Digital marketing has been a strong growth area for a number of years but seems to have found an inflection point lately to the extent that it is hard to think of a marketing campaign that doesn’t involve some digital element. Understanding its key principles isn’t just a prerequisite for anyone starting out a career in this area, it’s now an essential ingredient for anyone who wants to maintain one.

There’s been a surge of courses in this area and for those who are embarking on this path, this book from Ian Dodson provides an essential primer.

The book dovetails with the Digital Marketing Institute’s certification programme. Dodson is a co-founder and director of the institute.

Though aimed at a global audience, the Irish connection means that this publication is particularly relevant to a local audience.

The book starts by acknowledging that finding the right information on digital marketing is an overwhelming challenge, the irony for digital aficionados being that a long-read chunky hardback book is perhaps the best way to get a steer on the digital landscape.

It follows a framework based on a three-step process called the “3i principles”: initiate, iterate and integrate. The first suggests that a digital campaign is only as strong as the time spent interacting with the customer to find out what they want, while the second suggests that, unlike traditional marketing models which rely on a front loading of investment and resources, digital marketing is an ongoing, always-improving process based on customer interactions and outcomes.

Integrating digital activities

The third leg is about the crucial process of integrating digital activities across various channels and the means by which they are integrated with more traditional marketing platforms.

As the author notes, the internet enables us to learn from the marketplace by looking at what people actually do online. Digital marketing allows us to use social listening tools to research customer preferences based on their actual habits and practices. That provides an extremely powerful tool to marketers.

While essentially taking an academic textbook approach to the subject, Dodson sprinkles some humour into the mix. In his chapter on search engine optimisation, he observes that Google “is no cheap date”. You have to make an effort, taking a shower, having a shave and spraying on some decent scent.

He distinguishes between on-page optimisation which deals with the granular, technical optimisation of the various elements of your website and off-page optimisation, which refers to techniques that cannot be managed by on-page optimisation of your site. The latter is a long-term iterative process focused on gaining website authority, influenced by what other websites say about you.

We learn about the importance of search engine results page positioning (Serp) and there are tips on how to achieve a higher listing.

About 67 per cent of click-throughs on page one of Serp occur in the first five results, it seems.

Search engines

Search engines also take account of the location of the person searching to deliver the most applicable results.

The example is given of how, by using Google’s My Business, you can submit your business for display on a location-based service, so when an individual searches for Italian restaurants in Tokyo, your chances of appearing in his Serp are increased.

The same search engine’s Knowledge Graph service tries to understand searchers’ intent while anticipating their end goals and tries to help users discover key information about a particular business that they may not have been able to discover through an organic listing.

There’s a lot more in this book, including sections on email marketing, digital display advertising, social media marketing, mobile marketing and analytics. Acknowledging the extensive vocabulary used in digital marketing, there’s also a helpful glossary of terms.

Given the dynamic and fast-paced nature of this sector, Dodson will no doubt need to refresh this edition before too long.

One thing he believes that won’t change, however, is the underlying principle of digital marketing of starting with the customer and working backwards.