Kasturi Ram College of Higher Education

Affiliated to GGSIPU, New Delhi,

Narela-110040

Bachelors in Business Administration

6th Semester

Subject code-304
Digital Marketing
 Unit-1
Digital Marketing: Meaning, Scope and
Importance
Meaning

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic

device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search
engines, social media, email, and their websites to connect with current and
prospective customers.

Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right
place and at the right time. Today, that means you need to meet them where
they are already spending time: on the internet.

Enter digital marketing — in other words, any form of marketing that exists
online.

Digital marketing is defined by the use of numerous digital tactics and

channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their time:
online. From the website itself to a business’s online branding assets — digital
advertising, email marketing, online brochures, and beyond — there’s a
spectrum of tactics that fall under the umbrella of “digital marketing.”

The best digital marketers have a clear picture of how each digital marketing
campaign supports their overarching goals. And depending on the goals of
their marketing strategy, marketers can support a larger campaign through
the free and paid channels at their disposal.

A content marketer, for example, can create a series of blog posts that serve to
generate leads from a new ebook the business recently created. The
company’s social media marketer might then help promote these blog posts
through paid and organic posts on the business’s social media accounts.
Perhaps the email marketer creates an email campaign to send those who
download the ebook more information on the company.

Scope and Importance

Digital Marketing industry is booming not just in India but all parts of the
world. The year 2016 took the industry by surprise with over 1.5 lakh job
opportunities in the Digital Marketing domain. Well, the following was a
bigger surprise when only the first quarter of 2017 marked for 8 lakh job
opportunities.

The surveys conducted by several forums have predicted this number to grow
with Digitalisation in the nation. Our Prime Minister has been actively
promoting the idea of Digital India. PM Modi’s digital India campaign gained
massive popularity. The initiative of Government of India is aimed at
providing easy services to its natives.

Now imagine when a nation’s government is promoting the digital interaction,

what do you think will be the Digital Marketing scope in that nation.

The Digital Marketing industry is at its peak at the moment due to many
reasons, take a look at some of them:

It is the newest thing in town

Hasn’t the internet driven all of us crazy? well, it sure has. There was a time
when a new serial on the TV used to be the hot topic whereas today, the
online posts or a new music video on YouTube grabs our attention. What is
this? this is a shift in the choice and preferences. Digital media is gaining mass
attention because of the fresh air it has got with itself. It’s like living in a new
era. We are experiencing a revolution, while we are shifting from the
traditional to the Digital media.

It is flexible

Since the entire work is to be done on the internet, there is no restriction of

the place. It doesn’t matter if you are at the office or at home. All you need is a
device that is connected to the internet and you are sorted. Yes, it is actually
that easy. Do you want to check your bank balance? do it on your smart phone.
Want to book movie tickets? pick up your smartphone and book! This is the
digital age, everything is available at your fingertips.

It is easy

Accessing the digital media is no rocket science. It is a piece of cake. The

newest of users also take a maximum of few days to learn how to operate the
digital media. This is purely because it is designed in such a user-friendly
manner that its primary objective is to ease the operations for human beings,
the reason why our mobile phones are now called smartphones.

Eco- friendly
Being responsible citizens of the world it is important that we operate
through mediums that do not harm our atmosphere cause being ignorant to
the atmosphere will only have an adverse effect on us. The digital media
additionally cuts down on paper usage. We operate the digital media over the
internet and thus can save ourselves a lot of hustle in terms of hard work, long
process of work and all the other drawbacks of using the traditional medias.

Fastest Reach

Previously radio was considered to have the fastest reach because of the live
communication feature. Radio is still the medium with the widest reach
but the new media is gradually overshadowing the most popular medias like a
newspaper, television, etc.

Today, you post anything online and it gets trending within a few hours. This
is because the number of users of the digital media are touching heights with
each passing day.

Influential

The man kind is used to being influenced by whatever is trending the most.
The virtual media has not fallen short of influencing the masses of its own new
style. The social media occupying the most space has infused itself so well in
the lives of the users that it is like the early morning newspaper that is a must.
Only this newspaper is carried forward all day long (pun intended).

Job Opportunities

The massive user engagement calls for more and more job opportunities. The
employment sector has seen a major share of jobs generated by the Digital
Marketing Industry. The statistics show that the total number of job
opportunities in the Digital Marketing industry to cross 8 lakh job in 2017.
The career scope in Digital Marketing seems attractive to masses and that is
the reason why many professionals are learning this course to enter the
industry.

High engagement

It is true that the traditional media are being completely overshadowed by the
internet- led Digital Marketing due to high engagement factors. The brands
and companies have begun to give extra emphasis to the ad campaigns run on
the internet over television ads. The revolution is here!

Small investments and big Returns

Digital Marketing ad campaigns ask for a very little amount of investments as
compared to television and print ads. The high ROI is attractive enough to
draw the attention of the marketers and advertisers.

Measure immediate results

An advertiser running a social media campaign can easily measure the

performance of the campaign in real time without waiting for long intervals.
The leads generated and online purchases are a direct measure of the
performance of the campaign.

The campaign is run over the internet and the performance is measured in
real time what can be better than this for a business?

There must be many more reason to the list of why Digital Marketing
industry is at its peak but we will move further from here to briefly discuss
the scope of Digital Marketing jobs in India.
Internet Vs. Traditional Marketing
Communications
To clarify the terms, the use of print ads on newspapers and magazines is a
simple example of traditional marketing. Other examples include flyers that
are put in mailboxes, commercials both on TV and radio and billboards. On the
other hand, when a business invests on building a website, advertising the
brand name through different social media such as Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube, this kind strategy is called digital marketing.

Benefits of Traditional Marketing

You can easily reach your target local audience. For example, a radio ad
might play in one location: your city or region. Or mailbox flyers will go to
households in a select number of suburbs.

The materials can be kept. The audience can have a hard copy of materials
of which they can read or browse through over and over again.

It’s easy to understand. It can be easily understood by most people because

they are already exposed to this kind of strategy.

Neuroscience seems to support the benefits of hard copy marketing. A study

sponsored by Canada Post and performed by Canadian neuro-marketing
firm TrueImpact compared the effects of paper marketing (direct mail pieces,
in this case) with digital media (email and display ads).

The technologies used in this study were eye-tracking and high resolution
EEG brain wave measurement. The three key metrics evaluated in the study
were cognitive load (ease of understanding), motivation (persuasiveness),
and attention (how long subjects looked at the content).

Direct mail was easier to process mentally and tested better for brand
recall. According to the report,

Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media (5.15
vs. 6.37), suggesting that it is both easier to understand and more memorable.
Post-exposure memory tests validated what the cognitive load test revealed
about direct mail’s memory encoding capabilities. When asked to cite the brand
(company name) of an advertisement they had just seen, recall was 70% higher
among participants who were exposed to a direct mail piece (75%) than a
digital ad (44%).
The Downside to Traditional Marketing

There is very little interaction between the medium used and the
customers. It is more of providing information to the public that the brand
exists with the hope of these people patronizing the brand.

Print or radio advertisements can be very costly. Printing materials can be

expensive and you need to hire people to distribute these.

Results on this marketing strategy cannot easily be measured. Was the

campaign successful?

Benefits of Digital Marketing

You can target a local audience, but also an international one. Further,
you can tailor a campaign to specific audience demographics, such as gender,
location, age and interests. This means your campaign will be more effective.

Your audience can choose how they want to receive your content. While
one person likes to read a blog post, another person likes to watch a YouTube
video. Traditional marketing doesn’t give the audience a choice. Most people
hate receiving sales flyers in their mailbox or phone calls at inconvenient
times on stuff that they have little interest in. Online people get the choice to
opt in or out of communications and often it is relevant because they were the
ones searching for it in the first place. Don’t underestimate the power of
market segmentation and tailored marketing.

Interaction with your audience is possible with the use of social media
networks. In fact, interaction is encouraged. Traditional marketing methods
don’t allow for audience interaction. You can encourage your prospects,
clients and followers to take action, visit your website, read about your
products and services, rate them, buy them and provide feedback which is
visible to your market.

Digital marketing is cost-efficient. Though some invest on paid ads online;

however, the cost is still cheaper compared to traditional marketing.

Data and results are easily recorded. With Google Analytics and the insights
tools offered by most social media channels, you can check on your campaigns
at any time. Unlike traditional marketing methods, you can see in real time
what is or is not working for your business online and you can adapt very
quickly to improve your results.

Level playing field: Any business can compete with any competitor
regardless of size with a solid digital marketing strategy. Traditionally a
smaller retailer would struggle to match the finesse of the fixtures and fittings
of its larger competitors. Online, a crisp well thought out site with a smooth
customer journey and fantastic service is king – not size.

Real time results: you don’t have to wait weeks for a boost to your business
like you would have to waiting for a fax or form to be returned. You can see
the numbers of visitors to your site and its subscribers increase, peak trading
times, conversion rates and much more at the touch of a button.

Brand Development: A well maintained website with quality content

targeting the needs and adding value to your target audience can provide
significant value and lead generation opportunities. The same can be said for
utilising social media channels and personalised email marketing.

Viral: how often do your sales flyers get passed around instantly by your
customers and prospects? Online, using social media share buttons on your
website, email and social media channels enables your message to be shared
incredibly quickly. If you consider the average Facebook user has 190 friends
of which an average of 12% see their liked posts – your one message has
actually been seen by 15 new prospects. Now imagine a number of them also
like and share your message and their friends do the same? That’s why high-
quality content is so important.

So which kind of marketing is better?

Well, we would recommend both. Obviously, we are passionate about digital

marketing, because we know that it works. But we do use traditional
marketing materials, too.

A 2009 study conducted by Bangor University and branding agency Millward

Brown also used fMRI to study the different effects of paper and digital media.

Some of their key conclusions were:

• Physical material is more “real” to the brain. It has a meaning, and a

place. It is better connected to memory because it engages with its
spatial memory networks.
• Physical material involves more emotional processing, which is
important for memory and brand associations.
• Physical materials produced more brain responses connected with
internal feelings, suggesting greater “internalization” of the ads.

How We Use Both Digital & Traditional Marketing

Our traditional marketing methods support our digital marketing efforts. The
two do not operate in exclusion from each other. But we only use hard copy
marketing materials to further strengthen a relationship with a contact,
referral partner or client. We don’t invest in television or radio ads, for
example, but we will give brochures to someone who is interested in our
services.

Rather than taking an all or nothing approach, it appears that a multi-channel

approach that leverages the unique benefits of paper with the convenience
and accessibility of digital will perform best.
Internet Microenvironment
The environment under which organization functions determines how it will
conduct its business. Organizations have to constantly monitor and appraise
the external business environment. Organizations have to make changes in its
operations in accordance to the environment as to be profitable and effective.
Therefore, understanding the business environment is important before
developing any marketing strategy.

Specific forces such as a market place, customers, organization, etc. which

directly affects organization are referred to as micro-environment.

The internet has made a direct impact on the micro-environment of the

organization.

Market Place

The market place for an organization includes interaction between all the
elements of the micro-environment. There are five forces which impact
organization in the marketplace. The impact of internet on the five forces is as
follows:

Bargaining Power of Customers: with the advent of the internet, customers

have wider choices of products than before. The increase in competition has
reduced the price level as customer demand more transparency in operations.
Thus the bargaining power of customers has increased.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: again with wider choice due to the internet.
The bargaining power of the supplier has gone down

Threats of substitute: the internet has enabled quicker introduction of

products and services. The organization must carefully observe the
introduction of substitute in the market as to avoid losing market share.

Barriers to entry: the internet has substantially reduced establishment costs,

especially in the services industry. Therefore, organization has to carefully
observe the movement of the new entrants in the market.

