11 brands with a brilliant digital marketing strategy

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter Drucker

Strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a major aim. Digital marketing is targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers and retain them.
For many companies, a digital marketing strategy is achieving a major aim doing something new by stopping doing something old.
Who is doing it extremely well? Here are 11 brands with a brilliant digital marketing strategy.

DAYS INN USED LOCATION-BASED TARGETING AND INCREASE BOOKINGS: Days Inn used search-based location targeted advertising via the mobile application. Any user searching for specific hotel, accommodation or related keywords was able to view a Days Inn advertisement for 15% off a 2 night stay. After the user clicked on the ad, they were taken to a banner ad that provided a click to call or click to web to make a reservation. The campaign received over 5% click through rate, 13% click to call and 16% click to web at annual rate of $1,080,000 in revenue.
DOVE TURNED TO FACEBOOK FOR AD MAKEOVER: No matter where we look, we are constantly surrounded with ads trying to tell us there are things about our bodies we need to fix. Miracle creams to fix cellulite, surgeries to enhance the bust, and pills to help achieve the perfect weight. Dove, as a part of their “Real Beauty” campaign, turned to Facebook to outbid competitors for search terms like “plastic surgery,” “I hate my body” and “diet.” 171,000,000 banners with negative messages were displaced and 5,500,000 unique women reached. Facebook mentions increased by 71%. A poll was conducted where 71% of the women said that they felt more beautiful after seeing the Dove ads.
HELLMANN’S ENHANCED SHOPPING EXPERIENCE: They came up with an innovative idea to enhance the shopping experience and also to sell more Hellmann’s. The solution centred on the supermarket trolley itself. The cart was equipped with a small LCD touch screen and RFID technology which interacts with various ingredients in the supermarket and lets the shopper know of any products that could be combined with Hellmann’s mayonnaise. In one month, 45,000 people used the interactive shopping trolley and sales of Hellmann´s in those stores increased 68%
LAND ROVER CAPITALIZED ON WHERE PURCHASE JOURNEY BEGINS: Knowing that the majority of today’s auto shoppers start their car search online, Land Rover wanted to reach these shoppers on all their devices at every point in the purchasing funnel. To do so, they used cross-channel marketing to engage consumers at scale, running a homepage masthead takeover on YouTube and Masthead in Lightbox ads across the Google Display Network. Land Rover garnered more than 100,000,000 impressions. 15% of its total sales now come from online leads.
MCDONALD’S MADE PEOPLE SMILE AND IN RETURN THEY SAMPLED: Most people find getting up in the morning tough. It is estimated that a staggering 83% of millennials use their phones as an alarm clock, and sleep with their phones within reach. And McDonald’s is certainly not the first thing on our minds when turning off their alarm clock. Enter the “McDonald’s Surprise Alarm” application: a handy alarm clock with a welcome added-value twist. Every morning brought users nice surprises: a free song, free food, an inspirational quote, vouchers and more. In 5 weeks, it achieved 281,000 downloads, 93% were McDonald’s users, 68,044 shares on social media and 64,260,76 coupons and surprises delivered.
OAK FURNITURE LAND USED GEO-TARGETED E-MAIL MESSAGING TO BOOST SALES: Oak Furniture Land wanted to connect its online presence with its network of 62 physical stores. Oak Furniture Land analysed and segmented the postcodes provided by customers during the email sign-up stage, and then targeted customers with messages relevant to their local store. It boosted revenue 30% year over year.
STEP2 DISCOVERED VIDEOS INCREASED CONVERSION: Step2, a leading manufacturer of toys and preschool items, produces large-scale products that cost between $130 and $150, and sells them through retailers. The company needed to convince consumers that its product was worth the investment, but images and text weren’t cutting it. It produced videos for more than 100 products. The result: Viewers of these videos were 174% more likely to buy.
STONGWELL CORPORATION TRANSFORMED EMAIL WITH MARKETING AUTOMATION: Strongwell is a leader in the Fiberglass industry. They use a process called pultrusion. They offer a highly technical solution to a narrow target. They really wanted to focus on how they could use CRM to their advantage. They automated email set so it was going to notify the regional sales manager for that territory, ‘Hey, this person wants to talk to you.’ They immediately got a $30,000 request for a quote using this approach.
TARGET TURNED SANTA’S HELPER APP INTO HOLIDAY SALES: The brand developed an app with a 3D animated game-like experience in which kids could build wish lists and send to Santa. Meanwhile, Mothers could access wish lists and share them with relatives, and the list would automatically adjust when relatives bought toys, much like a wedding or baby shower registry. The app also had an augmented reality function for in-store wish-list making. They were 75,000 downloads of the app, over 100,000 wish lists were created, 9,200 new Target.com accounts and sales potential of $92,300,000.
TOTAL GYM FITNESS SAW LIVE CHAT INCREASE ONLINE ORDERS: Total Gym Fitness, a home gym manufacturer, used to drive business through television ads, but noticed fewer people dialing in and more people coming to the website. The marketing team translated their phone experience to the Internet with an optimized chat feature. It enabled them to better understand customer motivation, evaluate site effectiveness and produced 39% of their online orders.
WASHINGTON WIZARDS SAW JUMP IN NEW TICKET SALES WITH SEARCH ADS: The Washington Wizards surprised everyone during the 2013-2014 NBA season by making the playoffs for the first time in five years. To capitalize on the team’s success, the Wizards’ owners, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, looked to grow ticket sales and attract new fans in the mid-Atlantic region. To do so, it used AdWords ad extensions and focused its ticket pricing strategy on the most engaged AdWords campaigns. The final score? Its overall return on ad spend for the 2013-2014 season jumped 293% and 72% of ticket purchases via AdWords come from new fans.