Important Differences Between Digital Marketing and eCommerce with Dominic Amariei

Andy Splichal 0:00

Welcome to the make each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. We are happy to welcome this week's guest to discuss today's topic which is important differences between digital marketing and E commerce. Today's guest has over 10 years of experience in marketing, e commerce and digital marketing. He has worked with global, large, medium and small companies including Kingspan J2 global and Netgear with both B2C and B2B models. Over the years he has managed multi million dollar projects, build successful teams and help companies grow by over 300%. A big welcome to Dominic Amariei. Hi, Dominic.

Dominic Amariei 0:39

Hi Andy, thanks for having me.

Andy Splichal 0:42

You know, we're excited to have you and to talk digital marketing today.

Dominic Amariei 0:46

The same the same here.

Andy Splichal 0:48

Now digital marketing, it's one of those terms that's thrown around quite a bit, but it seems that no one ever quite takes the time to properly define what digital marketing is. So before we jump into it, I asked you, how do you define digital marketing?

Dominic Amariei 1:04

That's actually such a such a good question Andy, and in order to help you understand the concept of digital marketing, what I'll do is a comparison between it and E commerce. So digital marketing is the process of reaching an audience via digital channels and bringing them to a point of sale. For example, running a Google ads campaign or an email campaign as part of digital marketing as you are targeting your audience with the purpose of selling them a product or service. So everything you do to reach an audience via digital channels, paid or unpaid, as part of digital marketing. On the other side, ecommerce, also known as electronic commerce, is the actual trading of goods and services via electronic channels. In other words, buying or selling products or services via the Internet is ecommerce when you sell or buy a pair of shoes from a website that's ecommerce, when you buy a plane ticket the an airline's website or purchase a concert ticket online, that's ecommerce too. So when you order a pair of shoes from a website, the process of ordering and delivery is ecommerce. But the way you've gotten to that website, via paid or unpaid digital channel, like a Google Ads video on influence or on Instagram, Tik Tok or YouTube. That's digital marketing. The reason I'm telling you this is because knowing what each one of them means that you will be able to understand where you need to make optimizations. So is it getting people to your brand and website via digital marketing? Or is it selling to them via e-commerce?

Andy Splichal 2:51

So digital marketing is really the process of driving the traffic, while e commerce is what happens to that traffic once once you have them.

Dominic Amariei 3:02

Exactly, exactly.

Andy Splichal 3:04

So with digital marketing, how does that work in conjunction with your overall marketing plan?

Dominic Amariei 3:12

It's a very big part of, of the marketing plan, both of media plan in general. And when I'm saying that, I believe that both ecommerce and digital marketing actually work hand in hand. Right. And for that reason, when you're building a marketing and media plan, you should consider looking at both and optimizing both of them. And there's there's a few details that I would love to share with you here. Right. And one of them is in terms of the product, business and project that you would be working on. Right? So digital marketing, marketing ecommerce in general, right, and the strategies that you would put together, there wouldn't be one single answer that would fill it all situations. So it really depends the product, the business, the project and the audience that you're targeting. And then the last decades, digital marketing, for me anyway has played a major part in the media plans that I put together and run. And I'm looking here at over 70% of the overall budget, gone on digital marketing. The reason for that is pretty much clear. So the advantage in using digital marketing is is clearer than instead of using traditional marketing, so from having access to data about how your campaigns perform, to being able to adapt your strategies even on a daily basis.

Andy Splichal 4:45

So would it be accurate to say that digital marketing is really all of your online marketing? While your marketing plan would consist of both online and offline marketing?

Dominic Amariei 4:56

It does. Yeah. So digital marketing would be part of the Do overall media plan and depending on the audience that I'm targeting, depending on where they're spending their time, then that's where I would allocate the most amount of money to.

Andy Splichal 5:14

Now, we recently launched your course Digital Marketing for E commerce Masterclass within make each click count University for listeners. What does this course include? What do you cover? And what would somebody gain from taking this course?