Competition: the internet has started the trend of faster commoditization of

products. Thus companies need to find new ways through which it can
differentiate itself from competition.

Customers
An organization’s success is dependent on strong customer base. Therefore,
customer needs and requirements require a better understanding from the
organization. A qualitative and quantitative analysis needs to be developed by
the company to track consumer behavior and create more consumer insights.
These consumer insights can be used by marketing groups to develop specific
strategies.

Companies are using demand analysis to understand and determine the

potential of the new business proposition among customers. Companies also
deploy qualitative analysis to understand perception of a consumer towards
new products and services.

After assessing demand and perception among consumer for the products and
services, companies develop marketing communication to target specific
potential customers and convert them to actual customers. This conversion
marketing technique helps companies improve their customer base.

Online sites track the way consumer navigates to reach particular destination
or buying decision. This helps companies to design better websites. The
internet search engines are the first stop for many consumers to begin
searching for a particular product or service. Hence it is important to
understand the phrases or sentence consumers are using to reach a particular
product or service.

Companies divide consumer into a particular group or segment based upon

their demographics and psychographics.

Online Buying Behavior

It is very important for an organization to understand how the internet works

in a multiple channel scenario. Thus, companies develop different models to
understand online buying behavior.

Companies have started creating personas which summarize the customer

needs, requirements and environment based on their internet usage. Based on
this persona, companies develop a customer scenario. This customer scenario
is series of task or path taken to come at a desired buying decision.

This customer scenario is part of the overall buying experience and it involves
multiple channel partners. Therefore multi-channel strategies have to be built
in assessing overall customer online buying behavior.

Competitors
Online business is dynamic in nature. Therefore, it is important for
organizations to monitor usage of the internet by the competition. The
internet is the new medium through which companies undertake the task for
customer retention and acquisition.

This dynamism has introduced new services and innovative marketing mix
more frequently compared to traditional marketing techniques.
Benchmarking also has become dynamic and cannot be considered one of,
activity, but has to be continuous.

The strategies of traditional competitor are well known. However, with the
internet and globalization, new entrants are always posing a constant
competition to the organization.

Companies for benchmarking should analyze competitor’s web site, identify

the current trends and keep an eye on future trends.

Suppliers

Total customer satisfaction is the key in developing long and fruitful

relationship with consumers. Therefore, it becomes important for the
organization to monitor supplier, as they do affect quality or experience for
customers.

Intermediaries

Marketing intermediaries are companies which help the organization sell,

promote and distribute products and services in the market. For internet
marketing, there are online intermediary websites. These intermediary
websites work as a platform between consumers and business suppliers. The
online social networks also act as an intermediary. They provide a platform
which facilitates collaboration and exchange between various individuals.

The companies need to maintain constant watch on the internet environment.

This will help organization respond to ever changing and evolving internet
micro environment.
Use of B2C and B2B internet Marketing
While business-to-business and business-to-consumer Internet marketing
strategies are two different animals, in that one model targets businesses and
the other consumers, the benefits that B2B and B2C provide to marketers are
about the same. In short, both models help businesses increase sales in an
increasingly competitive marketplace. In 2012, in the United States the
number of potential Internet buyers in this increasingly competitive
marketplace reached a new peak: 245 million potential buyers online.

Increased Awareness

With over six billion Internet users across the world, it’s obvious why B2B and
B2C Internet marketing increases awareness of businesses and their products
or services. More than that, with more B2B and B2C companies marketing
themselves on the Internet, marketers are in a better position to pick up
details about their competition. Additionally, with the advent of the social
networking explosion, more business and consumer patrons are voicing their
opinions about various products and services. This gives marketers even
more empowering info about what the market is thinking – knowledge they
wouldn’t have if they themselves weren’t using the Internet.

Better Interaction

The social network explosion, in addition to email and website marketing, also
gives marketers the ability to interact more directly with their customers,
whether businesses or consumers. An important part of this interaction is
educating customers, either as a group or as individuals. Marketing strategists
at the firm Customer Paradigm cite business authors Margaret Clark and Carol
Pearson, who say that educated customers will buy more than confused ones.
So whether it’s marketing via email, podcasts, a website or social networks,
marketers who are interactive on the Web increase their authority in the
marketplace – another advantage from using the Internet.

Better Service

Better education relates to better service. In the days of mom-and-pop stores,

customer service usually meant the interaction you got once you walked in
the store, when what you ordered was delivered to your doorstep or when
you called via telephone. Now that more B2B and B2C companies are using
the Internet, though, they’re providing marketing websites on which
customers can make contact when they have questions or concerns, and
they’re sending informative emails that don’t merely advertise but also inform
their customers with practical information. This means that customers,
ideally, are getting much more robust service.

Refined Messaging

The Internet has also provided marketers with more specific information
about their customers, such as when they’re more receptive to receiving an
advertising message. Armed with this knowledge, some B2B and B2C
companies use a marketing method called “right-time marketing.” According
to business analyst firm Garner, Inc., the statistics are too compelling to
ignore: strategically timing email marketing messages will help marketers see
as much as a 600 percent rise in performance over more lax messaging
methods, such as email blasts and cold calling.
Internet Marketing Strategy
The internet is considered as a channel partner. Hence online marketing is to
be considered as a channel marketing strategy. An Organization needs to
define specific objective from internet marketing and building
communications as well as scheme around it.

Internet marketing is one form customer touch point where companies

directly interact with existing as well as potential customers.

Integrated Strategy

The biggest challenge for the companies is to integrate internet marketing

strategy with overall marketing strategy. The prime reason for this challenge
is the thought process that has considered internet as an independent entity.
Many organizations have not made an effort to make internet as any function
of the organization.

The internet is a new channel partner for many organizations. Therefore, it is

essential that companies create separate the internet marketing plan. As
companies begin to understand the full potential of internet marketing, a
separate internet marketing plan may not be required. The overall marketing
plan now will be developed considering the strategic advantage of internet
marketing.

Strategy Building

Every company needs to develop a logical framework for its operations as to

meet its business objectives. The overall business objectives need to be
broken to milestones, the company has to achieve within a certain time frame.
To achieve these milestones, companies need to develop strategies around the
key activities.

One of the key activities is in strategy development is marketing. The strategy

developed to achieve business objectives through marketing is called as a
marketing plan.

An internet marketing strategy building begins with understanding the

current market scenario. After analyzing market scenario, companies develop
marketing plan and specific internet related objectives. To achieve internet
channel objectives, companies develop the internet marketing plan. After
developing and defining internet marketing plan, the next step is to analyze
the online presence of the company. The company can start working towards
implementation of marketing strategy, if it already has an online presence.
A strategy would be considered incomplete, if there is no continuous
monitoring of the same. A strategy modified and re-worked based on positive
or negative feedback.

Strategy Review

An organization functions in a dynamic environment. It needs to ascertain

whether the current marketing strategies are effective or they require some
modification. This internal marketing audit looks to resolve following key
activities:

• A complete review of the internal capabilities of the company, process

and resources.
• A complete review of the present market and the competition, including
the micro and the macro environment.
• A complete review of current internet contribution in the marketing
plan.

Another aspect of the strategic review is to assess the current contribution of

internet marketing plan with other marketing activities. This can be done by
understanding the current internet marketing capability. The first step is to
check whether company has its own website. The next step is to check
whether the website is registered with any online business directory. The next
step is to create the website with a basic company and product information.
The next step is making the site interactive where a potential customer is able
to place further enquires. The next step is to develop the website which is
capable of e-commerce activities as well as customer service desk. The final
step is to develop a full functional website which can help the company in
marketing as well as relationship building.

Goal Setting

Any marketing strategy or plan should be constructed to support the overall

business objective of the company. Companies have a general tendency of
developing the internet marketing plan away from the overall marketing plan.
Companies have resorted to experimentation in internet marketing plan
rather than a focused approach.

This lack of clarity in the internet marketing plan has led to many failures with
companies suffering from financial loss.

Integration of the internet can be done through scenario based analysis. In the
scenario based analysis various market simulations are created to explore
different possibilities. The internet marketing role in all scenarios needs to be
explored to take the full advantage.

The financial benefits of internet marketing would be through increased sales

and better topline growth. The internet marketing would also help in
customer service, by development easy self-help guides, thus reducing
overhead cost.

The intangible benefits of internet marketing would be a better corporate

image, enhanced visibility, customer relationships, better customer service
etc.

Strategy Formulation

The internet is considered as a channel partner for the company and therefore
it should be part channel marketing strategy. It is important for the internet
marketing strategy considers the following:

• The strategy developed should outline objectives which generate leads

and sales from this channel.
• The strategy should target the customers which are users of the
internet.
• The strategy supports the customer in making the buying decision as
well as delivering the product.
• The strategy should highlight differentiation from competition.
• The strategy should encourage consumers to use the internet along
with channels.
• The strategy should help in customer acquisition as well as retention.

Implementation

The company needs to ascertain various pros and cons of internet marketing
strategies before implementation of one particular strategy. With finite
resources companies look for solutions which are implementable.

To implement an online marketing strategy, companies have various

marketing applications. Companies need to maintain portfolio of these
applications and make a careful selection depending upon risk and reward.

Post implementation it is important to maintain tracker of the strategy. These

trackers are frequently centered on, visitor tracking, lead generation, online
sales and finally customer retention.
Development of internet marketing strategy should follow the same path as
that of any marketing strategy, without forgetting uniqueness that the
internet brings to the company.

Types

• Display Advertising: The use of banner ads and other graphical

advertisements to market products online.
• Search Engine Marketing: Using search engines to help connect users
with the products and services they are most interested in. Companies
can pay to receive preferential ranking in a list of search results.
• Search Engine Optimization: A free and organic way for companies to
improve their visibility on search engines.
• Social Media Marketing: Using sites like Facebook and Twitter to
connect with customers.
• Email Marketing: Communicating with customers through the use of
carefully designed emails.
• Referral Marketing: Using internet channels to encourage consumers
to recommend products to their friends and families.
• Affiliate Marketing: Working with other businesses to make it easier
for consumers to shop for products online.
• Inbound Marketing: Boosting the value of a company’s web presence
by adding unique content like blogs, games, and tutorial videos.
• Video Marketing: Using web videos for promotional purposes.
 Unit-2

The Marketing Mix. (7 P’s) in online context

The 4Ps were designed at a time where businesses were more likely to sell products, rather
than services and the role of customer service in helping brand development wasn’t so well
know. Over time, Booms and Pitner added three extended ‘service mix P’s’: Participants,
Physical evidence and Processes, and later Participants was renamed People. Today, it’s
recommended that the full 7Ps of the marketing mix are considered when reviewing
competitive strategies.

The 7Ps helps companies to review and define key issues that affect the marketing of its
products and services and is often now referred to as the 7Ps framework for the digital
marketing mix.
Although it’s sometimes viewed as dated, we believe the 4Ps are an essential strategy tool to
select their scope and is particularly useful for small businesses. For startups reviewing price
and revenue models today, using the Business Model Canvas for marketing strategy is a great
alternative since it gives you a good structure to follow.

Companies can also use the 7Ps model to set objectives, conduct a SWOT analysis and
undertake competitive analysis. It’s a practical framework to evaluate an existing business
and work through appropriate approaches whilst evaluating the mix element as shown below
and ask yourself the following questions:

• Products/Services: How can you develop your products or services?

• Prices/Fees: How can we change our pricing model?
• Place/Access: What new distribution options are there for customers to experience
our product, e.g. online, in-store, mobile etc.
• Promotion: How can we add to or substitute the combination within paid, owned and
earned media channels?
• Physical Evidence: How we reassure our customers, e.g. impressive buildings, well-
trained staff, great website?
• People: Who are our people and are there skills gaps?
• Partners: Are we seeking new partners and managing existing partners well?.

