The digital media consists of all the means that a company uses to promote and market its products or services on the so-called digital media, i.e. Computer, Mobile (Web & App), Tablet.
Experts in these fields must master a number of skills. They include the use of appropriate technologies or the implementation of the most judicious strategic approaches.
This set of communication means is therefore linked to the foundation of marketing and the precision that its digital version allows a company to achieve.
It is by having as much information as possible about its audience that the digital media can feed a digital strategy. It will be used to :
- Define and analyse potential audiences
- Create personas based on data, analytics and insights
- Target them in various ways (contextual, keywords, behavioural, forecasting, etc.)
It will allow you to accompany your audience, whatever their level in the user journey, via the different digital advertising axes that we will go over below.
The main areas of expertise in digital media
Each social network platform offers a large number of possibilities for purchasing advertising space. They have formatted a wide variety of solutions, whether static (photos) or dynamic (videos).
These formats are designed to meet all the stages of a customerjourney:
- building visibility
- traffic generation and engagement
- audience education
- conversion or e-commerce mechanisms
- ….
The type of purchase offered by the platforms can vary according to the objective and is to be defined when the campaign is set up.
Paid social media also offers a wide range of targeting options. Indeed, being in an environment where the audience is identified by a unique ID from the beginning to the end of its consultation, its socio-demographic profile, its behaviour and its interests are analysed and proposed to digital experts in order to reach a precise audience.
This channel is an integral part of a digital marketing strategy. It must be coordinated with the other aspects of social media management:
- content strategy, which allows you to engage and entertain your organic audience.
- community management, which allows you to interact with your audience.
A calendar combining the content strategy and sponsored posts is an effective working basis and will become an essential element for the proper deployment of campaigns and actions. It will help to structure the work of all the players in its ecosystem:
- media agency
- creative agency
- community manager
- ( digital ) marketer
- …
A communication strategy on the Internet, and even more so if it is oriented towards acquisition, cannot do without the main conversion vector.
Indeed, any erudite digital marketer will look into the development of a relevant keyword strategy. Search engines, including of course Google used by 95% of Belgians, have developed an impressive number of new types of formats and uses of data.
Teams of digital experts can set up shopping campaigns, local campaigns, application downloads, retargeting, display and video strategies in the Google Ads platform.
Search engine shopping tools are used to build the account. Then, the experts structure it according to different strategies depending on the types of keywords and the objectives of each. They will be able to choose the targeting and the purchase mode to be considered.
In addition to being an effective player in conversion campaigns, search engine advertising and its diversity of formats and targeting makes it possible to follow the audience throughout the customer journey.
In a digital strategy, SEA must be optimised and work in synergy with SEO, the Search Engine Optimisation.
SEO defines the techniques used to improve the position of a website on the results pages of search engines. It is also called natural or organic results . The objective of an SEO expert is to improve the visibility of websites on search engines. His job is to optimise
- the textual content
- external links
- the user experience
- technical elements related to the site’s infrastructure.
This expertise does not necessarily give short term results on the referencing of the pages, it can take several weeks or even several months before the search engines qualify the optimisations made.
This digital media expertise brings together an impressive number of players and ways of planning a campaign.
The majority of Belgian advertising saleshouses are grouped together under the DMA Belgium association (Digital Media Association). They rarely limit themselves to digital. They include saleshouses that offer advertising solutions for press, TV and radio.
This allows them to combine cross-media offers and to meet several objectives of a marketing plan.
Here are the advertising saleshouses that make up the DMA:
( from left to right: DPG Media, Ads & Data, Roularta Media Group, Rossel Advertising, IP, IPM, Produpress Advertising, RMB & Trustmedia )
They offer 2 types of digital purchase but not necessarily for all their advertising products. We distinguish between solutions to be purchased directly (via an order form) and programmatically (via a purchasing platform).
There is a range of solutions for all phases of a digital marketing strategy with premium inventory to be purchased by impression (CPM) or by traffic generation (CPC).
In parallel to these local saleshouses, many other players, mostly international, also have a diversified offer in display, video and audio:
- native ads,
- affiliation marketing,
- contextual ads,
- impactful display,
- inread video
- podcasts and streaming
- geo-location
- …
All these solutions also offer one of the 2 modes of programmatic or direct buying.
E-mail marketing or emailing refers to the sending of e-mails to a large number of contacts (customers, prospects, etc.). This type of action is used for prospecting, loyalty building or simply for information purposes.
A CRM expert will juggle with his own data bases. He will offer all types of content to an audience that has given its permission (GDPR/RGPD) for the use of its data (name, first name, e-mail, interests, etc.).
A digital media expert also has a choice of many partners offering to send a personalised e-mailing for a brand. The mailing is carried out by a publisher and its advertising saleshouse, which resells a defined number of contacts.
Publishers also allow brands to have advertising space in their editorial content, better known as newsletters.
