An Increasing Popularity of Digital Mediums in Marketing - Assignment Example

Direct Marketing Q While digital marketing’s popularity has resulted in significant shifts and dynamism in the marketing industry, direct mail has retained some of its effectiveness, especially through the use of mailing software. Direct mail marketing is particularly useful for businesses, specifically because unlike e-mails that can be immediately deleted or ignored; consumers continue to read their mail every day. Indeed, at least 98% of people in the US continue to retrieve their mail every day, while 77% sort out their mail immediately (Thomas & Housden 35). Direct mail marketing also has a high return on investment potential due to its extreme targeting and, as a result, businesses are able to market to those consumers that they think are more likely to make a purchase, instead of using mass marketing campaigns through digital media. Direct mail also gives the business a more personal way to reach existing and potential customers, while also enabling businesses to form relationships with consumers and measure feedback on campaigns (Thomas & Housden 35). Q #2 The first case involves marketing at Guinness with the most important insight from this case being the importance of brand marketing, which has been shown to enhance brand awareness and subsequent sales. This case, however, is historical in nature as Guinness seems not to have adopted the use of interactive social media groups as a way of direct marketing. The second case is LendingTree, which uses the internet for direct marketing. One lesson from this case was that direct online marketing leads to an increase in the number of leads, while it also allows for high volume distribution and targeting. Moreover, direct online marketing was also seen to provide immediate analytics that enhance testing and optimizing performance. Finally, the case on TreadMoves provides insights into the importance of direct internet marketing, especially in the manner that using web analytics helps in making marketing more effective. Another insight involved the manner in which TreadMoves can sue their database in order to directly interact with prospects and customers. Q #3 Despite the increasing popularity of digital mediums in marketing, several companies continue to use direct mail marketing. The latter is an especially attractive choice for small enterprises since it allows these enterprises to communicate to the consumer complete information on a service or product, while also enabling them to reach any potential target group for relatively low costs (Bird 23). In this case, direct mail may either be used as a supplement to traditional marketing efforts or as a basis for the business. Start-up businesses also find direct mail effective since it creates interest and awareness in new services and products, while it is also testable thus allowing the business-owner to try different marketing messages across different audience groups to identify profitable markets. Finally, direct marketing is also effective in business-to-business marketing because business orders are normally bigger as compared to consumer purchases and, therefore, such businesses have to undertake more than one mailing in order to fulfill a purchase (Bird 24). Q #4 Mobile ads allow for mobile user segmentation, which is an important process in dividing customers into manageable segments based on common interests, characteristics, and criteria. Insights from mobile ads are then used by marketers to run highly relevant and targeted to attain high marketing return on investment (Bird 51). Depending on the functionality of mobile apps and the technology that an organization uses to measure the performance of these apps, segmentation can be conducted on the basis of demographics and interests. The marketer can then use collected information to analyze the behavior of specific segments, while also selecting the consumer segment to target on the basis of specific purposes. Since mobile users have different behaviors and interests that could influence these behaviors, understanding how every sub-set of mobile users behaves enables the marketer to serve them targeted and relevant content. In addition, mobile ad user segmentation also gives the marketer new insights into the behavior of existing market segments (Bird 53). Q #5 For direct marketing practitioners, it is important to understand how consumers make purchasing behavior decisions, which helps in planning the exchange process between the direct marketer and the consumer. Direct marketers should understand the motivations of their consumers when creating an offer because the specific offer should be created as a response to the wants and needs of the customer (Nash 41). Thus, direct marketers are required to research and appreciate their target audience so as to create an offer that satisfies the needs of the customer, which is more likely to attract consumers. Understanding consumer motivations also enables the direct marketer to create or reinforce wants and needs in the mind of the consumer, specifically because these motives are the main influencing factors in consumer behavior. Consumer motivations are driven by the likes and dislikes of the consumer, as well as their wants and needs (Nash 42). For instance, consumers are motivated to buy products that are safe to use. Q #6 Marketing segmentation and positioning strategies play significant roles in planning offers for direct marketers. The consumer targeting process is related directly to the essential concepts of market positioning and segmentation. The process of market segmentation allows the direct marketer to consider present and potential consumers as belonging to specific groups on the basis of shared wants, needs, and/or characteristics (Nash 47). When the direct marketer understands the perception of the consumers, it is possible to more effectively create offers, as well as target these offers towards specific consumer segments. Along with positioning, market segmentation provides tools for aligning the marketer’s product offering with the appropriate consumer, in which every product’s fundamental premise offers different customers with different value. Moreover, since positioning effectively involves understanding competing products and the benefits being sought by the product’s target market, it allows the direct marketer to identify differential advantages that can be used to plan an offering that provides a competitive advantage (Nash 48). Q #7 Fulfillment and customer service are important as the last step of the direct marketing process, specifically because they both provide the direct marketer with the chance to communicate directly with the customer through the use of additional promotional catalogs and materials (Thomas & Housden 22). Furthermore, attentiveness to detail during the fulfillment and customer service stage generates future business for the direct marketer by ensuring customer satisfaction. Fulfillment involves carrying out the expectations of the customer regarding the purchased product or service, during which the delivery activities and dialogue help to ensure that the direct marketer can get feedback on what to improve. As a result, customer service counts as a part of fulfillment, which is driven by the efficiency of product or service delivery and has a direct impact on the opportunity for return business (Thomas & Housden 33). This step also identifies lost sales opportunities by measuring satisfaction after a purchase, for example through the analysis of feedback. Works Cited Bird, Drayton. Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing. London: Kogan Page, 2007. Internet resource Nash, Edward. Direct Marketing: Strategy, Planning, Execution. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Internet resource Thomas, Brian & Housden, Matthew. Direct and Digital Marketing in Practice. London: A. & C. Black, 2011. Internet resource Read More