An example of a company using the 7Ps strategy

Take a look at HubSpot as an example, which was founded in 2006; Hubspot has 8,000+
customers in 56 countries and sells software. What does their marketing mix look like?

This is a top level overview; you would take this into greater detail and ask the following
questions:

8. Products/Services: Integrated toolset for SEO, blogging, social media, website, email
and lead intelligence tools.
9. Prices/Fees: Subscription-based monthly, Software-As-Service model based on
number of contacts in database and number of users of the service.
10. Place/Access: Online! Network of Partners, Country User Groups.
11. Promotion: Directors speak at events, webinars, useful guides that are amplified by
SEO and effective with SEO. PPC Social media advertising, e.g. LinkedIn.
12. Physical Evidence: Consistent branding across communications.
13. Processes: More sales staff are now involved in conversion.
14. People: Investment in online services.
15. Partners: Hubspot looks to form partnerships with major media companies such as
Facebook and Google plus local partners including Smart Insights who it is
collaborating with on research in Europe.
Managing the online customer experience
1. Create a clear customer experience vision
The first step in your customer experience strategy is to have a clear
customer-focused vision that you can communicate with your organization.
The easiest way to define this vision is to create a set of statements that act as
guiding principles.

For example, Zappos use their Zappos core family values and these values are
embedded into their culture; which includes delivering wow through service,
be humble and embracing change.

Once these principles are in place, they will drive the behavior of your
organization. Every member of your team should know these principles by
heart and they should be embedded into all areas of training and
development.

2. Understand who your customers are

The next step in building upon these customer experience principles is to
bring to life the different type of customers who deal with your customer
support teams. If your organization is going to really understand customer
needs and wants, then they need to be able to connect and empathize with the
situations that your customers face.

One way to do this is to create customer personas and give each persona a
name and personality. For example, Anne is 35 years old; she likes new
technology and is tech savvy enough to follow a video tutorial on her own,
whereas John (42 years old) needs to be able to follow clear instructions on a
web page.

By creating personas, your customer support team can recognize who they
are and understand them better. It’s also an important step in becoming truly
customer centric.

3. Create an emotional connection with your customers

You’ve heard the phrase “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it”?

Well, the best customer experiences are achieved when a member of your
team creates an emotional connection with a customer.
One of the best examples of creating an emotional connection comes from
Zappos, when a customer was late on returning a pair of shoes due to her
mother passing away. When Zappos found out what happened, they took care
of the return shipping and had a courier pick up the shoes without cost. But,
Zappos didn’t stop there. The next day, the customer arrived home to a
bouquet of flowers with a note from the Zappos customer service team who
sent their condolences.

Research by the Journal of Consumer Research has found that more than 50%
of an experience is based on an emotion as emotions shape the attitudes that
drive decisions.

Customers become loyal because they are emotionally attached and they
remember how they feel when they use a product or service. A business that
optimizes for an emotional connection outperforms competitors by 85% in
sales growth.

And, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study titled “The New
Science of Customer Emotions“, emotionally engaged customers are:

• At least three times more likely to recommend your product or service

• Three times more likely to re-purchase
• Less likely to shop around (44% said they rarely or never shop around)
• Much less price sensitive (33% said they would need a discount of over
20% before they would defect).

4. Capture customer feedback in real time

How can you tell if you are delivering a wow customer experience?

You need to ask – And ideally you do this by capturing feedback in real time.
Post-interaction surveys and similar customer experience tools can be
delivered using a variety of automated tools through email and calls.

And of course, it’s even possible to make outbound calls to customers in order
to gain more insightful feedback.

It’s important to tie customer feedback to a specific customer support agent,

which shows every team member the difference they are making to the
business.

5. Use a quality framework for development of your

team
By following the steps above, you now know what customers think about the
quality of your service compared to the customer experience principles you
have defined. The next step is to identify the training needs for each individual
member of your customer support team.

Many organizations assess the quality of phone and email communication,

however, a quality framework takes this assessment one step further by
scheduling and tracking your teams development through coaching,
eLearning and group training.

6. Act upon regular employee feedback

Most organizations have an annual survey process where they capture the
overall feedback of your team; how engaged they are and the businesses
ability to deliver an exceptional service.

But, what happens in the 11 months between these survey periods?

Usually, nothing happens. And this is where continuous employee feedback

can play a role using tools that allow staff to share ideas on how to improve
the customer experience and for managers to see how staff is feeling towards
the business.

For example, using project management software or social media tools, you
can create a closed environment where your organization can leave
continuous feedback.

7. Measure the ROI from delivering great customer

experience
And finally, how do you know if all this investment in your teams, process and
technology are working and paying off?

The answer is in the business results.

Measuring customer experience is one of the biggest challenges faced by

organizations, which is why many companies use the “Net Promoter Score” or
NPS, which collects valuable information by asking a single straightforward
question:
Planning website design
1. Point of sale

Is this your only point of sale or is it to compliment a brick and mortar shop?

This question is mostly to do with stock and POS systems. If you have a
physical shop with inventory shared between the website and the shop, the
systems need to ‘talk’ to each other so inventory on your site is always
accurate.

This will affect the platform and systems integrated.

2. Photos

Product photos are an essential part of an online shop. If you only have a few
items to sell, a one off professional photo shoot will be enough but if you
update stock regularly, invest in a good camera and a photo box, so all photos
are consistent and look professional.

Remember – white background photos will work best with most websites.

3. Delivery / Postage:

How will you package and post your goods? can they be posted or must be
delivered door to door?

Are you restricted by delivery locations (state, country)?

How much will it cost you to package / post deliver? will you charge a fee?

These are important questions to ask as this will need to be set up as part of
your online shop. If you are not set up for delivery, you cannot start selling
online!

4. Terms

Terms, exchange, refunds – these are issues that you will need to consider
before launching your online shop.

In most cases you will be able to use a template document provided by the
platform (for example Shopify has some excellent examples) but if your terms
are a bit more complex you might want a lawyer to review and draft a
document for you.
5. Payment

Are you set up to receive online payments? There are many options available
they vary in cost. The platform you use will also affect the decision.

For example, Squarespace only works with STRIPE and PayPal & Shopify
works with a wider selection. Do your research and compare benefits and
fees.

6. Processing

How do you want to communicate to customers once they purchased?

Most system offer an automated email confirmation and you can change the
text / look of these emails. You can also send a confirmation once package left
or send a customer survey after. There are many options and it will be a good
idea to take note once you come across a shopping experience you like.
Everything matters and effects the overall customer experience.

7. Time

Maintaining an active online shop takes time!

If you are expecting a few orders a day, take into account handling and
processing orders, posting orders, and handling customer enquiries.

Also consider the time it takes to add new stock to your site, taking photos,
writing description and uploading.
Understanding site user Requirement
The first step in developing any eCommerce application is to interview the
user base to generate a list of features to be included in the application.
This comprises the important input for defining the capabilities of the
application.

There are two sets of users of shopping cart applications: site administrators
and end users who purchase items using their Web browsers. After
interviewing end users and administrators, application requirements such as
the following may be generated.

End User Requirements

End user features that facilitate the enjoyment of Internet shopping might
include the following:

• Users should be able to use the eCommerce application from any Web
browser supporting HTML 3.2 (or later) and cookies.
• Visitors new to the site should be able to register by themselves. Users
will be differentiated by unique user identifiers.
• Transactions should be secure. That is, a basic authentication
mechanism must be built into the application to prevent unauthorized
persons from making transactions on a user’s behalf. Secure socket
layers (SSL) or other encryption mechanisms are typically used to
thwart the access of sensitive information (such as credit card
numbers) sent to the server by Web browsers.
• Site visitors should be able to purchase goods or services via the
electronic store.
• Users should be able to view a complete list of specified items available
through the site.
• Users should be able to search for items by related attributes. For
example, visitors might search for CDs by artist, album title and/or
genre or search for books by author, title and/or ISBN number.
• Site visitors should be able to search the database using relevant
keywords to identify items of interest.
• Users should be able to select items of interest and add them to their
shopping carts for future purchase.
• Visitors should be able to modify the quantities of items in and/or
delete items from their shopping carts before checkout.
• All selected items should be shipped to the user following purchase.
• Users should be able to view the status of items they have ordered.
• Large numbers of users should be able to use the application
simultaneously.
• The performance of the application should not degrade with an increase
in the number of goods or services offered.
Site Design and Structure
A Web page’s structural elements are the basic parts that Internet users often
expect to see when they visit a website. Understanding the location and
purpose of the main structures can help you relay information about your
small business and products or services in ways that attract visitors and
retain their interest.

Page Header

The header is the area that runs horizontally across the top of a page and is
commonly the same on most every page in the site. It helps make a website
visually identifiable to visitors. Similar to a letter heading or letterhead at the
top of stationery, the page header displays information about the person or
company controlling the website via title text, logo, background images,
tagline or a combination of these elements. Other elements often placed in the
header include a site-search box, shopping cart link, site-access link and
navigation tools.

Navigation Tools

Web-page navigation tools are located in several areas outside of the header
including the right or left sides, center or bottom of the page. They offer page-
to-page navigation or instant jump to the top of the current page. Designs
feature text- or image-based one-click links organized standalone or in tab,
drop-down or pop-up menu and list layouts. Some sites also feature
breadcrumb trails — links to every page you would visit to reach the current
page organized left-to-right on a horizontal line in the header or top center of
the page in the order of your movement through the site, if you were to follow
the site’s organizational hierarchy.

Sidebar Columns

Sidebar columns, also known as sidebars, run vertically along the left or right
side of Web pages. They usually provide primary or secondary site-navigation
links and information you want to emphasize such as contact details or
important updates about the site operator or the topic of the site. Other
elements often placed in sidebars include personal or partner advertising, a
site search box and search filter tools. Sidebars usually display information as
an unbroken column or a column divided into sections or boxes.

Primary Content
The primary content area on a page is traditionally located to the left or right
of a sidebar or between two sidebars. It provides main page information you
want a visitor to focus on. The primary content area features a main title and
content formatted into concise text paragraphs, images, videos or
combination elements divided by spaces or subheadings. It also often features
elements previously mentioned such as a breadcrumb trail and jump
navigation links, as well as update information such as content publication or
update dates and links to websites relevant to the content or that you think
would interest visitors.

Page Footer

The footer runs horizontally across the bottom of pages. It provides

navigation links visitors might find useful, as well as details about a page or
website such as a logo, copyright date, website operator’s name, page author
name, legal statements and links to the site terms of use and privacy policies.
Other elements often placed in the footer include links to the site operator’s
contact page or email address, job postings page, feedback-form page, support
page and frequently asked questions page.
Developing and Testing Content
Usability research helps organizations understand user needs, identify
potential issues, and generate ideas for improvement. While usability testing
is often used to evaluate a website’s user interface (UI), this method is also
invaluable for discovering the best way to present information on your
website. By paying attention to how people read, interpret, and access
content, you gain a greater understanding of how to communicate, structure,
and format information.

It’s great when sites have good navigation. But too often we see the user
experience fail at the content level: People can navigate to the content but
don’t understand it. Analysis shows that people often use websites to collect,
compare, and choose products or services. Have users evaluate your digital
copy so that articles and information match their needs and
expectations. People read online content differently than printed material.

The usability study methodologies for evaluating UI versus content are fairly
similar. However, there are nuances to the methodologies that are worth
considering when the primary goal of the usability study is evaluating digital
copy.

Below are suggestions for how to get the most out of your research.

Tips for Testing Content on Websites

1. Avoid recruiting proxy users: In every usability study, you should

always aim to test your designs with representative users. However,
when testing content, your recruiting criteria should be even more
stringent. Take extra care to recruit the right participants.

