Digital Marketing - Assignment Example

Your The The Digital Marketing SECTION A - The world is rapidly changing, thing which indicates a change in the needs and wishes of the consumers. This is why, when retailers discover a complex attitude from the part of the clients, they introduce new and varied possibilities to catter for all tastes. The customers rely on the capacity of retailers to respond to needs that emerge from 21st century living. The digital marketing strategy of sellers take shopping to another level. Satisfying needs has never been easier. You can do it from your home, while you are indulging into doing something pleasant or just lazily doing nothing, you can do it for hours in a row without ever having to buy anything, you don’t have to carry the shopping bags or follow exactly the shopping list, you can change your mind anytime you want, there’s no crowd and no rows, you can shop from your own home without having to pay extra. Digital marketing is about having no second thoughts, you can do better in shorter time, with less money, effort, friendlier, whenever you feel like it and have time, with whatever resources. SECTIN B - KEY ISSUES IN DIGITAL MARKETING Chapter 1. Digital Marketing The new rules of marketing in a digital age (Wiley 7). While evolving throughout time, economy has been creating new sets of rules to conduct itself. Obviously, marketing has met with brand new evolution, thing which made us orientate towards its new meanings of expression. Nevertheless, “their success ultimately depends on their acceptability to the consumer” (Wiley 7). In the new era of business, companies have resorted to developing a one-to-one relationship with their clients so as to take the relationship to a new level which should encompass the new demands of the public (Wiley 7). In their book, “Wiley e-Book”, Wiley et al. come with the idea of writing “the new rules of marketing for the global digital world”, which we find too important not to cite: “The new reality of the global digital world: the cyber consumer the cyber B to B world marketing in the age of a complex, dynamic and chaotic world new business models for the digital world” (Wiley 7). “The new rules: target segments of one and create virtual communities design for customer-led positioning expand the role of branding in the global portfolio leverage consumers as coproducers through customization use creative pricing in the priceline.com world create anytime-anyplace distribution and integrated supply chains redesign advertising as interactive and integrated marketing, communication, education, and entertainment reinvent marketing research and modeling as knowledge creation and dissemination use adaptive experimentation redesign the strategy process and supporting organizational architecture” (Wiley 8). This classification comes as a response to the actual and novel needs of consumers, who show a great power of adaptability and needs that are never fully satisfied. The role of the Internet in transforming Marketing (Rowan 4). In its early years Internet was “simply another communication medium” (Rowan 4). It was used more to inform than to transmit a message, thoughts, feelings, the utter mission of the company and it was treated likewise with moderate indifference cause it was thought of serving no purpose. “In the past customers seem to have had little control over their involvement in company Marketing programmes” (Rowan 5). As there was the habit of finding out about the product and ultimately buying it or on the contrary, refusing to buy it, customers didn’t expect much from the companies. Nowadays, the perspective changed to the extent of giving the client the opportunity of “communicating their interest to the company being promoted”, thus participating in the improvement of the company’s approach, as far as the client is concerned (Rowan 6). Rowan made a point when concluding to three main ideas that would enhance customers’ influence over companies, that is: “ideas of distance altered dramatically… digital brands became as important in building perceptions of organizations as their products and services… our understanding of privacy changed irreversibly…” (Rowan 6). Getting it right from the start - 5 things you must ask yourself about your site (Bird 155). 5 ideas about why and how is a web site important for companies and the answers that Drayton Bird gives to commonsense marketing people who want to develop digital marketing for their company purpose: “Why a web site?” (Bird 155): A web site serves many purposes, like: informative, selling, advertising, economical, entertaining, cultural, personal, etc. So, if it serves you good at a fair price, why not have one? “Who are your customers, and who do you want to attract to your site?” (Bird 155): Attracting customers is your first and foremost target of your business, and the more they are, the better. “Everything starts with one question: who do you want to talk to? Define your customers and prospects demographically and psychographically”, keeping a database to track their behaviour (Bird 155). “What do you want your site to do for