Integrated Digital Marketing: What College Grads Need To Know
Friday November 20th, 2015
If you want to become a successful digital marketing professional, arm yourself with the knowledge and skills to execute an integrated marketing campaign.
The digital landscape is constantly changing. If you’re already in the digital marketing world, you have probably heard this many times before and understand just how true it is.
According to Adobe’s “Digital Roadblock” report, 64 percent of marketers surveyed expect their role to change within a year. Why are marketers’ roles changing so rapidly? New channels, platforms and technologies are constantly being developed to reach audiences. In order to to be successful, digital marketers must quickly adapt and learn new skill sets to keep up with these evolving mediums.
So what does this rapidly changing landscape mean for college grads or professionals looking to start a digital marketing career? Strive to become a hybrid digital marketer — someone who can provide services across multiple digital marketing areas, including search, mobile, social, content, analytics, web, PR, and email marketing. Notice I said strive to become a hybrid marketer. Most college grads probably won’t be an expert in all of these areas right out of the gate. Look for internships and entry level positions that will continue your education and growth in multiple marketing disciplines. Having experience in more than one area will allow you to strategically combine your unique skill set to create successful integrated marketing campaigns.
Integrated digital marketing campaigns are not a thing of the future. They are happening now.
When I first began as a digital marketing intern at Brolik a year ago, I did not fully grasp the concept of “integrated marketing campaigns.” What should I be integrating? I looked at SEM, SEO, email, social etc. as individual pieces of a puzzle, but didn’t quite know how to fit them all together to form one harmonious picture.
Fast forward one year, five clients, 730 cups of coffee and three thousand emails later, and I can now fit these digital marketing puzzle pieces together to see a clear picture of what a successful integrated marketing campaign should look like.
What Does A Day In The Life of A Digital Marketer Look Like?
Because Brolik offers a holistic approach to online marketing, blending content development, online advertising, social media, SEO and website optimization, I learned how to execute an integrated digital marketing campaign.
To better illustrate how the pieces of an integrated campaign fit together, I’ve outlined what a “typical” work day as a digital strategist looks like:
7:15am – 7:45am (depending on how many times I hit the snooze button) – Wake up and shower.
8:30am – Check my Google calendar for the day.
9:05 am – Coffee and social media.
Coffee always comes first.
Then I try to take at least 15 minutes to scan social media for interesting industry news. A perk of working in digital marketing is that social media is part of the job.
9:15am – Check email, HARO queries and Taskfeed.
An inbox full of emails and a long list of tasks always seems more manageable after your first cup of coffee.
9:30am – Weekly Digital Strategy Team Meeting
The digital strategy team has a weekly meeting where we give brief updates about our accounts and what’s on our agendas for the week.
10:30am – More coffee and answering client emails.
In addition to being the strategic mind behind a client’s campaign, digital marketers at Brolik are also client facing. I am the account manager for my assigned clients and assume the responsibility of day to day communications with them.
I am currently assigned two clients. Client #1 is a fine dining restaurant in New Jersey. Client #2 is a startup company offering dating background checks and online anonymous video chat/phone services.
11:30am – Start pulling together notes and stats from Google Analytics for Client #2’s monthly call.
We have monthly calls with most of our clients to review initiatives we’ve worked on over the past month, as well as key analytics associated with current campaigns. In addition to the creative side of digital marketing, it is just as important to understand and learn from data in order to optimize your campaigns.
12:00pm – Lunch!
One of my favorite parts of the day. You never know what the day’s lunch time topic might be, but it is always entertaining yet equally perplexing.
1:00pm – Draft a target email to promote new “5-Course Duck Tasting” Menu.
After the food coma subsides, I draft a target email to promote the new “5-Course Duck Tasting” menu and send it to Client #1 for review. This email will be sent to the restaurant’s growing list of email subscribers.
1:45pm – Team brainstorm for Client #2’s new Facebook campaign.
During this meeting we will brainstorm new content streams for relevant social channels (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) and example posts to present to the client.
2:30 – Continue to answer internal and client emails as they roll in throughout the day.
2:45pm – Draft creative concepts for display ads promoting the new duck menu.
3:30pm – Create a landing page for the duck menu based on the press release sent over by Client #1’s PR firm.
I pull important details such as the date and menu details from the press release drafted by my client’s PR firm and include them in the copy for the landing page. I also include a specific CTA button, “Make A Reservation Today.”
4:15 pm – Contact local food blogs and New Jersey publications to buy digital ad space for the duck menu display ads.
5:00pm – Wrap up for the day and answer final emails.
While the day outlined above seems like a hodge podge of random tasks for multiple clients, there is a method to the digital marketing madness.
Case in point – the duck menu display ads and the target email I drafted will drive people directly to the new landing page with the ultimate conversion goal of getting a customer to make a reservation for the “5-Course Duck Tasting Menu.” Ideally, we will also create Facebook ads promoting the new duck menu, also leading to the landing page I created. Each individual puzzle piece – display ads, email marketing, landing pages and social – have been integrated in order to create one campaign driving customers to make a reservation for the “5-Course Duck Tasting Menu.”
In Conclusion
Integrated digital marketing campaigns are not a thing of the future. They are happening now. If you want to be successful as a digital marketing professional, you need to understand the importance of integrated campaigns and strive to become a hybrid digital marketer with a breadth of skills to execute an integrated campaign.
