Digital marketing

Digital marketing

1 Past, Present and Future

Differentiate between e-business, e-marketing, e-commerce, and mobile commerce.

The Internet consists in global networks interconnected with each other. E-business, e-marketing,

and e-commerce are internet applications. E-business is the optimization of business activities using

digital technology. Digital technologies include products and services, such as computers and the

Internet, which allow the storage and transmission of data in digital formats. E-business includes

digital communication, e-commerce, and online research.

E-commerce is the subset of e-business focused on online transactions that include buying/selling

online, virtual marketplaces, digital value creation and stores. Mobile commerce (M-commerce) and

social commerce are subsets of-ecommerce.

E-marketing is only one part of an organization’s e-business activities. E-marketing is the use of

information technology for the marketing activity, and the processes for creating, communicating,

delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for all company’s stakeholders. E-marketing is

the result of information technology applied to traditional marketing.

Name some e-marketing technologies that go beyond the use of the Web.

The Web is the portion of the Internet that supports a graphical user interface for navigation, with

browsers such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. E-marketing technologies are bigger than

the Web.

First, many e-marketing technologies exist without the Web, which include mobile apps, software

and hardware.

Second, non-Web Internet communications such as e-mail (e.g. Microsoft Outlook), Internet

telephony (e.g. Skype), and text messaging are effective opportunities for marketing. Some of these

services can also use the Web, such as web-based e-mail.

Finally, text, video, audio, and graphics delivered by the Internet go over the Internet infrastructure

to the television, cell phones and even the refrigerator or automobile.

Justify how e-marketing has shifted control from the company to the customer.

The connected customer is the CEO online. The Internet’s social media provide a communication

platform where individual comments about products can quickly either enhance or damage a

brand’s image. Now individuals are not limited to their friends, colleagues, and families.

Trends affecting customer attention are as follows:

1. Consumers trust each other more than companies because they face with someone who

shares their same values and interests. For example, the TripAdvisor.com site allows

travellers to review hotels worldwide and they trust it more than the corporate sales

monologue they see at the hotel’s Web sites.

2. Market and media fragmentation: the internet has generated the disruption of the mass

market and allows to create products, mobile apps, Web pages, and communication for small

target groups.

3. Connections are critical: job recruiters look in social networks for job candidates (LinkedIn).

4. Everyone is a content producer: with smartphones, consumers always have the ability to

take photos and videos and instantly upload to Facebook, Instagram, and other sites.

5. Information transparency: because consumers write online product reviews and share other

information, marketers must be authentic, transparent with brand and company information

or they will be exposed in social media.

1 6. Social commerce: this is an evolution of e-commerce, using social media and consumer

interactions to facilitate online sales. Customers chat about product online while they are

shopping and post products they like on sites like Pinterest.

What is the impact of e-marketing at the individual, community, business, and societal levels?

The Internet affects the way many individuals work, communicate, and consume. Through the

internet, consumers compare product features and prices, read product reviews from other

consumers, bring music, movies, and other types of entertainment directly to their PCs, iPads, and

televisions, and, finally, communicate through e-mail, internet-based telephone services,

collaborative software.

Strangers in countries worldwide form online communities to discuss a variety of things, facilitated

by the Internet. Companies and consultants gain exposure to customers on blogs, which are online

diaries or journals. Finally, independent, private communities have formed around peer-to-peer file

sharing. Individuals upload, share, and collaborate on documents and files at Google Docs and

Dropbox from far away geographic locations.

Employees work together in cross-functional teams worldwide using computer networks to share

and apply knowledge for increased efficiency and profitability. Human resources personnel use the

Internet for electronic recruiting and training.

Digital information enhances economies through more efficient markets, more jobs, information

access, communication globalization, lower barriers to foreign trade and investment.

The Internet is having a huge, but unequal, worldwide impact on various societies. Easy computer

networking on mobile devices from any locations means that work and home boundaries are

becoming indistinct. Although this option makes working more convenient, it may encourage more

workaholism and less time with friends and family.

Finally, the problems of spam, online fraud, and computer viruses slow down the positive impact of

the Internet and e-marketing.

Explain with examples the ways in which online engagement is becoming analogous to offline

experience marketing.

Engagement occurs when Internet users connect or collaborate with brands, companies, or each

other. Engagement is becoming analogous to offline experience marketing because online marketers

engage users by enticing them to participate in their content or media, like offline marketers do.