you?” (Bird 156): If you want from your web site to serve your purposes, like: regain your positioning on the market, or to increase your sale in the next period of time, you must take into consideration 5 critical objectives it has to fulfil (Bird 156): get people to your site, keep them for as long as possible, or certainly long enough to convince or sale to them, persuade them you are one of their natural options - preferably their ideal one, get them to respond, or, failing that, decide for more information, get permission to talk to them. “What draws people to a site?” (Bird 157): This is a simple question, since everyone knows the answer: plain, interesting and concise information can attract a lot of fans to your web site. It is advisable that you keep your information simple, clear and obvious, so that clients never have to wonder, but just keep reading. “What keeps people on a site, and what persuades them while they are there?” (Bird 158): The answer is: a well structured site, with easy-to-understant information, said in an interesting manner and presented in an objective way. Introduction to e-strategy (Smith 29). Strategy is about the way you achieve your objectives. It is influenced by “prioritization of objectives (sell, serve, speak, save and sizzle), and the amount of resources available” (Smith 29). E-strategy serves its role of choosing the target markets, positioning and propositions which contribute to the determining process of optimum Marketing mix, pattern of e-tools (“web sites, opt-in e-mail, e-sponsorship, viral Marketing” (Smith 29)), service level and evolutionary stage (Smith 29). The effects of e-strategy can be observed at the level of the product, as it can be approached as an “e-product”, “the place of purchase can be expanded, not to mention web price transparency, online promotions and the people who service the web site enquires” (Smith 29). In this respect we can enumerate the components of e-strategy (Smith 29): clear objectives, target markets, positioning and propositions, optimum mix of tactical e-tools (web sitre, banner ads etc), evolutionary stage, online Marketing mix, dynamic dialog, integrated database. Why e-mail Marketing beats direct mail (Chaffey 8). E-mail campains are, first of all, cost-friendly, and in a certain manner, doesn’t cost you anything to send an e-mail. It doesn’t take so much time and effort organizing the details. It can reach as many people as you want and it can easily be personalized, addressing each person at a time. Nevertheless, you can receive feedback in real time, and you can create a database with clients that you can use anytime in your campains. What the Internet contains that Marketers can use (Silverstain 9). E-mail. Once the external e-mail has been mass-accepted, “this private one-to-one communication quickly became another promotional channel for business-to-business Marketers” (Silverstein 10). This was also the phase when an unsolicited e-mail became a habit. Newsgroups. They represent online meeting groups, where people can share information under the formula of informal discussion groups. Some advertisers had tried to interfere with their own ads, but the general negative response came as a not-to-do message. The world wide web. The number of web pages created each day comes close to 2 millions. “Business-to-business Marketing use of the web is proliferating as inferior Marketers begin to weed themselves out”. Advertising networks (Lee 8). Further to reaching people through individual online ads, Marketers resort to using the ad networks in order to reach more targeted audiences. Lee makes a point in saying that “Ad networks enable advertisers to work with online publishers and deliver custom advertising based on the knowledge of the target audience” (Lee 8). As it serves as a link between the traditional advertising agencies and the web publishers, “ad networks like DoubleClick, 24/7 Media, Flycast, Xoom Network” (Lee 8) are capable of conducting buy offer for their customers. Consequently they reach a wider, yet measurable audience (Lee 8). From Push Marketing to Opt-in and Share Marketing (Wertime 38). People aren’t willing to receive information they haven’t requested. And they aren’t willing for a one-way relationship in which they have no choices. Push Marketing is about determining people to act in such a manner as to conclude in buying the product and having a good opinion about themselves. On the other hand share Marketing is about connecting people and organizations, interacting and communicating, so that there is a win-win situation between organizations and clients. People feel the need of expressing ideas and feelings, beliefs and opinions, so that products satisfy their needs and not that people fold on to their necessity. The Internet and the Marketing mix (Chaffey 214). The experts share different opinions when it comes to the Marketing mix. Some of them refer to the 4 Ps: product, price, place, promotion, others agree on adding to these 4 another 3 elements: people, process and physical evidence. Lautenborn (qtd in Chaffey 214) came with the version of considering