Those people evaluating the information on your site should truly be

representative of your user population: they should have the same
mindset, situation, AND user goals. The flexibility you have with
recruitment depends on the use case and type of information on your
site. You may have some leeway with general e-commerce sites, but for
content-rich, research-intensive activities or for B2B websites, you
must find people who fit the exact circumstance.

In other words, the scenario that you give people should match the
current problem they need to solve. Unlike regular UI-focused studies,
content-focused studies should not ask test participants to “pretend” or
“imagine” to be in a situation. The risk of invalidating the study is much
 higher for content because the participants’ motivation is much more
important for obtaining accurate insights.

It is impossible for proxy users to instantly acquire knowledge or know

the situation well enough to assess the value of the content. For
example, people who have just been diagnosed with a serious medical
condition are more likely to relate to the content accurately than
someone who is asked to pretend to be interested about a disease.

It’s not good enough to recruit participants who generally fit the
demographic profile, such as by age, gender, income level, and location.
Such criteria are too broad to give you deep insight. General
recruitment criteria won’t cut it. You must find people who are actually
in the process of researching the information you are evaluating.

2. Be aware of the limitations of unmoderated studies: Unmoderated

studies are done without the facilitator present: Participants work on
their own. This method can be useful for getting user feedback on
narrow parts of the site such as workflow or snippets of information.
However, when trying to discover how people conduct research,
compare offerings, and make decisions, the best approach is to conduct
a moderated study, where the facilitator is present.

Content studies tend to have long stretches of time when the user is
simply scanning page after page—in silence. When left alone (such as in
an online unmoderated situation) users may feel awkward and wonder
whether they’re being helpful. Without proper feedback and
reassurance, participants often alter their behavior by approaching the
task in a more superficial manner. Task times are often shorter for
online studies than in traditional test settings. When on their own,
participants assume that the goal is to work quickly, not realistically.

Also, the facilitator can ask the user for clarifications. With
unmoderated studies, you miss opportunities to ask personalized, user-
tailored follow-up questions. Even though participants are instructed to
think out loud, they often forget to explain their actions and thoughts.

3. Give tasks that are tailored for each individual: In most traditional
usability studies, researchers follow a prepared script and give study
participants prescripted tasks to perform. For content testing minimize
your reliance on a script. Spend time at the beginning of each session to
discuss the participant’s situation and make sure the task
scenario matches their exact circumstance. It’s OK to prepare some
more generic tasks prior to the study, but be willing to modify or craft
 new ones on the spot as you learn more about the participant’s
situation, and as the session unfolds. You want to give participants the
freedom to research a topic as they please, so you uncover what’s
important and what’s not. Don’t rigidly control the activities or force an
unrealistic task. The more pertinent the tasks, the more vested people
are at completing them.

The best results occur when study participants forget about the testing
environment and immerse themselves in the activity rather than merely
going through the motions. Participants can sometimes “fake” their way
through simple pass or fail activities (e.g. Find the contact name for
Press Relations), but such is not the case for exploratory tasks where
having a scenario that precisely matches the person’s current situation
and emotional state is critical.

4. Remember, there is no right answer: Unlike well-specified tasks (e.g.,

“Find the opening hours for the Fremont public library”), open-ended
tasks don’t have a definitive answer. Open-ended tasks are meant to
assess content quality and relevance. Use this time to learn how people
explore and research, what questions they have, how they expect
information to be communicated, and whether your site meets their
needs.

Consider competitive testing: Sometimes you can get insights into your
users’ needs by allowing them to search freely on the web or by letting
them visit competitors’ sites rather than restricting them to your own
site. Don’t worry that you’re wasting precious testing time: if users are
truly representative, the insights will often be revelatory. And you can
always limit the free exploration to a small part of your session.

5. Set expectations for time allocations: Open-ended tasks have vague

end points, often leaving participants wondering how to best spend
their time. At the beginning of reach session, tell people to work at their
own pace and not to worry about the time.
6. Get comfortable with silence: Expect long stretches of quiet time
while the participant focuses on processing the information. Don’t
appear impatient. Avoid being interruptive or fidgety. Injecting too
many questions while users work breaks their concentration and alters
their behavior. If you need to ask a question mid-task, keep it neutral,
such as “What are you thinking?” or “What are you looking for?” Once
users answer, let them continue. Resist the temptation to blast
questions. Save questions for the end. When user testing is conducted
well, users behave authentically and the study generates realistic
findings.
Integrated internet Marketing
Communications (IIMC)
As search engines continue to change, so, too, must our strategies for
maintaining powerful online presences. Gone are the days where little one-off
marketing techniques made an impact. Now, the game is all about providing
the user with an all-encompassing experience online. In order to create this
experience for your website’s visitors, you need to combine a lot of digital
strategies into an “integrated digital marketing” campaign.

Integrated digital marketing is, as it sounds, the integration of multiple

marketing strategies to form a cohesive online approach for your business.
Here’s what it typically entails:

• Web development and design

• Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Local listings management
• Paid advertising (or pay-per-click advertising) campaigns

The idea behind integrated digital marketing is that, while each individual
strategy doesn’t have a huge impact on its own, when used in conjunction, you
can create a more influential online presence.

And it’s not just some passing fad. It’s pretty much the status quo when it
comes to tackling the digital realm. Of course, there are still one-off campaigns
out there, but most agencies are moving toward integrated solutions, as a
well-rounded marketing strategy provides better visibility and ROI for
businesses online.

BUZZWORD OR LEGITIMATE SERVICE?

Make no mistake—integrated digital marketing is a legitimate service

provided by digital marketing agencies. But some agencies tout it as if it’s a
unique service that you can only get from them.

The fact is that most digital marketing agencies have their own form of
integrated marketing because it’s the most effective way to build an online
presence. So don’t let the buzzworthiness of an “integrated digital marketing
plan” sway you to choose one agency over another. Because, chances are, both
of them probably offer that service. Instead, when you’re choosing an agency,
focus on what they bring to the table in terms of resources and proven
success. For more help with choosing the best firm, here’s a quick guideline on
how to avoid the wrong SEO firm.

Integrated digital marketing is most certainly the best way to build an online
presence, but don’t get caught up in how cool the term sounds—and don’t fall
under the impression that it’s a special offer at specific firms. Almost all
marketing these days, digital especially, has a great deal of integration
involved.
Objectives and Measurement of
interactive marketing communication
A company’s task is partially achieved after the creation and hosting of the
website. But with effective promotion techniques and creation of visibility, a
company is able to attract visitors to the website. However, attracting visitor
is not enough; the company needs to bring quality customers to the website.
For this internet marketing specialist develop online and offline promotion
strategies, to create differentiation and awareness.

Interactive Marketing Communications

There are several differences between traditional marketing techniques and

online marketing techniques. It is necessary for the company to evaluate these
differences . Some of them are as follows:

• Space: In traditional marketing, outdoor space for promotion is limited

and thus expensive. On the other hand digital media space is unlimited
and thus inexpensive.
• Image: In traditional advertising, company’s perception is very
important compared to the information content. On the other hand, in
digital space, information content of the campaign is of foremost
importance.
• Communication: In traditional marketing communication is one way.
However, in digital space, communication is interactive.

Integrated Internet Marketing Communications

The internet becomes more effective if it is integrated with other marketing

communications of the company. The company has many channels through
which it can communicate a clear and distinct message to its target customers.
The key characteristics of integrated communications are as follows:

• Uniformity: All communications channels should be connected with

each other.
• Consistency: All communications should be conveying the same
message.
• Continuity: All communications over a period of time should be
connected and same.
• Complementary: All communications channels should bring synergy to
the whole marketing campaign

Objective for interactive marketing communications

The interactive marketing communication should be supporting overall
marketing objectives of the company. However, the objectives of interactive
marketing communications should be as below:

• Online and offline promotion techniques should be used to attract

visitors to the website. This process is referred to as traffic building.
However, this technique should be specific, measurable, actionable,
relevant, and time-bound.
• The on-site communications should be able to deliver the message that
builds a certain perception of the company. These messages should be
relevant to the company’s product and services.
• All marketing communications should be able to generate pre-
determined online and offline sales.

Offline Promotion Techniques

The use of traditional marketing media like TV, Radio, Posters, and Print for
promotion purpose is referred to as offline promotion techniques.

The distinct advantages of offline promotion techniques are as follows:

• Offline tools like TV, Radio, and Newspaper have far more reach, as they
are used by all consumers.
• Offline tools are able to create more visual appeal, hence impact is
higher.
• Offline tools are able to create a more emotional connection using
sound, visuals etc.

The disadvantages of offline promotion techniques are as follows:

• The cost of running an offline promotion is higher due to high

competition and limited resources.
• The percentage of wastage, which is the inability to reach correct
customers, is higher in offline promotion.
• The measurability and tracking of offline promotion technique are
expensive as the company needs to have dedicated resource for the
same.
• As space and time availability is limited for offline promotion,
information has to be very concise.
• Personalization is difficult to achieve in offline promotion.
• Offline promotion is one way in nature and lacks the interactive
element.

Online Promotion Techniques

The use of the internet channel in promotion techniques is referred to as
online promotion. The online promotion is referred to as traffic building
exercise. The objective is to attract the maximum amount of visitors and
customers. Some of the tools used in online promotion techniques are as
follows:

Search Engine Marketing: the search engines are the key in directing traffic
to the website. This alone cannot be achieved through registration with the
website. A Search engine optimization technique where by using certain
selected phrases and words, the company’s website is placed higher in the
search result, needs to be utilized. Pay per click is another technique where
the company’s website is listed on typing of certain phrases.

Online PR: the management of company image in the internet world is

achieved through online PR activities. The online PR objective is to increase
favorable perception of the company on the third party website, frequented
by the customers. The online audience is more connected to organizations as
well as with each other. Hence online reputation management becomes
critical

Online Partnership: Partnership is very important in the current internet

world. Companies need to develop strategies to manage these online
partnerships. Affiliate marketing, in which e-retailers pay commission to third
parties for sales creation, is a form of online partnership.

Interactive Advertising: The online advertisement takes place when an

advertiser pays to place its content on another’s website. However, each
website can be considered as advertisement in itself, as highlights to the
customer about the company’s product and services. Interactive
advertisement should be able to deliver content for enabling e-commerce
activities.

Email Marketing: Email plays an important role in online marketing

communication campaigns. Email marketing is used to reach directly to
customers encouraging them to trial and purchase of new products and
services. Email marketing is also used to receive inquiries from customers for
any kind of support.

Viral Marketing: The usages of email to transmit promotional

communication to potential large number customers at one go by leveraging
the internet is known as viral marketing.

On-Site Promotional Techniques: through traffic building exercise, visitors are

attracted to the website; however, it becomes important to convert them into
consumers. This can be done through on-site promotion via incentives,
coupon, schemes etc.

Selecting the optimal communications mix

Companies have limited resources in terms of capital. It needs to develop

communications plan taking into consideration cost benefit analysis. Every
communication techniques have its own pro and cons. Companies needs to
evaluate and chose communications which support its overall marketing
objectives.
 Unit-3

Email Marketing
Email has become one of the most popular forms of communication. In 2010,
there were an estimated 90 trillion emails sent out worldwide. That breaks
down to 2.8 million emails sent every second. These numbers are gigantic, but
not surprising when you consider how important the mail in all forms has
been throughout history.

But as the cost of postage and printing has risen, the effectiveness of
marketing through the mail has declined. Businesses now have to pay more
while seeing smaller returns. This is exacerbated by the fact that new
communication tools provide many of the same services that standard mail
does. Although direct mail marketing has not disappeared by any means, it
has been on the decline for years.

