SYMBIOSIS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES (SIMS)

DIGITAL MARKETING: THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE

SUBMITTED BY:

NIDHI SREERAM

ABSTRACT

In today's fast changing market scenario, digital space is gaining limelight in brand's multi-pronged strategy,

and here companiesare playing the crucial role of an integrated content platform partner for E-commerce

channels, companies and other industries.Fordigital marketing to be successful oneneeds synchronization,

full engagement of customers, online and offline. One can't just implementat one place and ignore the other.

Statistics show increasing spends on content marketing and budget allocation for digitalization in companies

in 2013(30-50%).

INTRODUCTION

Digital marketing, as a marketing tool, makes widespread use of PCs, tablets, digital billboards, cellphones

and internet marketing being its major component. It is a marketing process involving promotion of brands

of products/services as well as organizational development, through the use of a variety of digital channels.

Through its techniques and practices, digital media aims to reach customers in a cost-effective, timely,

personal and relevant manner. Moreover, non-dependence on internet has allowed digital marketing to

include an entire lot of elements such as mobile phones, banner advertising, multimedia messages and

outdoor advertising.

Two forms of digital marketing have emerged:

PUSH MARKETING: This strategy involves the marketer to send messages across to his

customers/recipients without their permission. The recipients too have free access, requiring them to filter

the content on websites through various blogs, newsletters, emails and posts. This technique is better known

as spam. Though push technologies can deliver valuable content to targeted audience, the creation and

distribution costs are expensive.

PULL MARKETING: this is a consumer-oriented strategy involving the active participation of the

customer to seek content. It can be done through web blogs, feeds etc. it generally requires the recipient to

utilize the web browser technology, to help him navigate to a particular site. One tactic popularly used is the

‘search engine optimization’ which helps the marketers increase online activities. Here the focus is directed

towards special sales and innovative product information rather than ‘catchy’ content.

Presently marketers resort to joint usage of both push and pull strategies. Such multi-channel

communications are becoming popular especially when it comes to e-mail blogs which might contain a

banner ad or a hyperlink to the destination website.

7S FRAMEWORK FOR DIGITAL MARKETING

Some theoretical frameworks need to be kept in mind to improve digital interactivity. Organizations

commonly follow the 7S framework to check their compatibility with digital marketing:

STRATEGY: How significant is digital marketing while supporting and influencing organization’s

strategy

STRUCTURE: How organization structure should be modified to support digitalization

SYSTEMS: What specific procedures, processes and information systems need to be developed to

support digital marketing

STAFF:What combination staff is required, insourced/outsourced and with varied domain

experience

STYLE: How dynamic, influencing or conservative should key managers be to achieve

organizational goals

SKILLS: What distinctive capabilities and skill sets need to be developed in staff members to handle

digital processes

SUPER-ORDINATE GOALS: What guiding concepts are required to build digital organization’s

culture.

DIGITAL ACCEPTANCE: THE RACE IS ON

The world-wide marketing communications industry has been increasingly plunging into the

digital media arena. But not all companies (especially their marketing departments) have

embraced the idea of creative digitalization. Only a few have got to grips with interacting

through social media. A participant at a recent expert discussion on digital marketing

maturity said, “Digital is potentially the most perfect form of marketing, but also one of the

most difficult." However, some firms have successfully exploited the benefits offered by the

digital media:

Tangerine digital, a digimarketing company has been helping Noida’s businesses to

build brands through content marketing

Under the direction of RishadTobaccowala, President, StarcomMediawest Group IP,

SMG one of the largest digital communications agencies has grown 500 percent. This

was due to his initiative of launching two new innovative practices as part of SMG

Next: TV 2.0 and Play

Marketing professionals have even started tapping social media to woo customers.

Experts analyse that popular social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc

have provided a platform to target those who have higher purchasing power and

disposable income than others

Tapping the digital sector, food and beverage major PepsiCo has adopted innovative

methods to build brand equity and increase sales. It has also spoofed Thums Up with

its Atom campaign

Microsoft, world’s largest software maker, has taken over a global digital marketing

company, aQuantive in order to expand its presence in the world of online advertising.

