Behavioral Analysis for Digital Marketing Success

(This blog post is for my Masters program at Full Sail University for Digital Marketing.)

As I close in on the last assignments of Consumer Behavior and Analysis, its caused me to reflect on the sheer amount of information I've learned. From differences in things I hadn't considered, such as behavioral and contextual targeting, to completely new methods like RACE, there was no shortage of knowledge to gain.

I was appreciative most of the feedback I was able to receive as I worked through the assignments. As I have a background in design and am experienced with AI, I recognize that I still have a lot to learn in regard to digital marketing. This class more than any other so far has made me realize where I need to walk in humility and understand that there is still a lot of knowledge to learn. For example, I had good strategies for the Reach and Act stages of the RACE model, but they were located under the wrong phase. Conceptually, I had the knowledge right, but my lack of experience in digital marketing as a whole showed through by approaching the strategies at the wrong times.

To further specifiy, in the Reach phase, I had suggested an email marketing campaign as a strategy. As Dr. Clayton pointed out, "your second strategy to create email marketing is great, but it would be better suited in the ACT stage as you wouldn't have their contact information to do so in this stage." Though simple, it outlined an overarching issue I've noticed where I tend to overlook minute details in my quest of the larger picture. Though the information we learned was important, so too was the lesson of paying closer attention to detail.

That translates over to the larger purpose of the class as well - paying attention to details. With both behavioral and contextual targeting, a great amount of attention must be paid to seemingly minor indicators. Especially with the sundown of third party cookies, attention must be paid to details that could potentially be AI replicated. For example, systems are being developed that mimic human interaction and cultural/socioeconomic factors in order to gather similar infomration to the behavioral patterns that third party cookies can identify. Understanding the importance of these factors in depth will provide an excellent opportunity for expansion in my final project.

In creating my final capstone project, I will use the analysis techniques learned in this class in order to better determine strategies for reaching potential clients. Learning when and how to approach potential customers where they are in the buyer cycle will help immensely as well, as I craft a specified campaign. Independent development will help ensure that the strategies learned in Consumer Behavior and Analysis are utilized to their fullest extent when analyzing buyer personas and patterns. The information gained in this class will help me to further understand the perspective of potential clients and how to most efficiently reach them.