As advertisers have shifted more and more of their efforts online, they have
tried to find ways to use the strategies developed in print advertising in new
online environments. Most of the traffic once handled by the postal service
now happens over email, creating a new method of direct marketing. Today,
the average marketer sends 64 emails to their customers every year.

Email marketing is, quite simply, using the tools of email to deliver
advertising messages. The vast majority of Internet users have email accounts
which allow them to receive an almost unlimited number of messages
instantly. According to a survey conducted by Pew Internet, 82% of U.S. adults
use the Internet, and email is one of the fastest, cheapest and easiest ways for
marketers to connect with customers.

Email is a remarkably flexible tool that can accommodate a wide range of

messages. Ads can be quite simple, or they can be flashy, multimedia
packages. The aesthetic of the ad will depend on the company and the product
for sale. Some ads are only text while others include images, video, and long
lists of links.

Email can accommodate almost any message a marketer wants to send. For
instance, [Link], a nightlife website, ran a highly successful email
marketing campaign by including large, eye catching images in the header of
the email. The images were geared toward a young male demographic and
gave the email context. They encouraged the reader to scroll down and engage
with the sales messages contained in the body of the email.
The email marketing industry has exploded over the last 15 years. In 2011,
companies spent $1.51 billion on email marketing efforts. In order to tap into
this growth, a number of companies have started to provide email marketing
services to businesses large and small. Below are some of the most popular
providers.

• iContact
• Benchmark Email
• Constant Contact
• Pinpointe
• GetResponse
• Mailgen

Email Newsletters: These are regular emails that are sent to a list of
subscribers who have chosen to receive updates from a company. Newsletters
usually don’t have explicit sales messages, but try instead to build a
relationship between a customer and a brand. They often have a
conversational tone and contain news and information that will be of interest
to the customer. The goal is to keep a customer connected to a company even
when they are not buying anything.

Transactional Emails: These are emails that are sent out after certain actions
trigger them. When a customer buys a product or makes a reservation, emails
are sent out confirming that transaction. They legitimize online commerce by
giving customers a way to prove they have bought something. Transactional
emails often also contain new sales messages. Studies have shown that
transactional emails are opened 51.3% of the time, while newsletters are only
opened 36.6% of the time. Knowing that they have a captive audience,
marketers will often try to insert new sales pitches into emails that are not
explicitly for selling. For example, airline reservation emails often ask if you
would like to upgrade your seat for a fee.

Direct Emails: These are used to inform customers about new products, sales
and special offers. They provide customers with direct information about
products and usually provide a link or another easy way for customers to
access the product. They are similar to the coupons, catalogs, and sales fliers
that used to be sent through the post office.

Email marketing is used most often by organizations with strong online

presences. Competition amongst e-commerce sites is fierce, and email
marketing is a proven way to engage with customers and differentiate your
company. Online businesses prefer to use email marketing because it makes it
easy for customers to link directly from an email to a product page.
However, email marketing isn’t used only for selling products online.
Nonprofit organizations and political campaigns make use of email to connect
with supporters and donors. They have as much to benefit from email
marketing as anyone else. It is now standard to ask for an email address when
collecting information from interested parties.

The low cost and relative ease of carrying out an email marketing campaign
means that it is a tool that is accessible to almost any business. A small
mechanic’s shop can put together an email list and then send out coupons for
oil changes or brake jobs. The scope and sophistication of these campaigns
may not be as great as larger businesses, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be
effective.

Email marketing is an inexpensive and easy way to connect with customers,

but campaigns must be carried out systematically. A poorly planned email
campaign can quickly lead to annoyed customers and disappointing sales.

The first step is to collect a comprehensive list of email addresses. The only
significant disadvantage of email marketing is that many countries have laws
against sending spam. Companies that send out unsolicited emails can face
significant fines. It is crucial to only send emails to customers who want to
receive them. It is important to make the process easy for customers to sign
up for email updates. They can also offer incentives like one time coupons to
encourage higher subscription rates.

Analyzing the emails of competing businesses can be a great way for

companies to plan their own. This can be done easily by just signing up for
their email lists. Competitor’s emails reveal what kinds of images, messages
and specials they are using to appeal to their customers. Businesses can then
tailor their email campaigns to match or beat the offers of their competitors.

Designing the look and feel of the email is an important but tricky process.
The choice of images and text must reflect the demographic that is being
marketed to. The email needs to grab the reader’s attention and draw them
into the details of the sales pitch as quickly and succinctly as possible. If the
email is confusing or boring, readers are likely to delete it before reading too
far into it. All of that effort is then wasted.

Deciding which customers receive which emails is a way to give marketing

messages relevance. Larger companies will use email to push multiple
different products, updates and offers. Matching the message to the customer
leads to higher sales and greater levels of customer satisfaction. Email
marketing software makes it easy for companies to segment their email
delivery based on criteria that they establish.
After an email campaign is sent out, it will be important to track and evaluate
the success of that campaign. Pre-established metrics should be used to
determine success or failure. If a campaign is not performing well, marketers
can change the design of the ads, the products being emphasized, or the deals
being offered. The flexibility of email makes it easy to implement changes
quickly and inexpensively.
Opt-in-email Marketing
Opt-in email is a term used when someone is given the option to receive
email. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising.
Without obtaining permission before sending email, the email is unsolicited
bulk email, better known as spam.

There are several common forms of opt-in email:

Unconfirmed opt-in / Single opt-in

Someone first gives an email address to the list software (for instance, on a
Web page), but no steps are taken to make sure that this address belongs to
the person submitting it. This can cause email from the mailing list to be
considered spam because simple typos of the email address can cause the
email to be sent to someone else. Malicious subscriptions are also possible, as
are subscriptions that are due to spammers forging email addresses that are
sent to the email address used to subscribe to the mailing list.

Confirmed opt-in (COI) / Double opt-in (DOI)

A new subscriber asks to be subscribed to the mailing list, but unlike

unconfirmed or single opt-in, a confirmation email is sent to verify it was
really them. Generally, unless the explicit step is taken to verify the end-
subscriber’s e-mail address, such as clicking a special web link or sending
back a reply email, it is difficult to establish that the e-mail address in question
indeed belongs to the person who submitted the request to receive the e-mail.
Using a confirmed opt-in (COI) (also known as a Double opt-in) procedure
helps to ensure that a third party is not able to subscribe someone else
accidentally, or out of malice, since if no action is taken on the part of the e-
mail recipient, they will simply no longer receive any messages from the list
operator. Mail system administrators and non-spam mailing list operators
refer to this as confirmed subscription or closed-loop opt-in. Some marketers
call closed-loop opt-in “double opt-in”. This term was coined by marketers in
the late 90s to differentiate it from what they call “single opt-in”, where a new
subscriber to an email list gets a confirmation email telling them they will
begin to receive emails if they take no action. Some marketers contend that
“double opt-in” is like asking for permission twice and that it constitutes
unnecessary interference with someone who has already said they want to
hear from the marketer. However, it does drastically reduce the likelihood of
someone being signed up to an email list by another person.

The US CANSPAM Act of 2003 does not require an opt-in approach, only an
easy opt-out system. But opt-in is required by law in many European
countries and elsewhere. It turns out that confirmed opt-in is the only way
that you can prove that a person actually opted in, if challenged legally.

Opt-out

Instead of giving people the option to be put in the list, they are automatically
put in and then have the option to request to be taken out. This approach is
illegal in the European Union and many other jurisdictions.

Address Authentication

Email address authentication is a technique for validating that a person

claiming to possess a particular email address actually does so. This is
normally done by sending an email containing a token to the address, and
requiring that the party being authenticated supply that token before the
authentication proceeds. The email containing the token is usually worded so
as to explain the situation to the recipient and discourage them from
supplying the token (often via visiting a URL) unless they in fact were
attempting to authenticate.

For example, suppose that one party, Alice, operates a website on which
visitors can make accounts to participate or gain access to content. Another
party, Bob, comes to that website and creates an account. Bob supplies an
email address at which he can be contacted, but Alice does not yet know that
Bob is being truthful (consciously or not) about the address. Alice sends a
token to Bob’s email address for an authentication request, asking Bob to click
on a particular URL if and only if the recipient of the mail was making an
account on Alice’s website. Bob receives the mail and clicks the URL,
demonstrating to Alice that he controls the email address he claimed to have.
If instead a hostile party, Chuck, were to visit Alice’s website attempting to
masquerade as Bob, he would be unable to complete the account registration
process because the confirmation would be sent to Bob’s email address, to
which Chuck does not have access. Wikipedia uses this mechanism too.

Best practice

The step of email address verification (confirmation) is considered by many

anti-spam advocates to be the minimum degree necessary for any opt-in email
advertising or other ongoing email communication.
Online PR
Public relation in an online world means the way the things are promoted
through internet throughout the world. Public relation is a kind of a bridge
between the organization and customer and when it is connected to online
world it means that the public relation person is telling the policies of
company or organization online using internet on some particular website
and promoting the products throughout the worldwide. Thus PR is an integral
part of company’s marketing strategy.

Public relation practitioner is the person or department which promotes the

positive image of their respective company or organization. Public relation
department deals with the people in such a way that they have to build the
positive image of their product that it’s the best one and they will not be able
to find the better product in society.

Social media has revolutionized everything and has evolved new thinking
patterns and awareness among the general public and because of this new
trends to market products and to sale them have emerged. In terms of public
relations social media has heralded a new and golden age of communication
management. Also the act of public communication has also become easier
and now they can communicate about a brand more easily also the concept of
ratings of a brand and public views on their sites can be posted enabling
direct feedback and if the feedback is positive then only more people will buy
products of that certain company.

The two way nature of online communication has spawned a reality in which
brands negotiate their public image with daily consumers.
Nowadays public relation departments have come to the online world as
people are getting more concerned about the things that are on internet.
Online world requires the interactive communication so that the customer are
satisfied and persuaded by the image set by of Public relation department.

The use of Internet is getting common and the social networking sites are
getting more popular. So the organizations or companies and even brands
have created their websites and made pages on social networking sites like
Facebook and twitter so that they remain in the race of getting popular in
online world or social media.

Public relation person or department makes the company’s websites

interactive and promote their products in such a way that the audience finds
all the benefits and advantages of the product or organization and think that
this is the best organization or brand to grab the product or do work.
The examples of public relation in online world can be clearly of the facebook
pages that how the brands and organizations are promoting their name and
once the people like their page they get the updates of the respective company
or product on their newsfeed on daily basis that helps the brand or
organization in increasing their business. The role of Public relation
department in such type of online world can be judged when any person
comment or ask something about their product or organization the public
relation person has to answer that in such a convincing way that the other
person gets satisfied.

All the advantages of the organization, company or the product are on their
websites and nowadays people have started rating companies and if a
company does not have an active website or the Facebook page of that
company has less ‘likes’ then people are less likely to buy products of that
company. Further advantages of online PR are:

Immediacy: The response in social media is measured in minutes so a PR

person has to be actively engaged to the online profile of his company before
other companies grab the narrative.

Direct engagement: Social media demands an online engagement where the

PR person has to be answerable to the public in an honest and open manner.

Transparency: This means that everything is open on social media so the PR

person has to be very careful in building a positive image of the company in
the online world as there is no room for falsification.

Reach: This is the greatest benefit of the online world as it allows promoting
and managing the brand on a global scale with minimum expenditure.
Secondly through this the company can easily target the most discrete
audience.