the 4 Ps from the customer’s position, which concluded to the 4 Cs: customer needs and wants (from the product), cost to the customer (price), convenience (relative to place), communication (promotion). The element called “product” of the Marketing mix is formed by the characteristics of a product, service or brand (Chaffey 280). When we come to refer to the product in the online context, consumers are affected by decisions regarding “the core product and the extended product” (Chaffey 280). The core product is actually the main product which fulfils the needs of the clients, while the extended product is the value-added services that come besides the acquisition of the core product. One other element of the Marketing mix is the price. It helps establish the value of the product purchased by the consumers, contributing to the formation of the pricing policies of the company. There are 2 commonly used price habits on the Internet: the lower price strategy initiated by the newly-entered companies on the market and the strategy of lowering prices due to the reduction in the costs of the Internet-based Marketing. The place is the 3rd element of the Marketing mix, which has the characteristics: place of purchase, new channel structures, channel conflicts, virtual organizations. The promotion interferes in this process in order to communicate the existence of the products or services and their benefits when purchasing them. It is a key element of the Marketing mix. Chapter 2. Online shopping E-trust (Kobrava 2). In 2010 there has been estimated that 71% of the online users shopped online. This habbit has become commonplace and nevertheless a necessity which is becoming simpler with the pass of time and evolution of technology. Things are simple enough right now for the bunch of people who purchase first out of curiosity, then out of habitude, because, as experts acknowledge there are still deficiencies in the system, there are also many attributes which make you want to try and use again. One of the drawbacks which make online shoppers think twice when purchasing goods and services, is not so much related to e-quality, but to e-trust. Commonly addressed when talking about shopping online, this problem has been debated by authors like Hoffman et al (qtd in Kobrava 2), followed by Lee and Turban (qtd in Kobrava 2), and more recently by Ribbink et al (qtd in Kobrava 2). E-trust is determined by the capacity of online shops to forward safety and transmit quality and concordance between the e-products and the physical ones. When trust is a quality of the online product, then “customer skepticism is low, willingness to divulge information is high and probability of sales also will increase” (qtd in Kobrava 2). Five tips to take the worry out of online shopping (Global Sign Ltd, GMO Internet Group). In 2007 there has been estimated 53 billion pounds online, a 75% increase in sales from 2006. During present time, online sales represent 10% of the total UK retail sales, but is estimated to increase to almost 40% by 2020. Nevertheless, there are situations to prevent from disappointments like trust-failure. There are five steps to pursue when it comes to proceeding to buying securely on the web: look for the “secure site” indicators, protect your privacy and identity, be on the lookout for scams, use a safe method of payment, get the details, keep the records (GMO Internet Group). Impulse purchase orientation (Ling No 3). There is nothing more pleasant in shopping than buying on impulse. This is constituted by an unplanned action that result from a specific stimulus (qtd in Ling No 3). It takes place whenever shoppers feel the urge to purchase products/services that do not need a prior evaluation or a substantial one, that do not take into consideration all the aspects related to fulfilling needs and which contributed to the state of well-being of the consumers. Nevertheless, we can also talk about the specifications of the product: some products are known for having been created to fulfil the needs of the moment. Resuming, urge shopping is related to the feelings that customers had when conducting the purchase. Specialists say that shoppers refer to a set of positive feelings and behaviour (Ling No3) and that they are fulfilled by what they have chosen to buy. The purchase is driven by feelings instead of thinking, thing which dictates over the state of well-being and enthousiasm of the consumers (qtd in Ling No 3). Modelling trust in B2C e-commerce (Corbitt 204). People are skeptical when it comes to putting their trust in things they can not verify and judge on a real basis. This is why they put safety on the first level of the purchase scale and they verify twice when taking a decision. “In the context of studying consumer trust on the Internet, Jarvenpara et al note that trust is a critical factor in any relationship in which the trustor doesn’t have direct control over the actions of a trustee (e.g. merchant or store)” (qtd in Corbitt 204). Trust is the aspect that can not be touched, felt, seen; it can be understood as: what is good for both parties in order to fulfil