Dominic Amariei 5:29

Yeah, thanks for that on the so it's actually rather simple. So anyone that takes the course should expect to learn from more than 10 years of experience in just a few hours. I've built the course so it covers the most important aspects of E commerce and digital marketing. The masterclass itself has 11 modules. And it starts with defining and understanding what both of these concepts are, and then it uncover some of the most important strategies that I've discovered in the last decade from running multi million campaigns across the globe, from how someone can build an efficient omni channel media plan, and we were just discussing about this, to how to build a digital team and a successful business. And as part of the basics, I also covered the two key things someone needs to have to start an online business. And it's probably going to be quite surprising for a few of our listeners, but it's not having a considerable marketing budget. That's not where you start. So to build an E commerce business, you need to make sure that you have a product and distribution strategy. And you can also expect to deep dive into these concepts and also into four other principles of marketing that I've discovered that I perfection along the way, I also take a look at SEO and simplify that too, and put everything together on the four main pillars. So that would be getting your technicals right, building a great UX and UI on all devices, building unique relevant and regular content, and building internal and external links there. And theory would really be nothing without Clark's we we all know that. Quite so during the course, we use everything that we learn to build a real media plan for a new business that we created during the course. So someone can easily follow the same process and steps to build their own plans for their own businesses. But I spoken quite a lot here. So what anyone should expect is to learn from over a decade of experience in just a few hours.

Andy Splichal 7:40

Ya know, I've taken a look, it's a great course. And I'm curious, who do you feel would benefit the most by taking this course? Who is this course for?

Dominic Amariei 7:52

It's really point for anyone. So we are looking here at the beginner that wants to learn about digital marketing and ecommerce who do already experienced professional or even entrepreneur that wants to take their business to the next level. And the reason I'm saying that is because I built the course which covers everything from the basics, some of the most advanced strategies that I've learned about during my years of running successful campaigns for global businesses.

Andy Splichal 8:21

You know, digital marketing, e commerce are changing all the time. I mean, the last decade it's changed and even more reason the last few years because it COVID is just accelerated. But I'm curious, where do you see online, E commerce, ecommerce and digital marketing all going over the next 12 to 18 months?

Dominic Amariei 8:42

Yeah, again, a very good question. And look, I don't have a magic ball, unfortunately. But I believe ecommerce, digital marketing, it's going to continue to grow. Right. So like you pointed out, it has accelerated massively during COVID, that it stopped the deaths. And now people are going back to traditional stores. So the adoption processes probably going to be different in the next 12 to 18 months, but it's also going to be different by country, I believe. And what I'm starting to notice more and more is that the future isn't only ecommerce or digital. So tomorrow, it's not like we are all only going to be able to shop via website or via our phones. I don't think that's going to be the case. I believe the future is actually a combination of both the digital and the real world working together.

Andy Splichal 9:45

You know, with all your experience, I'm curious what advice would you give to somebody who is just starting an E commerce business? versus someone who has an E commerce business is pretty established say doing like two $2 million fear.

Dominic Amariei: 10:01

Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a very interesting questions, right. And it probably depends a lot on the person that I will be addressing itself, I like to make my advice and the strategies that I've been putting together as personal as possible. But as a general advice and recommendation to the starting entrepreneur, I would just say, don't jump straight into ecommerce, plan for it first and make sure you have resources. And when I say resources, I mean both skills and budget. Otherwise, you'll wake up in a year from now, and you'll discover that you don't actually have enough resources, then you may need to abandon the project. Also, the secret of an E commerce business isn't necessarily a substantial marketing budget, like like I was mentioning earlier, it's making sure you have a strong product and the strong distribution strategy, these two are key, then on the other side, to both the beginner and the advanced entrepreneur, I would have two other recommendations. And the first one is to strive to build a strong customer experience overall. So that's a customer experience. It's not customer service. It's not digital marketing. It's not ecommerce, right. It's absolutely everything. This goes beyond marketing and ecommerce, as I was saying, it means building your business around customers and ensuring that all of your services run smoothly to support them with their needs. By this, I also mean caring for your internal stakeholders. And sometimes this is usually left out, right. And what I mean by that is your own team, your customers and your team are the ones that are maintaining and growing your business. So investing in providing them with the best possible experience is nothing less than investing in your own best. So that would be the first one. And then the second one is that if there is indeed a secret formula for success within the digital and ecommerce world, that's nothing else than adaptability. So try to create a culture of embracing change. And to make sure that you are embracing the right type of changes. As an entrepreneur, make sure that you test always absolutely everything and learn from it and from from the results that you're getting optomize them so apply the data and the results that you've gotten to the strategies and learn from them and continuously optimize.

