Uncategorized May 21, 2026

The Digital Marketing Guide 2022 for All Marketers [TIPS]

Consumers and businesses have seen their consumption habits transform over the past 10 years. With the rise of ever more powerful new technologies, traditional marketing is increasingly fading from current practices. This is simply the rise of digital marketing.

"Marketing technology spending now exceeds companies’ advertising budgets" (Gartner, 2016).

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What is digital marketing?

"Nearly 50% of internet users search for videos related to a product or service before going to a store." Google 2016

Definition of marketing VS digital marketing

Traditional marketing and digital marketing are based on the same principle, but do not leverage the same strategic tools or platforms. Among other things, the foundation of marketing is the use of different media and channels to communicate about a brand.

Traditional marketing uses all media (radio, television, newspapers, print press, billboard advertising...) to make an impression on the consumer’s mind. It relies on brand advertising, often the same across different media, to communicate about its products, its brand...

For its part, digital marketing works with all digital communication media. It uses to its advantage all applications, communication platforms, and tools (CRM, CMS, ERP, management software, emails, social media, etc.).

These two types of marketing also differ in their objective regarding the number of consumers targeted. Indeed, traditional marketing reaches a very broad audience, while digital marketing targets a more narrow but potentially more responsive core audience. We therefore have traditional advertising that must be uniform to reach as many potential customers as possible. In parallel, we have more personalized advertising that targets specific audiences.

Digital marketing approach

Digital marketing is taking an increasingly important place in companies’ communication strategy. However, traditional marketing should not be separated from digital marketing. Indeed, the latter tends to accelerate the implementation, analysis, and actions carried out by the company. Digital marketing centralizes the information necessary for the company’s development on digital communication channels.

"57% of mobile users would not recommend a company if its mobile website is poorly designed or not optimized." (Sweor, 2017)

If you want to get started with digital strategy, here are 2 main steps to follow:

1. 1^st step: assess the current situation

The very first step before launching a digital marketing strategy is to assess your current marketing situation. This step must not be ignored, as you risk ending up with a shaky digital strategy.

To begin your assessment, focus on creating or refining your Benchmark. This is a comparative study that aims to measure your lead or gap with your competitors. This document compares the working methods of other companies, the products and services highlighted, as well as the organization.

Your benchmark must include a complete section on the digital communication you have carried out, or not, as well as that of your competitors. Once you have laid out your strategy, it is important to concretely measure (figures, statistics...) the performance over recent years. This performance can be economic, strategic (most profitable free or paid methods), or customer feedback (leads, effective CTAs, etc.).

Once you have laid everything out, it is time to decide on the digital strategy you will pursue. To do this, surround yourself with personas! Create two to three personas, no more, who are the ideal customers you want to reach. For each one, you must specify:

Last name / first name,
Age,
Social status / occupation,
Professional goals,
Personal goals,
Interests,
A quote / saying about how they perceive the world,
Social media used & digital work tools
Current professional challenges,
Specify in a box how your solution addresses their professional and/or personal needs.

Through the benchmark and the persona, you begin developing a digital marketing strategy for your company. You develop concrete objectives. The strategies and communication channels to develop naturally stem from the assessment of your company.

Are you just starting out in digital marketing? Looking for a trusted agency? Trust a professional media agency!

2. 2^nd step: identify the different digital content formats

In order to create a brand digital marketing strategy, identifying the different digital content formats is imperative. Many communication channels are at your disposal: audio, video, visual....

Create your brand guidelines

Your brand image starts with the visual. The font, the text size, your logo, the colors... These are essential elements for creating brand communication. Brand guidelines are, before content, your brand image. Do you want a mascot? A symbol? What will your logo look like? What colors will represent you and why? So many questions that deserve consideration...

Create interactive content

Digital marketing focuses on creating content that is above all interactive. It can be of 2 types: one type of interactive content for engagement, another for information.