both sets of needs. “Trust is characterized by uncertainty, vulnerability and dependence” (Corbitt 204). The customer can only hope for the best quality services that will make out of the buying experience a reputable one. The risks implied by ordering a product online refer to “distance, virtual identity and lack of regulations. Therefore trust is the preliminary condition to consumers’ e-commerce participation” (Corbitt 204). Online shopping (Horrigan i).Summary of findings: American Internat users have embraced online shopping because they say it is convenient and a time-saver most online Americans have high levels of concern about sending personal or credit card information over the internet more than half of Internet users encounter frustrations and other frictions in the course of online shopping more people would shop online if they trusted the e-commerce environment more low-income online Americans are more likely to see the risks of online shopping than herald the time-saving or convenience benefits of using the Internet to shop the number of people using the Internet to do research about products or to do transactions online has grown since 2000, but revenues for online sales have increased at a much faster rate the big picture: shopping on the Internet has become commonplace among the Internet users for a number of different activities, connected to researching and doing transactions online 4 in 10 Americans now use the Internet for banking, up from one quarter in early 2005 1 in 4 Amercican adults now turn to online classified ads on sites such as Craig’s list, up from 1 in 7 in early 2005. Trends in online shopping: “Americans are shoppers” (Horrigan 1). 59% shop for groceries several times per week. 22% of Americans would shop more if they had more time for it, 49% would shop more if they had more money to spend, while 29% of people would do more shopping if there were more shops nearby. Online shopping activities (Horrigan 2): research online a product they are thinking of buying, purchase a product online such as books, music, clothing, bought or made travel reservations online, participated in an online auction, paid to access or download digital content, bought or sold stocks online. Online shopping and Security (Johnson 2001).Pros and Cons of shopping online. Pros: advantage over remote shopping opportunities, more possibilities to choose from than in a traditional store, you can research a product before buying it (price, availability), or just research it and then buy it at a traditional store, Internet is 24/7 available. Cons: the huge amount of possibilities can be confusing, it can take a lot of time to find what you are looking for, time consuming: waiting for pages to load, prices may not be better than from a traditional store. Eight important online retail policy issues (Silverman 2008): security - consumers are concerned that their credit card or identity can easily be stolen online privacy - consumers are concerned that their private information may be easily shared or exploited online interchange - mastercard and visa control 80% of payments card market; $40 billion in credit card “interchange” fees collected each year and rising sustainability - consumers would like to receive fewer catalogs due to the impact on the environment; some states have proposed “do-not-mail” legislation net neutrality - “should those who control the “pipes” of the Internet have the ability to control the content flowing through them?” sales tax - online only retailers and catalogers prefer not to collect sales tax from interstate purchases patent trolls - companies (usually law firms) acquire broad and vaguely defined business process patents they do not intend to use themselves and sue online retailers for patent infringement Internet tax - in Nov 2007, President Bush signed the “Internet tax freedom act amendment acts of 2007” (Silverman 2008). SECTION C - AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Chapter 4. The future of Digital Marketing Opportunity for research in Digital Marketing (Wiley 54). “Areas that qualify as research topics include: “investigation of customer response to e-advertising in Digital Markets development and testing of more meaningful measures of e-advertising the effect of intelligent agents in existing Digital Markets the effect of digital channels on more traditional channels of distribution” (Wiley 55). Research should be conducted in areas such as: the evolution of pricing mechanisms in Digital Markets the effects of the evolution of convergence on Digital Markets as well as the spillover effects on nondigital markets the impact of differentiating commodity products by supplementing them with information on branding the evolution of the mix of business models and the impact of the emergence of dominant types on Digital Marketing” (Wiley 55). The future of Digital Marketing Executive Summary (msn). Marketing has been changing and evolving over the past several years in such a depth and with such speed that by the middle of the next decade “every face of Marketing will have changed radically by the digital revolution” (msn). The