Updated Thursday, March 18, 2021 –
01:15
–
The author of ‘Digital Marketing for those who do not know about digital marketing’ considers that there is “a brutal ignorance” on a subject that can reach many more customers
–
Gonzalo Girldez (Pamplona, 1971) is managing partner of Agencia71, PhD in Journalism from the Complutense University and an expert in digital marketing, a subject on which he believes that “there is a brutal ignorance.” For this reason he has written Digital marketing for those who do not know about digital marketing.
The idea to write the book, whose proceeds donate entirely to the West Syndrome association, arose “during harsh confinement, when we were locked up at home.” As he explains, he saw doctors, nurses, delivery men, and other workers and wondered what he could do. Finally, he opted for an idea that had been in his head “since 2016”: educating on a subject that he considers important from both a labor and social point of view: “the gap between parents and children is increasing.”
- Have the crisis and, above all, confinements exacerbated the need to specialize in digital marketing?
- Definitely. They were processes that were already changing, but this has given it an impressive acceleration. One of the things about digitization is that your physical location doesn’t matter – you can do business remotely. You get to places you have never reached in your life.
- Despite this, digital marketing is not a concept that is distant to people
- In fact, that’s why I wrote the book. Before writing it I looked at what was out there and the digital marketing books were specialized; almost up to geeks. There is a brutal ignorance. Nor am I going to change the world with this book, but I still help someone to take a chance and enter the digital world, not even marketing. In the end, everyone has a mobile phone in hand and advertising reaches them, has a social network, consumes content …
- It is often seen as something for large companies: does it make sense in smaller companies?
- The book is designed for the little ones. What I propose is not that the SME or the self-employed stop doing what they know how to do. To me this reinventing seems stupid. It is a word that we have not thought well. If I was a lawyer before the pandemic, I can’t be an electrician tomorrow. The word is not well focused.
What you have to do is introduce a digital layer to your knowledge. If you are a lawyer and you do not have a website, make a website, be active in social networks, open a blog … You are going to create a community and you will see how your brand begins to be present on other sites and this will be a way of sowing to get clients that, otherwise, in your life you could have dreamed of. Because the advantage is that this document can be seen in Santiago de Compostela in the Canary Islands even if you live in Cceres. For me, that is where the opportunity lies: add a digital layer to your value proposition that adds additional value to what you are proposing. But on the basis that you are what you are.
- So, does it also depend on the activity?
- You have to put a bit of realism in it. It is not for everyone. The closer you are to the end user, the more important it is; the further, the less. If you are an intermediary, a B2B that makes parts for a subsidiary of the automotive sector, it is still not so important that you have all that digital layer. You can have things, but it is still not so decisive.
- He also talks about the need to know the ins and outs even as normal users: why should someone who does not work with it be interested in digital marketing?
- Because in the end it is very attached to our daily life. I can buy at Zara and subscribe to their newsletter, but not to look for offers, but to find out about fashion trends. One of the differences between digital and analog marketing is that before, brands spoke to the user in a unidirectional way: the brand had a roll and it’s over.
At the moment when digital is part of life, because we all have a mobile phone in our pocket, it becomes a conversation; the brand speaks to you, but you can also speak to the brand. It is a new relationship. Personally, it also has a part of relevance because you are part of the show even if you don’t know it.
- The book deals with the importance of brands understanding that they should not just try to sell. Why do you think so?
- The brands that do it best are the ones that have understood this. T, as a user, sometimes you want to buy, but they are the least. Most of all you want them to help you. Brands need to know that this is what the audience is waiting for. There are other needs that are not buying; If it were all to buy, we would finish with the payroll on the 3rd of the month.
There are many brands that continue to think as before, in the transaction. Now the relationship goes first and then the transaction. An environment of trust is generated because the brand begins to be generous, creates content and thinks of the user to be useful. Then the user decides to join the game and, if necessary, buy. There are many brands that build audiences and are aware that most people will never buy. The user is the one in charge.
- Empowerment.
- The user commands a lot. We all know cases in which public opinion has knocked down the reputation of certain companies. Now they have the power to do so. Good brands are betting there: creating conversation, connections, own audiences. That is the challenge that the brands have ahead.
- In this sense, it also talks about quality content and the irrelevant. Don’t the brands realize that they are talking in a vacuum? How can they avoid it?
- Most of the content that brands make is irrelevant. For two reasons: first, because they are not aware that the user now commands. In part, because of the pride of the brands, who believe that because they are what they are, the whole world will go behind. But also because they have not understood that the user increasingly opens fewer windows of opportunity. I have a full day and I am going to open very few windows to be interrupted or sold things; with which, either it is very good or I am not going to dedicate my time. Brands believe that it is the opposite.
- In what sense?
- Brands think they can say “I’m a great phone company” or “I’m a great bank.” What people respond is “yam, what do I care?” What is going to make me waste my time listening to you? Either the content is very good or you have no chance.
Three years ago we did a test to analyze what views the videos of the Ibex 35 companies had. Most of them had 200, 300 views. And at the very least they will have cost them 10,000 euros. Another problem is that the content is irrelevant not because it is not good, but because it is not well distributed. You have to bring the content in the format and at the time that people expect.
- And more and more platforms are coming out. It seems that companies are launching into them without taking into account that they must adapt their content to these formats. Do you have to be in all of them or is it better to be well in the ones you are?
- If you are a great, great, you can be in all of them because you have the resources. But in general I would say that you have to choose. Which ones do you have to be in? In which you find yourself most comfortable because your audience is there. If yours is very B2B, because Linkedin works. Now, if yours is fashion, Instagram. Choose. And don’t give up.
This work is very low-explosive, brand-building. I have come across clients who drop out because they want immediate results. The brands that do it well are those that are clear that there are two rhythms: the short term and the long term, which is the powerful battle. It is the one you want to win so that people will ‘rock’ your brand. The differential is in the perception that people have of your brand.
- Who gets it?
- Starbucks is a brand that I love: that sells coffee with milk! And he sells them for six euros! How is it possible? Well, because in that cafe he puts a lot of value and is working on making people like to carry a glass of Starbucks down the street or sit down with his computer and Steve Jobs sits down. All of that is six euros. But for that you have to work a lot on the brand; it has to do with the perception you get in the long run.
- He says that not having knowledge of the subject is “staying isolated” and that the gap will be widening: when will it be too late to enter this world?
- We are all still on time. It is true that in comparative global terms in Spain we are behind other countries in northern Europe. I don’t know how late we are, but I do think we’re on time. We are still in the prehistory of digital; It is a world that began years ago. What happens is that, since it is going so fast, it seems to us that it has always been there. The iPhone came out in 2007. And that’s what the book is about, encouraging people. You can, it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Get out of the digital cavern and little by little you can improve. Sign yourself.
According to the criteria of