Another example can be of online shopping. The concept of online shopping is

increasing nowadays and in the promotion of that the public relation
department is putting up the great role as it is difficult to satisfy the customer
especially when he is exposed to the pictures of the products offered by that
company and details about it. Online shopping websites require the strong
public relation department so that they are able to persuade the customer to
buy the product online and make them believe that the product they will be
buying will be up to the mark and will stand on their expectations. This is also
done by giving a yearly warranty or exchange offer of that product so that it
satisfies the customer.

The public relation person gives the general and controlled opinion to build
the positive image of that specific firm in front of the public and among the
people in that organization. Public relation department only tells the
advantages and benefits of the products but they should also keep in mind
that the things should not be exaggerated that much because it will portray a
negative image of that organization.

Online PR has created a number of opportunities by grouping like-minded

people. But it has also given the option to its large audience to criticize a
specific media company on its own media platform. Now the content on the
site of a company lasts longer so creative and compelling content should be
written on the site. The content quality should be high that it buys a credible
audience. Online presence in terms of social media is challenging so the online
PR manager should keep an eye to negative feedback. As online PR activities
are mostly geared to influencing media and audiences these include forums,
search engines, blogs and other communication tools.

SEO/PR is an innovative approach used in online PR as it combines public

relations with search engine optimization generating more publicity through
crafting online press releases. Through this there will be an increase in the
online rating of a company’s site and this will eventually lead to increased
sales.

Principles of PR in an online world

The following are some principles of public relations in an online world

Face up to crisis

The companies who indulge in crisis should accept their faults , write a sorry
note for customers in their online profile and should also promise their
customers that that mistake would never be repeated by the company in
future.

Think creatively:

Thinking creatively is very crucial for online PR. The online site of a company
should consist of videos, pictures , games , discount offers to make it more
engaging and intriguing so that more people are likely to buy products of that
company.

A tactful PR strategy:

In order to create a positive online image of a company a very planned and

systematic PR strategy should be used which includes pacing up with the
internet , sensitively answering the questions of clients and creative
interactions with the customers.
Identify customers

In an online world the PR person has to identify real clients of the company
and influence them.

Monitoring

While managing PR of a company in a virtual world the PR department has to

monitor online conversations, glean insights etc.

Build a web strategy

Tools should be utilized to make an effective online strategy.

Track results

Some of essential online PR tools are

1. Social media platforms

2. Search marketing
3. Social media release
4. Online surveys
5. Email

As online PR is associated with improving results from digital marketing

communication techniques in particular social media so it is a very cost
ineffective technique for making people aware but it requires a lot of hard
work.

Tactics for online PR are:

Influencer marketing
Online PR analytics
Online PR outreach
Online PR strategy
Real time marketing
Reputation management

Some ways of reviewing online PR options is through 4 types of strategy.

1. Attracting visitors through search

2. Engagement and dialogue
3. Building campaign buzz
4. Defensive crisis
Importance of online PR:

Internet has a great influence on the public opinion, especially when they are
not certain. For instance a boy gets acne on his face and he doesn’t know
which cream to use . He will take into consideration a lot of factors e.g price,
other people’s opinion and most of all his decision will be greatly influenced
by the information of the product available on the internet.

Challenges of online PR:

Internet has dramatically changed the process of communication. Internet has

opened up a number of opportunities and challenged, specifically for the PR
sector which masters communication through traditional means. While PR
specialists virtually had no competition in the era of the traditional media, the
democracy of the Internet has forced them to compete with the entire world.
Interactive Advertising
Interactive advertising refers to promotional techniques that include an
element of feedback from those to whom the advertisements are directed.
This feedback gives the advertiser analytical data that can be used to improve
the advertising methods being employed. Interactive advertising is usually
used to refer to online advertising, but can also be applied to offline
advertising methods such as consumer surveys.

Although interactive advertising in now generally considered common

sence, it was a groundbreaking idea when Internet analytics first started being
used with any rigor. By tweaking ad approaches, colors and content, and
soliciting feedback from the target segments, advertisers have given potential
customers the opportunity to interact with companies and their advertising,
rather than simply being pitched to. Of course, this overt feedback is usually
given less weight than the analytical data that tracks how changes in an ad
affect its performance.

Interactive advertising goes beyond simple banners and clickthroughs, using

social media, branded polls and games, and many other approaches to engage
the target audience.
Online Partnerships
If you build a Web site and no one visits, does it still exist?

Much like trees falling in the forest, unvisited Web sites may or may not be
making noise — but it doesn’t much matter, because no one’s there to hear
them.

Once you recognize this, you’ll see that online marketing is just as important
to the success of a Web site as the site’s design, technical features, and server
speed.

It’s not enough to bring your store online and then just wait for the customers
to come rolling in. You’ve got to take an active — and ongoing — role in
acquiring those potential customers, by making sure they know about your
site and by encouraging them to visit. One of the best ways to do that is to
build partnerships with other, related sites on the Web.

Content Partnerships

Content-sharing partnerships can increase your visibility and get your content
in front of more people. And, you may be able to augment the content on your
own site, providing a richer experience for your own visitors and customers.

For example, if you’re selling bicycles online, why not form a partnership with
an online retailer of bike clothing? You could sell their bike shorts along with
your mountain bikes, or vice versa. An online travel agent specializing in bike
tours would be another good choice for a content/product partnership, as
would a site offering books and magazines on biking. If you want to add
interesting, current content on biking to your own site, find an online biking
magazine and partner with them: Their content can augment your site, and
you can sell bikes through their site, sharing a percentage of the revenue with
them.

One advantage of a content partnership, in addition to increased exposure, is

that your site will look bigger to visitors. Providing a rich online experience is
an important part of Internet retailing, and if you can’t immediately fill up
your store with thousands of items and thousands of pages of content, one
way to provide that experience is by “borrowing” products and content from
your partners.

Done properly, partnerships like this will increase traffic on both sites. It’s
sort of like buying banner ads, except that costs are minimal, and content
partnerships are generally bi-directional: each site points to the other. Also,
you get to share space in the desirable “content” portion of your partner’s site,
rather than the oft-ignored banner ad spaces at the tops and bottoms of their
pages.

Link exchanges and search engines

Of course, you don’t have to go as far as sharing content and catalog listings
with your partner sites. Simple link exchanges and “webrings” have long been
used among related sites to mutually boost their Web traffic. Link exchanges
between related sites help attract customers who are simply browsing,
following one interesting link after another. They also help snag those who
are searching for something in particular. A potential customer may find one
of your partner sites through a search engine, then follow a link to your own
site.

A webring is simply a more organized form of link exchange, where a group of

related sites band together and organize the links among themselves so that
visitors can click from one to the next, eventually (if they’re patient enough)
following an unbroken chain of links that encompasses the whole set of sites.

Of course, registering your site with the big search engines is an essential
component of an online marketing strategy. Most savvy Internet users first
turn to search engines when they’re looking for something. It’s important that
your site show up near the top of the list when someone enters a relevant
query.

A more sophisticated kind of partnership is possible with search engines, as

well. For instance, if you enter a search for a book or author on Yahoo, you’ll
see — in addition to the usual list of search results — a small box promising a
list of related books at [Link]. Similarly, if you enter a search for a
musical group, a box appears offering to sell you albums at CDNow.

Excite has partnerships with various retailers, who get top billing in Excite’s
Shopping channel. If you’re a big enough site, similar partnerships are
possible with Yahoo, Excite, and other search engines — and it may be well
worth your while to pursue these kinds of relationships, given how critical
search engines are to Web surfers.

Online marketing opportunities abound, and it’s essential that you take
advantage of them with a strategic marketing plan. Otherwise, no matter how
beautiful or technically advanced it is, your site will be playing to an empty
house.
Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing is any marketing technique that induces websites or users to
pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially
exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect. A popular example of
successful viral marketing is Hotmail, a company now owned by Microsoft,
that promoted its services and its own advertisers’ messages in every user’s
email notes.

Types of viral marketing techniques

There are three criteria for basic viral marketing; the messenger, the message
and the environment. All three must be effectively executed in order for a viral
message to be successful.

Some techniques for effective marketing include targeting the appropriate

audience and channels, creating videos, offering a valuable service or product
for free, creating an emotional appeal, social outreach and enabling easy
sharing and downloading.

Who uses it

Viral marketing can be effective as a stand-alone tool or as part of a larger

marketing campaign. It can be used by both large and small companies, but
can be especially attractive to smaller business, as it can be more cost-
effective than traditional marketing efforts.

Viral marketing has been used by energy drink companies, movies and even
political campaigns to generate marketing buzz.

Viral marketing is the goal of many companies looking to leverage the social
media space to promote their products. Defined as piece of content generated
by a person or business that inspires consumers to eagerly share it with their
expanded social circle, viral marketing can help build brand recognition
instantly — but is easier said than done.

Instant Awareness

Viral marketing can be important in launching a new product by getting your

brand in front of a large potential market quickly. A YouTube video costs a
fraction as much as a TV commercial, but if it inspires people to share your
message it can have a major impact on brand recognition. Kraft, for example,
used viral marketing to successfully launch its MiO brand of liquid water
enhancer. Twitter and Facebook are among the other social media tools that
allow users to share content, and are useful in attracting attention.

Make It Easy

A viral campaign isn’t the place to tell your audience every single detail of
your product or service, even if it’s their first exposure to what you’re selling.
Instead, it should generate a reaction quickly and easily, such as laughter,
surprise or shock. If you already have a strong online presence, seed it with
your biggest fans first to get them to spread the word for you. It’s not an ideal
marketing strategy to just post your product’s viral marketing video on
YouTube and hope for the best. Consider placing ads linking to the video on
search engines, with the ads appearing when users search terms relating to
your product, such as “stain removal” for a dry-cleaning service.

Get Their Attention

Companies can be tempted to make the new product’s attributes the

centerpiece of a viral marketing effort, but if that’s the star of the show it
usually falls flat. Before you design your campaign, assess what causes you to
click on a video or forward a link, and ask those in your company or social
circle with experience in social media for their thoughts. Would you click on a
video because it promised to be the best tongue cleaner on the market?
Probably not. But Orabrush found success with viral marketing by making the
star of the show a giant human tongue that did things like compete against
little league football players on YouTube.

Measuring Effectiveness

It’s important to build in metrics to let you know if your campaign is going
viral, and if it’s having the desired effect on brand awareness. Views, likes, re-
tweets and other basic measures are a start, but find ways to expand that to
something more meaningful to your campaign goals. Perhaps offer a free
sample of your product as part of the campaign, and measure how many fill
out the form to request the free sample. Or have the clicks take users to a
landing page on your own site and measure how many engage there as well.

Control Factor

The biggest risk isn’t the possibility that a campaign will fall flat, but the loss
of control that a viral marketing campaign necessitates. When customers pass
along your viral marketing efforts, they do so on their terms, not yours. You
might turn off customers as well as win them — but you also may find your
users see selling points that you never thought of.
Blogs Promotion Tool
Blog marketing is the process of reaching your home business’ target market
through the use of a blog. Initially, business owners had a blog separate from
their websites, but today, you can easily integrate the two to make it easier for
you to manage, as well as easier for visitors to access. Many business owners
use a blogging platform, such as WordPress, for both their site and blog.
Further, as blogging has grown in ease and popularity, many people have
created businesses from blogging all on its own (as opposed to having a
business first and then blogging).