In the first case, your advertising content should not highlight the product, but interact with your target audience. Sparking their curiosity and interest in your brand, product, or service is the most important thing. This content is primarily published on social media (polls, # on Twitter, etc.).

At OpenMedias, we have contacts with major media outlets for your digital marketing strategy.

Interactive content is also informational. The rise of chatbots is the perfect example. Users can, at any time of day, develop a close relationship with the company. The customer gets answers to their questions quickly, encouraging them to take action, with an online purchase of the brand’s services/products.

Content should not only be published to be read within the month, but also in the future. It must create interactivity with the user: this is the rise of inbound marketing.

Discover our articles on Content Marketing

As you can see: digital marketing is the use of digital tools that support traditional marketing. Using digital tools like a CMS (HubSpot, Salesforce) consolidates data and accelerates your team’s decision-making for both short- and long-term actions. By studying your targets’ behavior, the user journey, flagship products/services VS unsold items, etc., you draw better insights for the actions to take. You target your core audience more accurately. As a result, you increase your sales through higher-quality leads.

With a strategy that combines traditional and digital marketing, you better target the actions to take in your industry. Increasing your visibility on digital channels, combined with traditional marketing media (advertising communication, event-based actions, publications in newspapers/media...) supports your brand strategy. You accelerate your market position and develop a more interesting retention and loyalty rate than in the past. Today’s marketers are tasked not only with attracting, but also with delivering leads won over by the services offered to the sales team.

"46% of marketers applying a structured lead management strategy report that their sales teams follow up on more than 75% of generated leads." Strategic IC, 2017.

Have you worked on your brand identity?

Have you ever heard of brand identity? Do you believe, to this day, that you have used all the levers at your disposal to stand out from your competitors in the market? Have you developed it with relevance?

"It’s not the brilliance, the luster, the uniqueness, or the cleverness that makes a brand a brand. It’s its truth." Harry Beckwith

Definition of brand identity

The definition of brand identity relies on many concepts and challenges. To put it simply, a brand identity is based on the image you project to your target audience, your competitors, and your position in the market.

"Every brand makes a promise. But in a market where consumer trust is low and price sensitivity is high, it’s not just the promise that distinguishes one brand from another, but its ability to define a purpose." Allen Adamson.

A brand identity must be based on:

Your brand’s motivations. For example, your internal objective is to generate a solid revenue. Your public objective is to generate revenue to assist your customers on a daily basis.
Consistency between the message (slogan) and the visual (colors).
Emotion, through a well-maintained active community. Always be on the lookout for the best way to satisfy your community. As Steve Jobs said, "There is no better advertising than a satisfied customer."
Adjust your strategy over time. Your brand, your products, your services will age over time. Like Google, which changes its logo almost every year, you must always readjust your brand image before falling behind. This requires constant monitoring to stay in line with the expectations of your customers, both old and new.
Involve your employees. Often overlooked or forgotten, employees are nevertheless your company’s ambassadors! You can include them in your media communications, offer training by mentioning them... It is simply employee advocacy.
Give back the love you receive. A happy customer is great. Loyalty is even better! Don’t hesitate to pamper happy customers by creating personalized connections: personalized newsletters, invitations to VIP events, etc.

How to bring your company to life?

Once you have defined your brand identity, you still need to think about bringing it to life. This is where digital marketing comes in, with a wide variety of digital communication channels at your disposal:

Your website. A true strategic foundation, it must be designed to captivate your target audience at first glance,
Social media. A lever for acquisition and retention, they are consulted before websites. Your brand identity must make a difference and inspire the desire to purchase.
Content marketing or Brand Content/Content Marketing. Your content strategy on your website, social media, your newsletter.... Make sure to maintain consistency and concrete objectives to achieve an efficient brand strategy.
Influencer marketing, meaning advertising through renowned influencers. It is up to you to select influencers aligned with your brand identity who will proudly carry your colors.
Display marketing. This communication approach is based on retargeting, meaning redirecting products, services, or your brand name on advertising banners on other websites, etc.