One way to engage online users is through Crowdsourcing, that is the practice of outsourcing ads,

product development, and other tasks to a people outside the organization. For example, software

developers ask users to test beta versions of Web sites or next-version software and suggest

improvements. Customer engagement via crowdsourcing also involves consumers uploading videos

or photos, posting comments on a blog, becoming a fan of the brand’s Facebook page.

Inventors also ask consumers to help fund new products through sites such as Kickstarter (called

crowdfunding).

Engagement is important to companies because when buyers are engaged with a company’s content,

they feel more favourable toward the brand.

In addition to crowdsourcing, marketers use their own content to engage users online. Content

marketing is a strategy involving creating and publishing content on Web sites and in social media.

Describe the important Internet properties that affect marketing.

The Internet has properties that create opportunities beyond those possible with the telephone,

television, postal mail, or other communication media. These Internet properties allow for more

effective and efficient marketing strategy and changed the way marketing is conducted. E-business

and e-marketing opportunities given by the Internet’s properties are:

1. lower costs: reach customers at a much lower cost than with traditional marketing methods.

2 2. Trackable, measurable results: obtain detailed data about customer responses to marketing

campaigns.

3. Global reach: access new markets across the globe.

4. Personalization: connecting a database to a Web site allows for individually targeted offers.

5. One-to-one marketing: gain instant access to individual customers on computers and mobile

phones.

6. More interesting campaigns: use creative multimedia content to engage customers.

7. Better conversion rates (increased purchases): online customers are only a few clicks from a

purchase, whereas when offline they must make a phone call or visit a store.

8. Twenty-four-hour marketing: allows 24/7 access to the firm’s products and services, even

when the office is closed.

What is the difference between inbound and outbound marketing?

Inbound marketing strategies are about inciting consumers to find companies online. Customers no

longer appreciate marketing messages that interrupt them from what they are doing. Inbound

marketing means getting found online, as opposed to interrupting customers with outbound

marketing to get them to pay attention to the ads, Web sites, and products. So the components of

inbound marketing are content (e.g. blogs, videos, eBooks), social networks (e.g. Twitter,

Facebook), and search engine optimization techniques to help get the social media or Web site come

up on first page of results for a keyword search.

The success of inbound marketing’s social media tactics is monitored through the amount of

conversation about a topic for a specific time period, the number and growth of fans, friends, or

followers, and “likes” on a social network page, number of ratings, reviews, subscriptions.

Understand the distinction between information or entertainment as data and the

information-receiving appliance used to view or hear it.

Digital media are simply data that can be sent to viewers in different ways. These data are sent by

their creators through satellite, telephone wires or cables to the user’s receiving appliances such as

televisions, PCs, radios, smartphones and others. The receiving appliance is separate from the

media type. In other words, watching television doesn’t mean view television programs because we

can also watch YouTube videos on television via Wi-Fi connection. Computers can receive digital

radio and television transmissions, and television sets can receive the Web and satellite radio

content.

What are the key elements of Web 2.0?

1. Internet adoption and online retail sales mature.

2. Search engines are now reputation engines: relevance is one of Google’s search algorithm

variables.

3. Decline of print media.

4. Online fund-raising increases: marketers use the Internet to raise funds for political

campaigns (nonprofits also do this). Kickstarter allows inventors to raise funds from users

for innovative new products (crowdfunding).

5. Location-based services: many companies use the smartphone’s GPS (Global Positioning

System) feature to provide local search, such as Google local search.

6. Everything is faster: users are overloaded with entertainment and information opportunities

and marketers need to be fast to gain their attention.

What are the key elements of Web 3.0?

There was a transition from Web 1.0 (content creator makes a Web page and the content consumer

views it) to Web 2.0 (every user is both content creator and consumer and they share with one

another) and Web 3.0 (individual data presented and shared as desired).

3

The semantic Web is an extension of the current Web, which carries text documents, photos,

graphics, and audio and video files fixed in Web pages that search engines try to index for users.

The semantic Web will make the search easier by providing a standard definition protocol so that

users can easily find information based on its type, such as a person’s name, the next available

appointment for a particular doctor (found by searching the doctor’s database), details on an

upcoming concert, the hours of the library, the menu at the local restaurant. The value of the

semantic Web is truly information on demand. Some data are available this way now, such as flight

delays, but consumers must sign up to receive these. Other data arrive automatically, such as text

messages, e-mail, and Facebook comments or friend requests. However, these data all arrive from

the source with no distinction between what the user wants or doesn’t want to receive. With the

semantic Web, consumers will define tasks for their personal digital agents, which will search for

pieces of data and return them as movies to the television set, appointments to the smartphone

calendars, contact information to the address book, and more.