The Pros of Blog Marketing

The very nature of blogging makes them ideal for marketing since they
provide new content to draw people back, and offer a way for consumers and
businesses to interact. Here are a few other benefits:

1. Inexpensive to Start and Run. While there are free blogging platforms,
such as Blogger and [Link], to maintain a professional
appearance that allows for your unique brand to shine through, use a
self-hosted option, such as [Link]. For the cost of a domain and
web hosting, you can have a customized blog marketing for you.
2. Easy to Use. Most blogging platforms are simple to use. If you can copy,
paste, type, drag & drop and upload, you can have a professional
looking blog.
3. An Effective Way to have Bi-directional Traffic Come to Your
Site. Offering tips, updates, and other new contents give people a
reason to come and/or return to your business website, which gives
them the opportunity to buy.
4. Improves Search Engine Ranking. Google, in particular, likes to find
and rank new content, and many entrepreneurs use blogging
specifically for search engine optimization (SEO)
5. Allows You to Show Your Expertise to Gain Trust and Credibility
with Your Market. People like to know who they’re doing business
with. With a blog, you can prove you’re an expert, provide helpful tips
and other valuable information, all of which help consumers feel good
about spending money on your product or service.
6. Connect with Your Market. While most businesses now use Twitter
and other social platforms more than blogs for engagement, blogs can
allow you to have a conversation with your market. This gives you the
opportunity to build trust and rapport, as well as get feedback and
provide customer service.
 7. It Can Make Money Beyond Your Product or Service. You can accept
advertising, promote affiliate products and get sponsors,
adding additional sources of revenue to your business.

The Cons of Blog Marketing

Like just everything else in life, there is a downside to blogging, including:

1. Time-Consuming. Creating new content and updating your blog can

take a significant amount of time. Hiring freelance writers and a virtual
assistant, or using private label right content can help.
2. Needs a Constant Stream of Ideas. Along with time, having something
new blog about is one of the biggest challenges bloggers face.
3. It Can Take Time to See Results. The Internet is overloaded with
information, so getting people to your blog takes time.
4. It Needs to Be Marketed Too. You’re using the blog to market your
business, but for it to work, people need to know about it, which means
you have to find your target market and entice them to your blog.

How to Do Blog Marketing

Starting a blog and using it to promote your business can be set up within
minutes. It’s the ongoing management and marketing that will take time.

1. Make a Blog Marketing Plan. What are you going to share on your
blog? News, tips, resources, etc? Further, how often will you update
your blog? Daily, weekly, etc?
2. Create Your Blog. Decide on your blogging platform, and set it up,
including customization that fits your business. Be sure to use the same
logo on your blog as on your website (if you have a separate website) to
retain consistency. If you use a free blog platform (not recommended
for business blogging), have a domain name pointing to the blog to
make it easier for consumers to get to your site.
3. Fill Your Blog with Several Posts ASAP. Readers don’t like to visit a
blog with only one or two posts. Add ten or more posts quickly, and
then go to your regular post schedule.
4. Market Your Blog. It’s very easy to integrate social media into your
blogs so that your blog posts go out to your followers. Include your blog
on your marketing materials as well.
5. Reply to Comments. Remember, blogs are social, so people will ask
questions, provide feedback, or share their opinion. Delete spam posts.
6. Use Your Blog to Encourage Email Signups. Signups is another great
way to keep people who are interested in your business coming back to
your blog, which again, gives them more opportunity to spend money
with you.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of gaining market online by
purchasing Ads on search engines, say Google, Yahoo, or Bing. SEM involves
the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in Search Engine
Result Page (SERP).

Search Engines

The search engines use algorithms to provide the most relevant results to
every user. For producing best suggestions to the users’ queries, they consider
not only the search keywords entered by users but also users’ location, type of
device and operating system they are working on, users’ preferences, and
their identities.

The better the search algorithm is, the happier the user is with its results.

Search Marketing Approaches

Search marketing works with two approaches −

• Earning traffic through unpaid or free search listings (SEO Methods)

• Buying traffic through paid search listings (PPC Ads)

In the first type of search marketing where advertisers earn traffic through
unpaid listings, there are two popular methods − organic and non-
organicsearch.

Organic SEO Non-organic SEO

It takes more time to create as more concentrated towards content
creation, building hyperlinks, meta-tag optimization, keyword It is speedy.
enhancement, etc.
It yields late effect. It brings immediate effect.
It focuses on long term results. It focuses on short term results.
It is inexpensive. It is very expensive.
They can get affected
They cannot be affected financially.
financially.
Once the design of the website and its content is good, it requires
It required high degree of
less management.
management.
Inorganic search is Black Hat
Organic SEO is called White Hat search tactic.
search tactic.
How to Get Organic Results

Organic results can be achieved by Search Engine Optimization. You need to

invest time and expertise in creating an appealing yet efficient website that
can work to build long lasting trust in your business.

You need to build your business website according to SEO techniques which
use White Hat Tactics for rank improvement. The SEO techniques are
described in chapter SEO Friendly Website.

How to Get Inorganic Results

They can be improved in two ways:

• Improving your quality score

• your bids for keywords and Ads

Inorganic results are instantly reflected. Here is a checklist for inorganic

search optimization:

• Mine keywords properly. Group them into relevant themes.

• Use correct match types. Estimate bid on all match types. Choose the
benefiting one.
• Keep testing your Ad copies and landing pages.
• Strive constantly to improve CTR.
• Aim for higher quality score.
• Target relevant locations. Only look for the places that seem to give you
business.
• Run search query report. Filter prominent keywords. Bid higher on
most searched keyword.
• Bid your keywords accordingly. Calculate and strategize methods to
achieve ROI.

Organic versus Inorganic Search – Which is Better?

It is better and safer to start with Organic SEO in case of small business
because it requires low-cost investment. In addition, it builds your internet
presence gradually and creates a solid foundation for your business. It is
found that the organic search results are very much likely to get attention of
the viewers.

Inorganic SEO is good for customer targeting. For example, PPC advertising.
While opting for this, you need to make sure you are investing in the
appropriate advertise. You need huge funds to hire a management or your
own dedicated expertise, which can take care of your paid searches.

Though organic and inorganic results are independent of each other’s

performance, yet you need to perform well in both to boost up your business.
Paid Ads boost your business and website ranking. Organic results marks
trust on your business.

Steps Involved in Search Engine Marketing

These are the general steps involved in search engine marketing −

Step 1 − Define Effective Strategy

• Define your target audience.

• Identify their needs and motivations.
• Highlight how your product is best to serve their needs.
• Review your business position in the marketplace.
• Identify your competitors.
• Identify your specific goals and benchmarks, such as search ranking,
sales, website traffic, and other ROI metrics.

Step 2 − Choose Right Keywords

• Select most important phrases relevant to your business.

• Also select the phrases that are frequently searched by your target
customers.
• Conduct brainstorm sessions for potential terms your customers use
when thinking about your products and capabilities.
• Interact with your sales and customer service teams, and best
customers to know the frequently used phrases.
• Employ a keyword research tools to compile a list of highly searched
terms.

Step 3 − Optimize Your Website Content

• Focus on your website structure. Keep it simple.

• The search engines looks for the underlying code of your website when
they visit your website.
• Create crisp, clear, and correct content that can retain users’ attention.
• Use your keyword phrases relevantly in pages title tags, heading tags,
directory names, file names, alt tags and meta tags.
 • Pay attention to meta description. It is shown in the search results
below your link, providing a great opportunity for you to bring visitors
to your Website.

Step 4 − Submit Your Website for Indexing

To be visible online to the customers, ensure that all the pages of your website
are completely indexed by the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

For speedy process of getting indexed by the other engines, submit your
website to the [Link], an Open Directory Project. Once DMOZ accepts your
website, Yahoo and other search engines have no problem indexing your
website.

Step 5 − Add Quality Links to Your Website

• Build links to your website from valued links of other websites that are
frequented by your targeted visitors.
• The more quality inbound links you have, the more popular your
website is with Google and other engines.
• Make your website content is link-worthy. Create interesting and
informative content on your website such as a library of best practices
articles, blog trends in your industry, etc.
• You can also garner links from vendors, customers, business partners,
and trade associations.
• Distribute press releases and articles online.

Step 6 − Manage Paid Search Advertise

• Bid on the most relevant keywords. Do not pick them based on only
popularity.
• Make sure your product offer is interesting to the potential customer.
• Tie the bidding strategy to business results. In many cases a lower Ad
position will produce a higher ROI.
• Finally, include a compelling ‘call to action’ in the Ad and send traffic to
a relevant landing page tied to the Ad.

Step 7 − Measure Success of Advertise

• Check how well you performed in the past.

• Measure CPC, CPR, Clicks, Bounce rate, Impressions, ROI, etc.
• Employ Web Analytics to monitor progress and problems.
• Monitor your position regularly in the search results.
• Identify problems and plan strategies to improve your results in the
future.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is short for search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is a
methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount
of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search
results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo and
other search engines.

Optimizing Visibility in Search Engines

It is common practice for Internet search users to not click through pages and
pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search results page is
essential for directing more traffic toward the site. The higher a website
naturally ranks in organic results of a search, the greater the chance that that
site will be visited by a user.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves
the chances that the site will be found by the search engine. SEO is typically a
set of “white hat” best practices that webmasters and Web content producers
follow to help them achieve a better ranking in search engine results.

Optimizing Organic Search CTR

SEO is also about making your search engine result relevant to the user’s
search query so more people click the result when it is shown in search. In
this process, snippets of text and meta data are optimized to ensure your
snippet of information is appealing in the context of the search query to
obtain a high CTR (click through rate) from search results.

SEO may also be called search engine optimizer when using automated tools to
assist with the optimization process.
Website Optimization
Also called search engine optimization (SEO), website optimization is a
phrase that describes the procedures used to optimize – or to design from
scratch – a website to rank well in search engines. Website optimization
includes processes such as adding relevant keyword and phrases on the
website, editing meta tags, image tags, and optimizing other components of
your website to ensure that it is accessible to a search engine and improve the
overall chances that the website will be indexed by search engines.

A phrase used to describe the procedures to optimize the speed at which your
website loads in a Web browser. This type of optimization generally involves
editing your website to optimize scripts, HTML or CSS code for faster loading.
It’s also reduces the number of components such as images, scripts, or video
components that are needed to render the webpage.
Content Marketing
Advertising uses the content to describe the business, brand, and business
reputation. The content can be in various forms such as news, webpages,
videos, white papers, infographics, podcasts, blogs, case studies, and
photographs.

Content is what is sold or accessed on the Internet. Content developers create

the content to provide the information to the viewers. It can be in the form of
text, graphics, and animation.

Content marketing refers to the approach of creating and sharing of

informative, relevant, valuable, and consistent content to convert a group of
audience into customers and retain them. Content marketing is non-
interruptive way of marketing.

Good content helps customers become more knowledgeable about the

product or service and make better buying judgment.

Goals of Content Marketing

The goals of content marketing are as follows:

• Brand Awareness: It marks the presence of your brand.

• Sale: It boosts lead generation at quicker pace.
• Customer-Vendor Relationship Building: It helps in creating
engagement between buyer and the company.
• Customer Retention: Pleasing content attracts customers and helps
one in retaining him.

Types Of Content

Let us see what each type of content gives −

News

They contain news about new product release, updates on products, etc. For
example, news of releasing new mobile handset on website of NDTV gadgets.

Webpages

SEO webpages can hold the content in the best possible way and sell the
content.
Videos

They say, video is the second best thing to pursue a viewer in person. Creating
crisp and compact videos can bring good market at doorstep. Promote your
business videos across multiple channels, and ensure that your videos are
optimized for mobile viewing, as an increasing number of users view them
from their mobile devices.

Infographics

These are long, vertical graphics or columns that include graphs, charts,
statistics, and other information. Infographics makes use of the fact that 90%
information transmitted to human brain is visual, which makes people
perceive it faster than text.

Podcasts

They are digital files available in the form of episodes, which can be
downloaded on the PC. They can come in various formats such as audio, video,
e-Pub, and pdf. It allows people to subscribe and it can prove as a powerful
medium to communicate a range of ideas, products, and information to
audience. The businesses engaged in podcasting are − IBM, Oracle, Yarn Craft,
etc.