All these strategies represent hours of work, sometimes time-consuming for a company. In order to achieve viable, reliable, and quality performance, marketers are increasingly relying on marketing automation.

Feel free to check out our article on marketing automation, to optimize your management of different communication channels.

As its name suggests, it relies on the automation of data acquired across different communication channels to propose the best possible strategy. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the perfect example. This tool consolidates all customer data to provide concrete insights: trending purchases, those set aside, the predominant customer type, user behaviors, and the customer journey taken....

Mistakes to avoid in digital marketing

Here are some examples of the most common mistakes made by companies when they venture into digital marketing. These mistakes are often responsible for wasted work time, budget, and a poor brand image.

Signing up for all social media... And neglecting them!

Signing up for social media, yes. Opening a page on all social media on the same day, no! As soon as you open a Facebook, Instagram page... You must work on it every day. This work can quickly become difficult to maintain, even for a community manager. Very often, published content is simply copied and pasted from one network to another. A major strategic mistake, as each network has its own target audience, different consumption habits, etc.

1. Why Facebook?

Facebook is the number 1 social network in the world. Created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, it has nearly 2.740 billion users worldwide in 2021 (Digital Report wearesocial x Hootsuite). These are mainly users aged 30-50 -- the new generation prefers new communication channels.

Facebook is made for:

Boosting your website’s natural search ranking through redirection,
Creating and building a community around your brand,
Optimizing your visibility through paid advertising,
Finding new customers,
Creating fun and dynamic content to attract, engage, and retain.

2. Why Instagram?

Instagram is the 2^nd social network in the world, with over 500 million accounts active every day worldwide, and the 3^rd in France (App Annie, 2021). Users are between 15-24 years old and "Instagram users spend an average of 53 minutes per day on the app" (Oberlo, 2019).

Instagram is a social network for:

Showcasing your products through brand photography,
Humanizing your company through imagery,
Creating interactivity through video content, which is highly popular.
Creating engagement. Instagram’s engagement is 4 times higher than Facebook’s (e-monsite.com, 2020).

3. Why LinkedIn?

The 1^st professional social network in the world, LinkedIn establishes itself globally with nearly 10.7 million monthly active users.

LinkedIn is ideal for:

Sharing your company’s ideas / actions,
Finding new talent for your company,
Developing and sharing your expertise with your colleagues, clients, and even competitors,
Humanizing your company.

4. Why TikTok?

The last platform to note this year: TikTok. It is ideal for distributing short-form content. Very popular among young people, the app has nearly 1.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, including 14.9 million in France. 41% are aged 16 to 24.

TikTok should be used to:

Create a connection with a very young audience,
Be creative and inventive with your content. You need to be concise and impactful!
Humanize your company,
Create surprise.

How does a digital marketing service work?

Audit of your web presence

In order to create your brand digital marketing strategy, an initial in-depth analysis is carried out by your provider. They must be able to take over or create a complete benchmark and offer you a real audit of your web presence. Thus, all actions taken in recent years are studied: strengths, weaknesses, areas for improvement, hooks to develop, those to implement, etc.

The audit of your web presence also includes recommendations, with

Working on your content strategy,
Developing your storytelling,
Studying the natural search optimization (SEO), paid search (SEA), and social media optimization (SMO) you have carried out.
Finally, studying the behavior and strategies implemented by the community manager. If you don’t have one, recommendations are studied and proposed.

Long-term support!

With a company like OpenMedias, you benefit from real in-depth support. Your entire content strategy (Content Marketing) is thoroughly reviewed. Support is also provided outside your comfort zone, so that you achieve the best possible strategy: SEO, influencer marketing, Display, SEA... All these levers are studied and brought together coherently, for a foundational strategy that supports your digital marketing strategy.

10 digital marketing best practices to know

Here are some tips to know if you are getting into digital marketing.

