Digital Marketing and Communications - Essay Example

Digital Marketing and Communications Today, the World Wide Web has thrived and expanded during the last few decades. Subsequently, the Social Media environment has grown and is gaining a rising amount of users. Hence, it becomes even more essential for business to adopt and use Social Media to be tied closer to their customers. They require changing their thoughts from traditional working methods to the adoption and use of Social Media with the maxim “Be located where the customers are”. In ever dynamic business world, Social media provide marketers with a voice and a way to communicate with customers and potential consumer (Beal, 2008). This can be attributed to the increasing knowledge and use of various social media. The social media are becoming one of the main sources of information for customers around the globe. Users are prefer conducting a quick online search for most the things they want, as opposed to turning the pages of newspapers and directories. Social media personalize the "brand" and help marketers to spread their message in a more relaxed and conversational way (Brogan, 2009). Social media are an experience that has become an essential aspect in the marketing mix and revolutionizing the way marketing companies interact with customers. The information has impacted on the business and improved their performance and the ability to achieve the objective through competitive advantage (Fathi, 2009). Information on social media and its impacts is enormous and has lot of benefits that the company obtains from. Many companies operate so as to make more profits and expand their customer’s base (Google, 2008). The companies which succeed are those who embrace the role of information as a value adding process and its role in developing the social media element. Information has played a critical role in company’s value addition as using social arenas crowd source view from their consumer community. This could include product views evaluation of the ideas by the public and the ongoing modification and evolution of the marketing products and services to produce a quality product that better meets requirements. It could include consumers submitting designs. Critical analysis of many businesses also point to the fact that through multiplying the potential origin of information about demand, organizations can obtain more accurate and granular data (Beal, 2008). This could result in better stock control, and better placement of stock was given local demand is higher. This is where information becomes essential. The buzz from social networks can assist pinpoint where the initial responders are and allow staff to redirect additional stock to the great buzz spots (Fathi, 2009). For instance, Companies such as Google Maps and Tom Tom are using in out from users to find and qualify mapping errors and the current updates to road networks. Tom Tom is even now adding crowd sourced real-time traffic flow to its service that gives the latest data on accident and traffic jams given by users from their vehicle this is a critical aspect and has impacted greatly on the role of information within the company. Market research can be costly to organization and take months, but currently one can gather online chatter about competitors in real time (Forrester Research, 2009). There are currently tools that can measure sentiment as it occurs that allows marketers to see if the latest feedback about a product or service is positive or negative. At the same time, the impact of information has been observable as marketing interaction was limited traditionally to snail mail and was costly and slow. Today, we have communication that is effectively close to zero cost and helps provides feedback in minutes. Company can see what kinds of marketing communications are engaging and the ones that are not. Most notable impact is that sales opportunities need telemarketing and costly advertising to make the phone ring (Google, 2008). Through reliable information in marketing strategies, companies are currently discovering the power of social media to attract customers and obtain inbound inquiries (Brogan, 2009). Displaying business expertise via blogs and online whitepapers and even e-books are transforming how professional services firms market their business. Software companies like Hub spot have created online tools that permit companies to be much more efficient with marketing (Forrester Research, 2009). Online marketing strategies to have changed drastically over the last few decades. This can be attributed to the increasing knowledge and use of various social media. The social media are becoming one of the main sources of information for customers around the world of business (Hunt, 2009). Users desire doing a quick online search for most the things they want, as opposed to turning the pages of newspapers and directories. It can be augured that currently, as an online business, there is a need to refocus on this platform to serve customers well and must be aware of the importance and profit of having an online existence (Labott, 2009). Several companies are still struggling with adopting or using Social Media for several motives. Despite this, there are several ways Social Media can create value for the company. The role that social media offers can be traced to its ability to assists companies to maintain and support the intermediation, contact, and relationships with their customers. In turn, this develops mutual trust. Further, marketing companies get the probability to sense potential selling colleagues. Social Media allow companies to give detailed information about new products, services and innovative view that can attract customers and portray transparency. In addition, Social Media gives firm with a wider environment to look for information and follow competitors and their products. In this way, marketers can also gather feedback from their customers that can be helpful to make better or modify their products or services and building direct relationships with customers (Anderson, 2010). Another role of social media in supporting online Marketing strategy is the ability of the company to obtain comparative advantage individually. Marketing is about meeting individual’s needs and problems, and 58% of people have been turning to the Internet to address issues and problems (as cited in Weinberg, 2009). Social media and online repositories generally have become the norm with websites like Wikipedia that get millions of visitors searching for product answers. As an outcome, enormous chance exists to influence purchasing decisions. The reality is that most of company’s competitors aren’t likely to be a very good job with social media marketing strategy (most companies aren’t), that gives the one that does the chance to stand out. They also increase their profits gains. Also consider the flip side. If the marketers avoid social media, they leave a huge opening that allows your competitors to capture their audience (Hunt, 