This document provides an overview of digital marketing and strategy development. It outlines various digital advertising channels including display ads, search engine marketing, email, editorial content, affiliate programs, and promotions. It discusses integrating online channels to achieve objectives. It also covers developing a strategy including evaluating current activities, defining objectives and audiences, planning audience interaction, and developing specific elements like websites, banners, and social media plans. The goal is to provide a high-level understanding of key digital marketing and strategy concepts.

1. Digital Marketing 101
an overview of digital
advertising, media, strategy & process
version 1.0 | April 2010

2. Digital Advertising Arsenal
Display Ads that appear on websites, in pop-ups etc.
(banners)
S.E.M Paying for your page to be shown on search result
(Search Engine Marketing) pages.
Email Sending email newsletters or electronic direct mail.
(eDM)
Editorial Paid for coverage in online news, magazines & portals.
(Paid for)
Affiliate Paying site to promote your product for a commission.
(Partner Programs)
Promotions Digital versions of marketing sales promotions.
(Sales, Coupons, Competitions)

3. Integration of Online Channels
EXAMPLE OBJECTIVE: Create Brand Awareness through transmission of brand messages to consumers
SEO Website Microsite SEM
(Search Engine (Main Brand Site) (Campaign Specific Site) (Search Engine
Optimisation) Marketing)
Public Relations
(To gain unpaid editorial coverage)
Social Media Editorial Coverage
(Blogs, Networks, Social Info) (News sites, Publishers etc)
Impacts on
Traffic driver

4. Media Model
The Owned Bought Earned media model is a commonly cited media planning model
SOURCE: http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/12/defining-earned-owned-and-paid-media.html
1 Create a solar system of owned media.
2 Recognize that earned media is a result of brand behavior
3 Your paid media is not dead, but it is evolving into a catalyst.

5. Media Convergence
OWNED
Created by the
brand. Controlled Websites
messages
Email Lists
SEO EARNED
SEM Social Can be created by brand or
3rd party.
Tools Uncontrolled. Spread/
eDM
Viral broadcast by 3rd party.
Social
Advertising Media
BOUGHT
Social
Ads
Created by the brand.
Controlled messages.
Broadcast by third party

6. Media Convergence VIRAL EXAMPLE:
“Piano Stairs - The Fun Theory”
Owned: Video created by brand/agency
OWNED Bought: Media spend to support
Earned: YT hosted, spread by net users
Created by the
brand. Controlled Websites
messages
Email Lists
Content
SEO EARNED
SEM Social Can be created by brand or
3rd party.
Tools Uncontrolled. Spread/
eDM
Viral broadcast by 3rd party.
Social
Advertising Media
BOUGHT
Social
Ads
Created by the brand.
Controlled messages.
Broadcast by third party

7. Digital Strategy Development
A top line view of some steps to develop your online strategy.
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.

8. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Look at your current analytics and gain some actionable insights:
‣ What content is popular? Why?
‣ How are users finding their way to the site? Direct, Search Keywords, referring sites
etc
‣ How are users navigating through the site?
‣ Are goals set-up being attained?
‣ Look at your competitors sites:
‣ What points of differentiation are there? Are they meaningful?
‣ What learnings can you take away?

9. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Business objectives are important to have framed.
‣ Digital projects often involve multiple stakeholder departments.
‣ Ensuring these are clearly defined means that all agree to work towards the common
goal, at a top-level.
‣ This helps with buy-in, cooperation and importantly provides strong strategic
direction.
‣ Communications goals are important to understand.
‣ These will be critical in sense checking ideas to ensure you’re still on track.
‣ There are often multiple goals which should be prioritized by importance to the
organisation.

10. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Define your target audience in human terms.
‣ What do they want?
‣ In what way could they engage with you?
‣ In what way do they want to engage with you?
‣ What is the common social object between you the brand and your consumers?
‣ Where are they when it’s best for you to talk to them? Facebook? Google?
MSNmessenger?
‣ All the usual relevant demographic and psychographic information.
‣ Also include technographics; http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

11. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Based on your evaluation and research of points 0-2, determine the kind of interaction you
should have with your target audience.
‣ Some examples include:
‣ Do you create a blog with new posts that keeps your consumer coming back?
‣ Do you create a short snappy company overview with a CTA to get in touch?
‣ Do you create immersive experiences using interactive and visual graphics?
‣ Do you create a community?
‣ Consider, among other things, how your target audience:
‣ Wants to engage with you?
‣ How they use the net?
‣ What are their technographics?
‣ What you can do better than competitors?

12. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Create a Digital Brand Manifesto to consolidate the analysis from steps 0-3.
‣ This should include in one page, an overview of how it will work together and why.
‣ This manifesto will help you sell the project inwards, brief agencies, define your work and
educate newcomers to the project.
‣ Write it with the same personality and tone that your brand uses to communicate in.

13. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Evaluate Bought, Paid and Earned media.
‣ Decipher what media mix you need based on your goals, resources, target audience
etc.
‣ Consider the costs of media and production of elements.
‣ This is where you consider social media engagement as a long-term strategy.
‣ Does community building fit in with your interaction plan?
‣ In what form, on which platforms etc?
‣ Consider the effects of decisions on SEO, as organic search is an important factor in long-
term web strategy.
‣ Some example strategies include:
‣ Community Strategy: Using media and platforms that help build a strong network
of brand advocates and consumer relationships.
‣ Content Strategy: Creating and disseminating engaging ongoing content (e.g..
videos, blogs, games). Consider what is relevant, interesting and sustainable.
‣ Communicative Strategy: Making it easy for consumer to reach you, by opening
different channels for easy and quick live interaction (e.g.. Skype, MSN, twitter,
livechats)

14. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
‣ Here you write briefs to execute (build and dispatch) all the media elements.
‣ Some examples
‣ Website brief
‣ Banner brief
‣ Social Media engagement plan and guidelines
‣ A content schedule.

15. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
Website Process:
1. Overhaul your current site by looking at the analytics again.
2. Map out the current site. Then take it apart and map out a draft new site.
‣ List the content you want to have and how it is inter-linked.
‣ Consider scaling the site in the future, how will that work.
2B: STOP! Sense check what you’ve done so far.
3. Using site content, create the wireframes and back-end set-up
4. Develop design skins to overlay on top of the wireframes.
5. Develop the content (and remember to consider SEO when doing so). i.e.
‣ How much flash to use.
‣ Copywriting with an SEO balance.

16. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
Banner Considerations
‣ Before starting, you should consider the following:
‣ Is the message a brand or product direct response?
‣ Where are the clickthrus going? Do you need to build a landing page?
‣ Will the media buy allow for contextual targeting? (i.e. buying in relevant
keywords, environments etc)
‣ Do the media buy and production budgets allow for rich-media?
‣ When will it go in market? How long will it be in market? What else,
environmentally, is going on at that time?
‣ What are the tech specs?

17. Digital Strategy Development
0. Evaluate your current online activities.
1. Define your communications & business objectives.
2. Identify & describe your target audiences.
3. Plan your target audience interaction.
4. Define the broad strategy.
5. Create a channel and form plan.
6. Develop elements to execute channel plan.
Banner Creation Process
1. Creative Brief formed
2. Creative concepts are story-boarded including copy and sketches.
3. Concepts are digitally designed as statics/flats
4. Design flats are used as the storyboard for flash designers or other developers to animate
and build.
5. Completed banners are dispatched to media agency/publisher for ad-serving.

18. That’s all for now!
This document was born from notes, scribbes and discussions I had while giving several friends intros into
digital. It is therefore planned to be a work-in-progress, with additonal sections added to be added as
more discussions are had.
For more thoughts, ideas and explanations of marketing
and digital strategy, visit my marketing notebook, ‘The
Forest Through The Trees’ .
By Marek Wolski