Amongst the content articles, there will be some type of advertising formats, such as display, textlink or native advertising integration.
The performance of this type of campaign is similar to the KPIs of digital channels, with the difference that this one offers the opening rate of the mailing.
Email campaigns are therefore a form of direct digital marketing in the sense that they reach the target identified as potentially interesting.
In the user’s buying journey, it is common for them to seek information. The technique of educating the audience is therefore often used in digital marketing but also in online advertising.
Until a few years ago, advertising saleshouses offered advertorials, highlighting a company’s products or services.
But as attitudes have evolved and digital media has increased the possibility of information with interactive content, the digital media market has developed tailor-made solutions for brands wishing to inform and entertain their audiences.
Below is an example of Native Advertising from the Dell. The content is presented as an article on the site, but the brand name, even if subtly integrated, is compulsory to respect transparency towards the audience.
This type of project requires several weeks or even months of coordination between media experts, digital marketing teams, brand managers and the advertising saleshouses offering their editorial and content integration services.
The term content can vary according to the commercial offers. But a wide range of solutions can be found:
- native article
- video type Do It Yourself
- video testimonials
- customer experience sharing
- relay via their own social networks
- collaboration contract with local influencers
- …
The Belgian digital media landscape and its players
Every digital marketing expert needs to know the digital media landscape in his or her country. Even more so in Belgium! The small size of our country is not proportional to the number of players. There are many players and they offer a wide range of advertising solutions.
Not to mention that a digital marketer with responsibility for Belgium needs to know the linguistic and cultural complexity of our country.
The main actors in Belgium :
As mentioned above, most of the advertisingsaleshouses in our country operate under a number of major brands: DPG Media, Rossel Advertising, RMB, Roularta Media Group, IP Belgium, IPM Advertising, Trustmedia, 2nd Hands. They own the websites and portals that reach most Belgian families.
But more and more synergies or partnerships are being created between these entities. A digital marketing expert needs to keep abreast of the latest developments and approaches developed by each.
Take for example the recent merger between Pebble Media, Mediahuis, Proximus Skynet Advertising and SBS/Telenet to create a very strong group called Ads & Data, combining a massive audience, proven technologies and a very interesting combination of digital and audiovisual.
Even more so in recent years, it is essential to be able to createconnections between your approach and the possibilities offered by other media.
Another fairly recent example is the programmatic inventory possibilities of billboard advertising saleshouses, such as JC Decaux or Clearchannel, which already offer this via their platforms.
We should also note JC Decaux’s collaboration with the French group S4M, an expert in geolocation and very well established on the Belgian market with efficient technologies.
This collaboration proposes a street-to-store offer that could interest a large number of digital marketing experts. It measures the rate of in-store visits by combining location-based advertising on apps and digital displays, with content that is adapted and relevant to the target audience.
This introduction of S4M allows us to mention the large number of foreign advertising saleshouses that gravitate around our local ecosystem and offer online advertising.
We could mention Google, Amazon or other giants, but these are not the only ones, and not necessarily the most flexible!
Alongside these players, who regularly find themselves in the plans of a digital marketer for their audience strengths, technologies and advertising solutions, there are a considerable number of companies that can make a digital marketing strategy successful.
We will note solutions that in a few years have found their place in our local market. Effective solutions that allow any professional to capture the attention of his audience through diversified formats that respond to each stage of a customer journey.
Let’s mention :
- Teads, specialising in In-Read video, offering a variety of formats and creative enrichment;
- Outbrain, a specialist in native ads, which has enhanced its portfolio of advertising solutions;
- Kwanko and its performance marketing approach with a large number of possibilities;
- Azerion, formerly Hi-media, and its multitude of themed sites and audience-specific solutions;
- Adform and its very powerful DSP with a platform and easy customer contact;
- Just Premium and its Impact Advertising solutions with formats created in a few hours by their own creative teams;
- Targetspot and its wide range of presence on podcasts and thematic streaming;
- …
But this is the added value of a digital marketer within your company:
- to know all the solutions available to you
- test the most relevant to your objectives
- analyse them thoroughly
- compare… what is comparable!
- optimise your brand’s presence in all the areas offered by digital marketing and its online advertising branch.
Today, companies are spending an increasing amount of money on this expertise. The health situation and the consequences of our limited travel have led more and more companies to turn to the solutions offered by digital marketing and e-commerce.
Online advertising can be beneficial to a company’s ROI regardless of the level of investment. But in order to make the right combination of choices, get a specialist to match your needs!
With more than 30 years of combined experience in digital marketing, D-Asset helps companies to internalise different areas of expertise. Social Media, SEA/SEO, Display/Video, Web Analytics, Web Redaction, Digital Marketing,...
Optimised staffing, concrete training, coaching and Follow up of your talent by a senior specialist... Seize all the opportunities offered by digital media with D-Asset!
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