be intimidating for people running a small business or who aren’t technologically savvy. Hiring someone in the industry can help make the experience seamless but it isn’t necessary. Fortunately, digital advertising campaigns can always be modified and changed, so you’re never locked into a single decision or approach. First steps when starting a digital advertising campaignThis is a common theme we’ve been seeing among our guest speakers but once again, a key aspect of starting a digital advertising campaign is knowing about your customers. If you missed it, one of our earliest episodes covers meeting your ideal customer. You can access that episode by clicking here. If you’re in a rush, here’s a summary of the things you should know about your customers to create a successful digital advertising campaign. Who are your customers?Where are they spending their time online? What social media platforms are they using?What are they doing while using these platforms?Understanding your customers, their habits, and their behaviours will also allow you to target which platforms you should be using. One of the worst things you can do is to stretch your efforts across all social media platforms using the same generic content. This isn’t an efficient strategy and it’s also a waste of precious resources, including your time. So, get to know your audience and you can take things from there. Types of digital advertisingThere are dozens of different ways a business can use digital advertising. The ones mentioned during our podcast episode include:Email MarketingThis method has a low barrier to entry, lets you cultivate your audience, and build brand loyalty with existing customers over time. Retargeting AdsLaura used Patagonia as an example to explain how this type of digital advertising works. Let's say you were on the Patagonia website to look at a fleece jacket. You might have even added it to your cart but never finished making a purchase. Patagonia could launch a retargeting campaign by using digital cookies to have ads for that particular jacket pop up every time you visit a new site or platform. Retargeting ads allow you to subtly nudge your customers into taking a specific action, which is most often making a sale on a product or service. Video AdvertisingVideo is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of advertising available. They can be run on virtually any device, across nearly every platform, and tend to outperform advertisements that are strictly image or text-based. Search Engine MarketingThis type relies on search engine queries. Organic search results are free and based on your SEO ranking to display your business in front of a searching customer. There’s also sponsored results which are displayed at the very top of search results. These are paid ads but are reliably shown above organic search results each time. Choosing the right platform for digital advertisingWhen asking Laura to describe how businesses can choose the right platforms, her immediate response was to be selfish. Consider yourself first to set a base-level understanding of how ...