The key elements of Web 3.0 are increase of wireless networking, wearable Internet devices, big

data, and cloud computing.

4 2 Strategic E-Marketing and Performance Metrics

Strategic planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the

organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing market opportunities. Part of this process is to

identify the company’s goals, such as growth, competitive position, geographic scope (local or

multinational), other objectives.

Is strategy concerned with how a company achieves its objectives, or with what its goals are?

Strategy is the means to achieve a goal. It is concerned with how the company will achieve its

objectives, not what its goals are. For example, the company sets its growth and other objectives

and then decides which strategies it will use to accomplish them. The tactics are detailed plans to

implement the strategies.

What are performance metrics? What components does a company emphasise prior to

designating performance metrics?

The e-marketing plan is normally a part of an organization’s overall marketing plan. It starts with

the business environment, where legal, ethical, technological, competitive, market-related and other

environmental factors external to the company create both opportunities an threats. Organizations

make SWOT analyses to discover what strengths and weaknesses they have to deploy against

threats and opportunities. Organizations select e-business models, and then marketers formulate

strategy and create marketing plans that will help the firm accomplish its overall goals. The final

step is to determine the success of the strategies and plans by measuring the results. Performance

metrics, also called key performance indicators (KPIs), are specific measures designed to evaluate

the effectiveness and efficiency of the e-business and e-marketing operations.

What is e-business strategy?

E-business strategy is the design of a business strategy to capitalize on technologies for reaching

specified objectives that improve performance and create sustainable competitive advantage. When

corporate-level (also called enterprise-level) business strategies include information technology

components (social media, digital data, databases, etc.), they become e-business strategies.

Define e-marketing strategy and explain how it is used.

E-marketing strategy is the design of marketing strategy that uses information technology to reach

specific objectives.

Does an e-business model include only online models? No

A business model is a method by which the organization sustains itself in the long term and includes

its value proposition for partners and customers as well as its revenue streams.

What makes a business model an e-business model is the use of information technology. For

example, the Internet allows education, music, video, and software firms to deliver their products

online, thus creating a new distribution model that cuts costs and increases value.

E-business models can capitalize on digital data collection and distribution techniques without using

the Internet. For example, when retailers scan products and customer data or reward cards at the

checkout, these data can become a rich source of knowledge for inventory management and

promotional offers – e-marketing without the internet.

The value proposition involves knowing what is important to the customer or partner and delivering

it better than other organizations. Value involves the customer’s perceptions of the product’s

benefits, specifically its attributes, brand name, and support services. Subtracted from benefits are

the costs involved in acquiring the product, such as money, time, energy, and psychic costs.

5 Value = Benefits – Costs

E-business strategies help organizations to decrease internal costs and they can also increase the

enterprise revenue stream.

What components are critical to evaluating the fit of a business model for a company and its

environment?

These components are:

1. customer value: the model must create value through its product, that is differentiated from

that of its competitors;

2. scope: markets must be growing and the company must serve these markets;

3. price: the company’s products prices must achieve company share and profit objectives;

4. connected activities: the company must have the capability to create the value;

5. implementation: the company must have the ability to actually make it happen, which

involves the firm’s system, people, culture, and so on;

6. capabilities: the company must have the resources (finance, core competences, etc.) to make

the selected models work;

7. sustainability: the e-business model is particularly appropriate if it can create a competitive

advantage over time. It mustn’t be difficult to imitate, and the environment must be

attractive for maintaining the model over time.

What is the difference between the four levels of commitment to e-business?

A key element in setting strategic objectives is to decide the level of commitment to e-business in

general and e-marketing in particular. The possible levels of commitment are represented into a

pyramid because fewer businesses occupy the top position. The more strategic moves are at the top,

while the more tactical activities are at lower levels.

The lowest level of the pyramid (activity level) affects individual business activities that can save

the firm money if these activities are automated using information technology or the Internet.

Examples of activity-level e-business models are:

1. online purchasing: companies can use the Web to place orders with suppliers, thus

automating the activity;

2. order processing: online retailers automate internet transactions created by customers;

3. e-mail: when organizations send e-mail communications to stakeholders, they save printing

and mailing costs;

4. content publishing: companies create content or services on their Web sites, draw lots of

traffic, and sell advertising or generate sales leads;

5. online sales promotions: companies use the internet to send samples of digital products (e.g.

music or software);

6. social media communication: companies use Facebook pages, Twitter streams, blogs, and

more to engage and build relationships with customers and prospects;

7. business intelligence;

6 8. online advertising and public relations;

9. dynamic pricing strategies online;

10. search marketing.

The next level of th