BMAF007-20

Introduction to Digital Marketing and Social Media

Introduction

Due to the advancements in technology, everything has turned digital, right from shopping to education. Digitalization has made things easy for people in numerous ways as people can shop online, students can study online at their pace, businesses can market their products and services online and many more. Businesses have shifted from traditional forms of marketing to digital forms of marketing and there are numerous tools and platforms which help businesses to grow their business online. This report will be explaining these new forms of market as well as analyze the concept of digital marketing, the tools of marketing, platforms, consumer trends and insights; it is also explaining some of the major limitations.

Digital marketing

Digital marketing refers to promotion, dissemination, and creation of content with the help of digital channels which include websites, social media, mobile applications, landing pages, email, along with promoting the content through numerous strategies across earned, owned, and paid channels which includes pay per click, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, and many more (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). It also helps in promoting the brands for connecting with potential customers through the internet and numerous forms of digital communication. There are seven Cs of digital marketing that are customer, content, context, community, convenience, coherence and conversion.

Comparison of online and offline marketing

Basis	Online marketing	Offline marketing
Focus	It lays the major emphasis on the content and how the product has been showcased in the perspective of customers	On the other hand, It laid emphasis on the product and the major attributes and quality of the product.
Channels	Online channels include social media, web content, e-mail, mobile applications, and online platforms (Ugolkov et al., 2020).	Offline channels include telephone, phone center, mass media
Time constraints	No time constraints as customers can anytime visit the website and make a purchase	It has time constraints as customers can make a purchase only when the store in open
Cost	It is cost effective and save money	The cost in marketing is quite higher and requires huge amount of investment
Ways of marketing	A source of online marketing includes email marketing, brand marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and many more.	A source of offline marketing includes direct mail, print advertisements, billboard advertisements, telemarketing, and business cards (Zook and Smith, 2016).

 

Key consumer trends

Digital marketing has made shopping easy for consumers as they can purchase the required items at their pace and convenience. Due to this, businesses are introducing numerous innovative ways for capturing new shoppers simultaneously reinventing their brand.

• Due to the advancements in technology, digital shopping is able to provide numerous personalized products and experiences. Consumers have a keen interest in those products which are of their interest hence, technology helps in researching the data and developing products as demanded by the consumers. Therefore, due to personalization, there is growth and development in digital marketing (Anshari et al., 2019).
• Growing demand for convenience, due to the increasing online stores and delivery systems it increased the level of comfort and demand of more convenience in the customers.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing or SMM is also known as e-marketing or digital marketing, refers to the usage of social media to interact with the customers, enhance sales, build brands, as well as to drive the traffic (Tuten and Solomon, 2017). It is a platform to share information and build networks along with providing numerous ways to approach the customers and attract new ones. It has data analytics which helps the marketers in tracing the success and failure of their efforts along with identifying new ways to engage with their customers. The major social media marketing features and elements are sharing content online, increasing public engagement, increasing sales and growth of the company, resourcing and team building, producing content, integrating with the digital strategy, tracking analytics (Evans, Bratton and McKee, 2021).

Digital tools and digital marketing platforms

Digital tools are websites, programs, applications, as well as computerized and internet resources which enhance, execute, and facilitate the digitization efforts and digital processes (Paulus, Lester and Dempster, 2013). Some of the digital tools are affiliate marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), landing page tools, content curation tools, visual design tools. A digital tool also includes social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, media sharing platforms such as sponsored advertisement Google, You tube, Spotify and other apps. Some other platforms are knowledge based or service-based platforms such as Quora, Wikipedia, Uber, Airbnb and many more (Peter and Dalla Vecchia, 2021), There are several other tools such as Google Analytics, Microsoft azure and so on which helps marketers in understanding, create measure and test the efficiency and level of performance of their digital tools.

Digital marketing mix

Digital marketing mix refers to the marketing strategy which provides balance amongst numerous media channels. The marketing mix includes product, price, promotion, place, people, process, and physical evidence.

Figure 1:7P’s of Online Marketing

(Source: Engaiodigital, 2023)

These 7 Ps comprises of an online marketing or marketplace. In today’s world, digital marketing is growing at a rapid rate which has an effect on conventional or traditional marketing. Compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing or social media marketing is cost effective as it is less expensive and is suitable to all kinds of businesses (Saura, 2021). Small businesses can use digital marketing to compete with big firms in the market. Another impact is that digital marketing offers instant feedback while traditional marketing might take weeks or sometimes months to receive feedback from the customers. On the other hand, digital marketing is flexible and can be modified as per the changes; however, traditional marketing is not flexible.