DIGITAL MARKETING ON THE RISE

Though social media is the area where most marketers would like to increase their spending, mobile

apps are also not far behind. Tablet applications development

is also ascending. A few other digital trends that can be followed

as we hurtle into second half of 2013 and which could have a big

impact on how the markets perform are:

CONTENT ADVERTISING: The idea of native advertising

(i.e. merger of content and advertising), is red hot. It particularly

serves vast implications for marketers, consumers and content

creators helping them to expose their client messages. As per a

survey in 2012 by Outbrain, 91% of in-house marketers use content advertising to increase sales.

90% marketing professionals even believe in the expansion of content marketing in next 12 months

THE ‘SMALL’ WORLD: Digital media such as info graphics, instagram, Vine etc have provided

effective solutions to transfer information to the customer base through small and digestible,

integrated ‘packets’

SOCIAL INFLUENCE MARKETING: It’s a powerful and inevitable trend which is on a boom

lately. Ad and boutique agencies have taken this trend into the mainstream, believing that if one’s

content is squeezed, one could simply influence larger pipelines

INTERNAL VS EXTERNAL: Companies have realized that big

money is in applying the social media applications instead of simply

developing them. This has enabled large organizations to collaborate,

unlock data and resolve problems efficiently. Hashtags and graph search

techniques are opening up advertising opportunities for marketers.

3D PRINTING: This has been giving expert solutions for logistics and procurement transformation.

It creates entirely new business models by producing precise items one needs

MEDIA FRAGMENTATION: The multimedia consumption

is diverse among a common set of platforms. The marketers are

devising strategies to disperse their content across vast areas, as much

as their budget allows

These are the trends the marketers need to embrace to stay relevant in the digital era.

THE DIGITAL STRATEGY

The audience is dispersed across multiple channels and platforms. This provides a fair share of

challenge to marketers to retain their omni-present customers. A digital strategy should be able to

provide a foundation to engage customers through one’s tactical marketing. The following

opportunities could be tapped by marketers to differentiate oneself in this hyper-competitive market:

GOOGLE PLACES: Updating information of contact details, websites, exact location on google

places ensuring exact place markers, videos and pictures

TIE-UPS FOR ROOMS: The companies can have tie-ups with online agents to sell their

inventories via their website. Tie-ups with Just Dial would be apt for both online and

telecommunication channels

VIDEO WALKTHROUGHS: Videos can be created for various properties and uploaded on

YouTube which provides a bird’seye view of the organizational activities.

FEEDBACK APPS: these can be developed for I-Pads where effective feedbacks can be invited,

instant alerts are configured and generation of online reports are enabled

DIGITAL BRANDING: A holistic model and few unique drivers should be built offering brand

personality dimensions

ONLINE MARKET RESEARCH: Allowing an anonymous and relaxed settings and using

incentives for data collection about exact target customer profiles (demographics and

psychographics)

ANALYTICAL OPTIMIZATION:Web analytics and tools can be

optimized for collection, measurement and analysis of internet data for

improving effectiveness of a webpage enabling digital strategy. One of

the most popular web analytics tool is Google analytics

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: Can be used to spread awareness regarding product/service

through keyword research, link building, site structure, on-page optimization, schematic brand-

building and viral marketing strategies

GOOGLE’S PAGE RANK: It is one of the most popular metric that can be used to estimate the

visibility of a webpage on a search engine, based on its ranking relative to its importance

VALUE ADDITION THROUGH DIGITAL MARKETING

Marketers have been launching experiments after experiments, since the dawn of digital media to

improve customer loyalty and sales. Customers have evolved in the way they make their purchase

decisions. The marketers who have analysed these changes have made efforts to centralize digital

interactivity in their marketing strategies. Marketers’ core focus is the value addition for the

customers and digital media has +++been enhancing this by:

Empowerment of consumers through active interaction and information flows between marketing

departments and customers, enhancing active learning and evaluation of products

Unifying consumer experience and preventing opportunity leakage through integrated consumer

experience

Capturing consumer engagement through a central website that helps to stretch the marketing budget.

By sharing information with larger audience or focusing on a core group that would spread positive

impressions can help reversing the economics

Tailored or customized preferences due to increasing pull on demand by customers

Increased returns on investment and assets through

disciplined content supply chain, offering accurate,

timely and personalized content and improving

web research experience

CONCLUSION

The reset button needs to be hit to accept new perspectives on accomplishment of

marketing needs. For this the marketing executives are required to be armed with

intellectual marketing insights about the tools needed to guide the decision making

journey undertook by customers. The digital market potential continues to grow with

bigger data and turbo charging mobile and social.