2009). Closely related to this is the impact that the social media provides in brand awareness and recognition. One of the powerful ways to use social media is as a brand-building tool. With social media, company gets to decide how their want to position themselves and what they want individuals to know about what they do (Internet World Stats, 2009). With consistent effort and great content, they can build a reputation for their brand around company’s benefits, values and advantages. There is an old product marketing adage that utters it takes six to even eight exposures to a given product before a customer decides to buy (Li & Bernoff, 2008). An open benefit of social media is repeated or echo exposure with their network. Through social media, the company is provided with the opportunity to remind customers over and over again about what they have to offer, which can shorten their sales cycles dramatically. As company's following grows, their influence grows (Noor & Hendricks, 2012). This is to mean having a substantial social media audience creates a snowball impact that may attract new customers, media interviews, joint partnerships, and all types of other opportunities. It’s a bit like when they see a crowd hovered around something. They can’t help but want to see what all the fuss is all about, so a large audience will only attract more interest. Creating a strong online profile can help increase the firm’s credibility to potential customers (Li & Bernoff, 2008). In particular, establishing and posting new content to firm’s social profiles can help open up opportunities for various conversations and referrals. It’s also an opportunity to initiate a conversation. Ask thought-provoking quiz and reach out to clients to find out what they think (Noor & Hendricks, 2012). When customers and peers share in a conversation they initiate on social media, it has the potential to be seen by many others, including prospective customers. As company gain followers on their social media accounts, interact with customers using status updates. By asking customers questions regarding their needs and ways firm can fulfill those requirements with their products awareness is enhance and boost of company image (Labott, 2009). In a marketer and not acquiring new customers, it’s unlikely you will be in existence for very long. Acquiring new customers through social media has been accounts for the biggest portion of marketing (Internet World Stats, 2009). Gaining new customers is another impact that is accrued by adoption and proper use of social media (Immediate Future, 2008). It’s a priority that keeps marketers afloat and makes newly marketed products successful. The perfect customer acquisition always plans reach a huge audience base, compels immediate action clearly communicate (Cashmore, 2009). In the dynamic world of marketing analytics and its efforts on customer acquisition and retention, it is more essential than ever to remember marketing fundamentals such as brand equity. As a fact, it’s the lifeblood of any marketer. Social media have impacted greatly on this aspect. In fact, if you spend by firms, with 48 percent of marketers saying it is their wide area of expenditure and a further 22 % saying spend is split equally across acquisition and retention (Carleton, 2009). Given this rate of activity, it is essential that marketing seeks to optimize the efficiency of customer acquisition plans. In reality social media has quickly become a powerful tool for customer rendezvous. Due to the impacts of social media, several companies have had the ability to improve targets. In a similar spirit, marketers have been able to incorporate social media into their efforts to retain existing customers and to keep ongoing relationships with their customers (Cashmore, 2009). Facebook brand pages, for instance, have been proved to be effective in influencing brand evaluations. This capability to retain customers is of particular essential for industries in which firms cannot promptly identify their existing end-customer bases, like fast-moving consumer goods, or in which companies depend heavily on indirect distribution. Social media within this context have not only assisted in customer acquisition my online marketers but in fulfilling their strategies, targets marketing and user profiles (Carleton, 2009). Conclusion Recent decades have witnessed the increase of new social media avenues like, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Google which may enable several customers to take a more active position as market players and reach almost everyone anytime and anywhere (Immediate Future, 2008). It is has also been clear that it has impacted in many ways in supporting online Marketing strategy, create brand awareness and manage customer relationships and retentions. These new social media threaten long established marketer’s models and corporate strategies, but also give ample opportunities for growth through new adaptive marketing strategies. Furthermore, the premise of customer relationship is that the company could, and should, manage and maintain relationships with its customers to maximize objective that benefits only the firm and lifetime value. Social media and other new marketing technologies have greatly empowered consumers. The role that social media offers can be traced to its ability to assists companies to maintain and support the intermediation, contact, and relationships with their customers. In turn, this develops mutual trust. Further, marketing companies get the probability to sense potential selling partners. Today social Media gives company chance to give information about new products, services and innovative ideas that can attract customers and demonstrates transparency. Overall, information and social media play a great role and has a great impact in supporting online Marketing strategy, manage customer relationships and develop brand awareness (Comm, 2009). This may be due to the fact that increasing number of consumers prefer doing a quick online search for most the products and services they want, as opposed to turning the pages of newspapers and directories. This, therefore, stress the need for any marketer to reconsider its importance and apply this medium to achieve their objectives. Reference Beal, A. (2008, April 10). 12 reputations every company should monitor online. Message posted to http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/ Brogan, C., & Smith, J. (2009). Trust agents: Using the Web to build influence, improve reputation, and earn trust. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Carleton, D. (2009). The top 20 business reasons to use social media marketing. Message posted to http://www.examiner.com/ Cashmore, P. (2009, June 21). Neda: YouTube video too distressing to ignore. Message posted to http://mashable.com/ Comm, J. (2009). Twitter power: How to dominate your market one tweet at a time. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Fathi, N. 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