prospective Marketing changes are due to the developments in technology which helps transform the way consumers use media, and nevertheless, the way they consume Marketing messages. “The new age of Marketing we are about to enter will be about” (msn): relevance: your relevance is closer to your benefits than the others, interaction: unique experiences, offering feedback to the brand, relationships: are established between brand and consumers, and on the other hand, including relationships with media, brands (msn). The future of online retail (Soda 105). Retail is not what it used to be anymore. It has changed at an incredible pace, along with the growth of digital technologies and the Internet. “The art of selling new stretches from in-store to online to mobile” (Soda 105). Retailers that still embrace the traditional method of product exposure (that is in shops, stores), have to confront with the new wave of selling possibilities, that they do not ensure: online purchase. Customers nowadays “expect to be able to buy online or reserve a product online to be able to pick up later. They expect to be able to return or refund a purchase bought online in your physical store and they expect these transactions to be instant and seamless” (Soda 105). Customers have become more connected than ever and they obtain the information online prior to purchasing the product/service. “One of the biggest trends in social shopping is the phenomenon of group buying, led by sites such as www.Groupon.com and www.LivingSocial.com. These services provide significantly discounted, limited-time offers from retailers trying to attract new customers” (Soda 106). One other trend of our times and which is prone to become a future habit is the rise of private sale outlets and members-only buying clubs (Soda 106). SECTION D - APPLICATION In this paper we will evaluate how a real estate company, called generically “Central Real Estate” conducts activities in the domain of Digital Marketing. “Central Real Estate” is a profile company which has been on the market since the year 2000, it has as a key objective fulfilling the needs of customers in the real estate domain so as to maximize its profits and market share. As the result of the complexity of the market, the company has chosen to promote itself and its products and services through a set of instruments which are specific to the Digital Marketing mix. The Digital Marketing mix is made up of: the services - the session in which the client becomes acquainted with the property and familiar to the details related to the property; the agent speaks on the part of the client and represents his interests the price - is the cost of the mediation between the client and the owner; the consultant is the one who sees to the win-win situation of the 3 parts involved the placement - it gains consistency when the parts agree to sign the contract which transfers the property from one part to the other and the selling price the other way around the promotion activity is being accomplished through a set of instruments, as follows: a. the company advertises through a web site, which reunites information about the company, employees, objectives, accomplishments, products/services and so on b. the company promotes its products/services through profile web sites, pages which have as an activity the real estate; clients spend a lot of time searching these web sites because they are very specialized, offer relevant information, are trustworthy and up to date and because they represent the interface between customers and real estate agencies c. the agencies can pay for advertisements on partner or competitor web sites, so that clients find out much more about the company than its mere existence. These Digital Marketing activities contribute to the prominence of the agency on the market and to the maximization of revenues and satisfaction. SECTION E - CONCLUSION Digital Marketing serves many purposes and we can admit that it fulfils the needs of customers more than those of the specialists. Digital Marketing has grown with the growth of technology and Internet and is tailoring its path in the digital direction. Traditional Marketing is useful for the know-how, but Digital Marketing is much more practical and success-driven. Bibliography Bird, Drayton. Commonsense direct and digital Marketing. London: Kogan Page Ltd, 2007. Web Chaffey, Dave. Total e-mail Marketing. Maximizing your results from Integrated E-Marketing. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann, 2007. Web. Chaffey et al. Internet Marketing. Strategy, Implementation and Practice. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd, 2006. Web. Charlesworth, Alan. Internet Marketing. A practical Approach. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd, 2009. 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Intersections. 2011Digital Marketing outlook. http://www.slideshare.net/sodaspeaks/society-of-digital-agencies-soda-2011-digital-marketing-outlook. Web Ward, Chris. MSN Research. The future of Digital Marketing. Executive Summary. http://advertising.msn.co.uk. Web. Read More