1. Subscribe to web marketing newsletters and blogs

Are you just starting out in digital marketing? Understanding this environment is not the easiest thing. So take advantage of the knowledge available to you online. Google is a real goldmine! Between professional marketers and web agencies, explore their blogs, subscribe to their newsletters, read their white papers, participate in webinars... Accumulate knowledge in order to launch your first marketing strategy.

2. Educational content

Educational content is highly valued online! Both for children and for businesses eager for new insights to accelerate their core business. The star content on this topic is the white paper. Every company should have its own, in order to demonstrate its expertise and talent.

3. Interactive content: social media, polls...

Interactive content is easy to implement. Facebook allows you to create polls, share information... The content can question the user, open a topic for discussion, etc. Don’t hesitate to test different formats and analyze the results. This is how you will develop the best brand strategy for your company.

4. Getting started as a social seller!

The social seller is simply the new type of connected salesperson. Their role? To take the lead on digital campaigns you run on social media. Their role is not limited to launching a campaign, but also analyzing, understanding the results, and planning the best possible digital marketing strategy. Among other things, they are responsible for attracting new prospects to your company. Their role is to weave the intimate link between sales and digital marketing. Their knowledge of social media makes them an authority in the field.

5. Assert your brand identity

Few companies dare, or don’t know how, to assert their brand identity. This must involve strong communication, with high-value content. Do you conduct corporate training sessions? Share the key points of your training. Do you champion an important cause? Share your actions on social media.

6. Create virtual events

The most important aspect of digital marketing is humanizing your company. This can also involve creating virtual events. Reserved for loyal subscribers, VIP clients, or open to an audience that has heard about your event... Don’t be afraid to offer remote training, conferences on your core business, webinars with other companies... The more you interact with live video content, the more you will develop the interest of your targets -- and competitors.

7. Create virtual connections

Creating virtual connections involves more emotional content. It's up to you to craft content that is both informative, engaging, and surprising... This virtual connection can be created through social media of course, but also through interviews with your clients, or even a personalized chatbot. It's up to you to make the difference compared to your competitors, in order to score points with your target audience!

8. Create a branded customer journey

A website must be designed to be intuitive, pleasant to navigate, and above all, memorable so that the customer comes back specifically. Additionally, you can create emotional content. You can, for example, send a newsletter or test a personalized approach to the customer on your website.

9. Detail your budget before launch

A major mistake made by most new marketers: not having planned a budget. It is important, after the benchmark phase, to detail all the minimum expected expenses. To save time, don’t hesitate to plan several scenarios to remain flexible in your digital marketing strategy.

10. Run SEO / SEA / SMO tests

"Your brand is not what you say it is, but what Google says it is." Chris Anderson, TED Conference Curator.

Have you considered running SEO, SEA, or SMO tests? It is sometimes preferable, especially when you’re not familiar with them, to run tests over a period of 2 to 6 months. This way, you build out your digital marketing strategy: the successes, the failures, the time and budget allocated to each task... You can then refine your strategy for the coming year.

Bonus: mixing AI and customer experience!

PWC cites artificial intelligence among the eight essential technologies for businesses. (Huff Post, 2017)

A little bonus: have you considered mixing Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your customer experience? The chatbot is proof that internet users are demanding this kind of direct interaction with companies. Offer unique experiences, develop interactivity, and capitalize on originality to make a difference.

Key takeaways from our Digital Marketing Guide 2021

Digital marketing is undeniably the biggest challenge for large companies. Marketing automation and inbound marketing are the future pillars of this strategy and deserve to be developed without delay. To this day, creating tailored content enhances your brand identity.

Digital marketing doesn’t seem to be stopping there, with the development of voice technology. In the United States, more than half of Americans own a voice assistant at home (Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana...). Creating voice or video content, as well as virtual formats, is undeniably the future of digital marketing.

A topic that the OpenMedias teams are already working on very seriously, in order to stay in line with an ever more interactive and visual virtual future!