Social media contents

Social media content refers to the content which is created in order to post or showcase on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Social media content enables companies to have a better interaction and direct touch with customers in comparison to other marketing measures. Majorly there are twelve types of social media content some of them are written posts, blogs and articles, images, videos, E books, podcasts, visualization, info graphics, testimonials and reviews, advertisements and announcements (Olson, et.al, 2021). The most popular and most viewed content is blogs, video content and images as it is quite easier for the audience to consume and understand.

Example of Effective campaign

One of the most effective digital marketing campaigns for Airbnb is ‘Made possible by hosts’ (Asai, 2021). It covers positive things which are hosted by Airbnb while opening their homes throughout the world to strangers simultaneously thanking them for their support. Airbnb uses paid search, social media marketing, as well as SEO for attracting new customers and promoting the listings for the online marketplace.

Limitations of digital marketing

Dependency on technology: Digital marketing is based on technology and technology is prone to certain errors. Errors might include links not working properly, errors in page buttons, landing page might take time to load and many others which results in the shifting of customers to a new brand (Dole, 2020). It is also very important to ensure that the all the content has been checked and proofread before processing it further.

Privacy and security issues: In the era of digitalization the major concern of companies and consumers are the safety and security of their personal data and information. As all the personal information and data is easily available and can be accessed by hackers hence, it is important to ensure the security and privacy of the data and information related to the consumers (Herhausen, et.al, 2020). Businesses can track the habits of their customers, their frequent purchases, their preferences and present them with a suitable option. This is good for the business; however, it hampers the privacy and secrecy of their customers.

Higher competition – Another major limitation of digital marketing is higher level of competition, in the era of digitalization and increasing scope of digital marketing it has increased the level of competition (Veleva, and Tsvetanova, 2020). As digital marketing is the area of creativity and content creation, people comes up with new vision and ideas which leads to the rivalry and tough cut throat competing strategies.

Conclusion

In this report it explained about digital marketing, social media marketing, tools and platforms involved in digital marketing area. It explained about the marketing mix, strategies and major limitations of the digital marketing. It concludes that digital marketing is growing at a rapid pace and it has helped numerous businesses to strive. Small businesses can challenge large firms based on their marketing techniques. In todays’ world, every business is using digital marketing platforms to promote their products and services as people spend more time on their phones as compared to television. However, it also consumes time, is prone to errors as it is based on technology and lacks the privacy of the customers.

 

References

Anshari, M., Almunawar, M.N., Lim, S.A. and Al-Mudimigh, A., 2019. Customer relationship management and big data enabled: Personalization & customization of services. Applied Computing and Informatics, 15(2), pp.94-101.

Asai, H., 2021. Made Possible by Hosts. Available at: https://news.airbnb.com/made-possible-by-hosts-2/#:~:text=Earlier%20this%20year%2C%20we%20launched,Airbnb%20Hosts%20around%20the%20world. (Accessed: 06-08-2023).

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson uk.

Dole, V.S., 2020. Understanding the limitations of digital marketing. Vidyabharati International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 10(2), pp.222-226.

Engaiodigital., 2023. The 7P’s of Online Marketing Mix. Available at: https://engaiodigital.com/online-marketing-mix/ (Accessed: 06-08-2023).

Evans, D., Bratton, S. and McKee, J., 2021. Social media marketing. AG Printing & Publishing.

Herhausen, D., Miočević, D., Morgan, R.E. and Kleijnen, M.H., 2020. The digital marketing capabilities gap. Industrial Marketing Management, 90, pp.276-290

Olson, E.M., Olson, K.M., Czaplewski, A.J. and Key, T.M., 2021. Business strategy and the management of digital marketing. Business horizons, 64(2), pp.285-293.

Paulus, T., Lester, J. and Dempster, P., 2013. Digital tools for qualitative research. Sage.

Peter, M.K. and Dalla Vecchia, M., 2021. The digital marketing toolkit: a literature review for the identification of digital marketing channels and platforms. New trends in business information systems and technology: Digital innovation and digital business transformation, pp.251-265.

Saura, J.R., 2021. Using data sciences in digital marketing: Framework, methods, and performance metrics. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 6(2), pp.92-102.

Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.

Veleva, S.S. and Tsvetanova, A.I., 2020, September. Characteristics of the digital marketing advantages and disadvantages. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 940, No. 1, p. 012065). IOP Publishing.

Zook, Z. and Smith, P.R., 2016. Marketing communications: offline and online integration, engagement and analytics. Kogan Page Publishers.