Andy Splichal: 12:31

That's some great advice. I people just don't, don't really, they're not that customer centric, or they at least don't think about being customer centric. And you combine that with A/B testing and testing your your premises and making sure successes are just recipes to grow. So thank you for that. Now, you've really created quite the career in digital marketing. I'm curious, are there any business books out there that you could attribute to your journey?

Dominic Amariei: 13:03

I've actually had this question just recently, somebody else asked me about it. So I was thinking about it. And I don't have any specific examples. But what I would recommend to anyone is that if they can do a bachelor's or a master's in business, so teach them marketing and E commerce at any time in their lives, right. So it doesn't mean that you need to do it while you're young, you can do it absolutely. Anytime, then at the same time. And this is valid for absolutely everybody never stopped learning from anyone and from anywhere. The world really is full of useful learnings and information. And it just sits there to be collected by anyone. And it's the same with the course that I built. If you want to reinforce what you learned during your studies, take the digital marketing and ecommerce course that I created. It's a no BS type, of course, that cut straight to the point. And it combines theory with actual experience and they built it so you don't need to spend months to take it, but just a few hours.

Andy Splichal: 14:08

Now what inspired you to create this course?

Dominic Amariei: 14:12

A few things. I've always been passionate about training people and helping others to learn something new, even if it wasn't my, my role directly. And then what I noticed was that most courses out there are actually built to sell yourself. So you probably know about digital forces from HubSpot, or from Google. Those actually try to sell you something. But in doing that, the focus isn't necessarily about the actual customers, right? So we were speaking about customer experience but it's just about trying to sell their own course. And other courses they really lacked the real experience from managing actual campaigns. So I wanted to build something that's very easy to follow for everyone. And it doesn't take much trouble for as I was saying earlier, in just a few hours, you can learn some of the most successful strategies that i perfection in the last 10 - 13 years.

Andy Splichal: 15:16

So besides creating this great course what what else is occupying your time these days?

Dominic Amariei: 15:22

Yeah, I'm actually currently co managing a digitalization project for one of the biggest companies and in the world, it's really not an easy project. But it has a lot, a lot of potential. And that keeps me busy during the day, and sometimes even during the nights too. And aside from this, I'm really trying to spend as much time as possible with my family, we have a small baby, and we are enjoying every moment with him.

Andy Splichal: 15:50

That's awesome. Congratulations.

Dominic Amariei: 15:52

Thank you.

Andy Splichal: 15:53

Now you've given us a lot of great information on this podcast episode. But I'm curious if you could boil it all down. And pick just one the most important factor in growing your business what would it be.

Dominic Amariei: 16:07

Adaptability. And that's something that the and I could elaborate, but it would be just as important, the key message and that is adapt every day. So adapt yourself to new situations, make sure that you adapt your strategies and your business to everything. on a on a daily basis. I have been running campaigns on different channels, right. And on one of them. One of them was Amazon, things were changing on a daily basis. So if we weren't adaptable enough, then we would have lost significantly against our competitors. So it's really a game of being adapted out there.

Andy Splichal: 16:51

Yeah. And that's really is one of the advantages that ecommerce has is that you can adapt so quickly compared to your traditional brick and mortars. That's great. Exactly. Right. A ton of information has been fantastic. I thank you for joining. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up?

Dominic Amariei: 17:09

Probably one one other thing, and the interstates aren't very well with my own batteries. Right. So when I'm on a professional from professional perspective, I'm really trying to do everything from from the point of view of being dedicated on a daily basis, but I believe there's, there's something more to it. So my advice for absolutely anybody would be that whatever is that isn't that would prompt them to start their work in E commerce or digital marketing or, as an entrepreneur, I really wish them to succeed, while not compromising on on ethics and on values. Be kind and empathetic in business as well in personal life, I believe. And I strongly believe that a business that is filled with values and ethics at its core, is a lot more likely to stand the test of time.

Andy Splichal: 18:09

This has been great. Well thank you again, Dominic, for joining us today. Thank you as well and for listeners remember if you liked this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding connecting with Dominic, you'll find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're interested in becoming certified digital marketing for E-commerce through his course digital marketing for E commerce masterclass, you can find information on that course and all other courses at makeeachclickcountuniversity.com. In addition, if you're looking for more information and growing your business, check out our all new podcasts Resource Center available at podcast.makeeachclickcount.com We've compiled all of our different past guests by show topic and included each of their contact information. In case you would like more information on any of the services I have discussed during previous episodes. But that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing and I will talk to you in the next episode.