Digital ecosystems: how is digital marketing managed in your organisation? By a separate team, or integrated within the marketing department? What about specific digital marketing channels? In many organisations, there is a separation of responsibilities - with for example the media team managing Paid Media such as Display and PPC, the digital or web team managing Owned Media such as the website, mobile, email and SEO, and the PR team managing Earned Media such as PR and social media.
This approach is fundamentally flawed. Digital marketing activity does not take place in isolation but rather as part of a digital or content ecosystem. Now, this isn't my idea: the concept of digital or specifically social media activity taking place in an ecosystem has been discussed before - see for example Brian Solis' post at: http://bit.ly/93whYS
But it got me thinking. An ecosystem can be defined as:
"A community of organisms together with their physical environment,
viewed as a system of interacting and interdependent relationships..."
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary via http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ecosystem
Ecosystems are full of feedback loops - where change in one variable in the ecosystem affects another variable, which in turn can affect the original variable. One of the best known examples of this is the global warming feedback loop:
Ecosystems are full of feedback loops - where change in one variable in the ecosystem affects another variable, which in turn can affect the original variable. One of the best known examples of this is the global warming feedback loop:
 |
| Via Yes magazine: http://bit.ly/y0MLnh |
Digital marketing can be seen in this way, because the various channels - PPC, email, content, social and so on have an interactive and interdependent relationship. For example, a great piece of content on my website can improve the relevancy of paid search terms, driving down cost. I can thus release budget to invest in more content, or develop content designed to be shared in social media. If successful, the content will be shared on sites such as Twitter and generate both traffic directly to the site, and improved PageRank for my site, resulting in improved organic search results, more organic traffic, and again driving down the cost of PPC. I could reallocate this budget to targeted social media ad placements such as Promoted Tweets to drive more awareness of the viral content, generating yet more traffic, and so on and on.
If separate teams are managing your digital efforts, these kind of synergies are a lot more difficult to achieve. All too often PPC spend and SEO targeting are not aligned, viral initiatives flop for want of advertising, content languishes undiscovered on the website.
The solution, I believe, is to take a holistic view of digital marketing that measures and anticipates the impacts of different intiatives across channels. Activities should be reviewed for their impact on each digital channel, and budgets and activities prioritised across these channels rather than in silos. So before you optimise your PPC budget, question whether you need a PPC budget. When creating content, evaluate it for its value in social, search as well as conversion.
In my next post I'll show you how you can map your brand's digital activities in the digital marketing ecosystem, and share a tool for prioritising budget and effort across digital channels based on the overall impact across the channels and on the bottom line.
In the meantime, what do you think? How well does your organisation coordinate its efforts across the digital marketing ecosystem?
If separate teams are managing your digital efforts, these kind of synergies are a lot more difficult to achieve. All too often PPC spend and SEO targeting are not aligned, viral initiatives flop for want of advertising, content languishes undiscovered on the website.
The solution, I believe, is to take a holistic view of digital marketing that measures and anticipates the impacts of different intiatives across channels. Activities should be reviewed for their impact on each digital channel, and budgets and activities prioritised across these channels rather than in silos. So before you optimise your PPC budget, question whether you need a PPC budget. When creating content, evaluate it for its value in social, search as well as conversion.
In my next post I'll show you how you can map your brand's digital activities in the digital marketing ecosystem, and share a tool for prioritising budget and effort across digital channels based on the overall impact across the channels and on the bottom line.
In the meantime, what do you think? How well does your organisation coordinate its efforts across the digital marketing ecosystem?