Blogs

Business blogs deliver excellent content marketing. Blogs are required for a
business to survive in the race of content marketing.

Case Studies

Case studies are detailed studies pertaining to a particular problem, action,

individual, organization, event, or action, existing at a specific place at a given
time. They encourage content marketing to build trust in the product and in
turn business.

Photographs

A picture speaks a thousand words. Pleasant and relevant pictures can stand
as a good content for content marketing and boosts the business.
 Unit-4

Social Media Marketing

Social media is the term commonly given to Internet and mobile-based channels
and tools that allow users to interact with each other and share opinions and
content. As the name implies, social media involves the building of communities
or networks and encouraging participation and engagement.

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically
different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let
people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is
a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos,
joining events and a variety of other activities.

How Are Search & Social Media Marketing Related?

Why would a search marketer — or a site about search engines — care about
social media? The two are very closely related.

Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news
stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also help build
links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people also perform searches
at social media sites to find social media content. Social connections may also
impact the relevancy of some search results, either within a social media
network or at a ‘mainstream’ search engine.

Social Media Marketing At Marketing Land

Marketing Land is the sister site to Search Engine Land that covers all facets of
internet marketing, including these popular topics within social media
marketing:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Linkedin
• YouTube

Social media marketing can help with a number of goals, such as:

• Increasing website traffic

• Building conversions
• Raising brand awareness
• Creating a brand identity and positive brand association
• Improving communication and interaction with key audiences
Designing Content for Social Media
Marketing
Social media networks support multiple content formats and there has been
rapid growth in the use of interactive formats, for example, carousel ads on
Facebook. This flexibility of format (text, image, multi-image, video, carousel
etc.) gives marketers the ability to experiment with different types of content
to gauge how best to attract and engage social users.

If people are the heartbeat of social media, content is the blood. It’s your
content that people see and respond to, and that communicates your values
and messages.

But what content works? How do you plan what to talk about, on which
platforms and in what formats?

Producing and sharing content is no guarantee of success. Smart content

marketers understand the need to align social with other channels to ensure
there is a consistent style of communication with customers and the stories
they are telling, and that is driven by a clear plan rather than scrabbling each
week to find something to share.

Why is it important to get your content right for social media?

Social media is most often used for personal reasons to connect with friends
and family, or to be part of conversations that align with your personal
interests and passions.

If you serve content to people with this mindset that isn’t appropriate,
relevant or useful, it can have the effect of turning people off and driving them
away. Similarly, if you blast people with a constant stream of content, it can be
overwhelming and come across like a shouting match.

You need to take the time to learn what people want to read/watch and make
it digestible via the formats and channels they find most useful.

Why you need an over arching comms & content plan

Start with a clear comms and content plan that is aligned with business goals.
This isn’t social specific; it should govern how you communicate with
customers across all channels. Social can then inherit this plan and adapt it to
suit social networks.
For example, you may have a campaign launching a new detailed guide and
social is used to seed snippets from the guide over X weeks with a hook to
download the full content. So the overarching plan guides what is being talked
about and when, then the social media plan decides how to tell the story to a
social audience based on content format, style and execution.

Before you start posting content, you need to answer the following questions:

1. What are we trying to achieve on social media and how does this align
with core business goals/objectives/targets?
2. What stories do we want to tell and how can we make them relevant to
our social audience?
3. What is our social customer profile and what types of content to they
respond best to
4. What’s the current state of the market – how do competitors and
comparators perform socially and what content works for them?
5. Who needs to be involved in content production and marketing?
6. How will we measure the success of social content?
7. How will we optimise and improve what we’re doing?

Competitor analysis for social content

Imitation is flattery.

By this, I don’t mean copy what your competitors are doing, but if you are
fighting for mindshare amongst a similar audience, it pays to know what
content that audience currently consumes and responds to. You can then
factor in popular topics and content formats into your social content plan.

By knowing what competitors are doing, you can also quickly identify content
gaps:

1. What topics aren’t they covering?

2. Which topics are they covering poorly, with low-quality content?
3. Which topics are they covering but not comprehensively, so there’s an
opportunity to establish a niche foothold?

Originality is inspiring.

We decided to create inspiring content through other people. We ran a series

of inspirational events featuring speakers who had a success story to tell, to
demonstrate that success is unique to each of us and what makes each person
successful varies but people who achieve have some things in common e.g.
drive and ambition.
This helped generate unique content that drove social engagement:

• Announcements of new free events at our London base (with Eventbrite

registration)
• Announcements for new speakers and a profile (amplified by them
sharing with their personal networks)
• Live tweeting to share quotes and insights from the speakers, via the
hashtag #shedevents
• Post-event write-ups and photos for visual content
• Quotes from the speakers for short social posts
• Post event interviews with some of the speakers around topics related
to inspiration.

Creating a social media content marketing calendar

Keep this simple. Work on a quarterly basis and build out the content plan
month-by-month aligned with your overall content calendar.

You should have a set of stories that need to be told, then break down for each
month which story components are the focus and the content formats and
social channels that will be used to distribute the messages.

Optimising content for a social audience

Businesses produce a lot of content; don’t restrict your social channels to

content the social team produces. Think laterally.

For example, customer service teams create a lot of helpful content for users,
answering FAQs and enquiries. They often add to the business knowledge
base, and this information can be really helpful to social customers e.g. care
instructions for a product. However, the content may not always be in a
format and style that’s suitable for a social audience, so you can take the raw
content and repurpose for your social channels.

Let’s use the example of care instructions. You could turn this into ‘Tip of the
day’ for Twitter, using short-form, take-away advice that can link to more
detailed content on your website.

Creating regular hooks

Find a content format that can be used to create regular posts that encourage
people to come back for more.

ncreasing content reach

You want the biggest reach possible (amongst relevant audiences) so that you
optimise your investment. This means finding ways to encourage other social
users to share your content with their wider network. Below I look at 3
techniques to enable this:

Scarcity

You’ve got something but there isn’t much left and people have to hurry to get
it. Scarcity is often a marketing veil but if used well can drive social activity. A
good example is popular events where tickets sell out quickly – publicising the
ticket launch date well in advance drums up interest.

Uniqueness

If you offer something that people can’t get anywhere else, and it’s relevant to
them, you stand a good chance of getting their attention and increasing
engagement with your social content.

Amplification

Find influencers who have their own engaged audience (don’t just think
‘people with millions of followers’, the followers need to actually listen to
what they’re saying). Come up with a value proposition for them that
encourages them to listen to what you’re posting and then share your content.

Test, measure and learn

How do you know what content works in social media?

Even without web analytics or social media analytics, you can very quickly
look at engagement metrics for individual posts e.g. likes on Facebook, RT on
Twitter.

However, to know how content contributes to your digital KPIs and ROI, then
you need to ensure you’re measuring a much wider set of metrics. A few tips:

• Add campaign tracking to all posted links (using a consistent tracking

taxonomy)
• Use social reports in web analytics to monitor social sessions and
conversions
• Use referral reports to compare social domains to other domains for
referral traffic
• Use landing page reports and then apply social segments to gauge social
impact for key content pages
You should also use social network specific analytics to explore the impact of
your content. For example, on Twitter you can compare month-on-month for
total engagement and drill down into tweets with the most impressions and
engagement.

Make sure you define the KPIs you will measure success against and then
ensure reports are set-up to provide the data for analysis. Don’t go into the
analytics tools with no idea what you want to measure – you’ll waste a lot of
time!

Useful tools

It helps to use a toolkit to coordinate and automate social content marketing.

That doesn’t mean remove the human element and personalisation, it simply
means use tools to help you get your messages out there efficiently, for
example queuing Tweets to be sent at times that are most likely to get
engagement from your followers.

There are lots of free and paid tools out there. Below is a small list of ones I
find really useful:

Hootsuite/Tweetdeck
Social media aggregation platforms to help you coordinate your streams,
schedule updates to multiple platforms and monitor keywords/hashtags to
see what content other people are posting/responding to.

Buffer
A great queuing system that helps you plan bulk updates and set a publishing
schedule for each social network, as well as providing URL shortening and
tracking (though you can of course use your own).

Followerwonk/Audiense/Buzzsumo
For identifying key influencers based on topic, location etc., really useful for
connecting with people who can amplify your content.
Campaign Marketing
Marketing Campaigns promote a product through different media, including
television, radio, print and online platforms. Campaigns don’t have to rely
solely on advertising and can also include demonstrations, word of mouth and
other interactive techniques. Businesses operating in highly competitive
markets may initiate frequent marketing campaigns and devote significant
resources to generating brand awareness and sales.

Marketing campaigns can be designed with different goals in mind, including

building a brand image, introducing a new product, increasing sales of a
product already on the market, or even reducing the impact of negative news.
Defining a campaign’s goal usually dictates how much marketing is needed
and what media are most effective.

Marketing Campaign Activities and Negating NegativePublicity

Marketing is all about reaching customers, and there are many ways to do
that, from a simple postcard to a coordinated social-media blitz. Small
companies can email invitations to a special sale and offer a free product to
every customer who brings in the invitation. Larger companies can use paid
advertising and professional agencies to reach a wider audience.

Whatever the size of the company, it’s important that someone is dedicated to
handling the influx of traffic a marketing campaign generates. If you are
prompting customers to sign up for your email list, you must make sure that
the list is managed well and that new customers receive welcoming messages.
If visits to your website increase, you must continually update your content to
convert this traffic to profitable sales.

Companies that lose sales due to major negative press often use marketing
campaigns to rehabilitate their images. One example is Chipotle Mexican Grill,
which was investigated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
after dozens of customers became sick in 2015 from food safety issues related
to E. coli and norovirus. Chipotle’s sales dropped 30%, and to get customers
back in the door, Chipotle offered coupons for free food via direct mail and
texts. Chipotle also used online video to announce a $10 million grant to
support local farmers.

Examples of Successful Marketing Campaigns

The long-running Aflac duck campaign is one example of a campaign that

significantly raised brand recognition. The company’s brand-recognition rate
was just 12% when it launched the campaign in 2000, and more than a decade
of advertising boosted recognition to 90%.

Lay’s launched its first “Do Us a Flavor” campaign in 2012, asking customers
to suggest new potato-chip flavors through texts, Facebook and Twitter. The
company’s sales increased 12%, and its volume of Facebook followers tripled.
Tracking Social Media Marketing
Performance
While it’s true that every large company probably needs some social media
marketing strategy, it isn’t necessarily true for every business.

No matter your company, you should have at least a Facebook page that
provides some information about your business and links to your website.
The question you have to answer is—do I want to consistently commit
resources to a social media marketing strategy?

Just about every business can benefit from social media marketing, but if
you’re a small growing business, you need to worry about resource allocation.
That means conducting a cost/benefit analysis of social media marketing.

There’s no one right way to go about this, but broadly speaking, here are the
benefits of that social media marketing can provide:

• Create a stronger bond with your existing customer base

• Increase your brand awareness
• Boost the performance of other marketing strategies, such as content
marketing
• Gain an understanding of what your audience thinks about you
• Create another medium for which you can convert prospects into
customers

Think of your social media goals as high level. There will likely be several
different metrics that contribute to one goal. The following are some common
goals:

• Increase conversions
• Build your email list/leads
• Increase your brand awareness
• Boost audience engagement

Tracking Tactics

Since goals are so high level, looking at how you perform relative to a goal
isn’t very helpful. Let’s say you want to increase your conversion rate and at
the end of the quarter you’ve fallen short.

Well, if all you’re doing is tracking your conversion rate, you won’t really gain
any insights into what was working and what wasn’t.
If you want to find out what works and what doesn’t and, ultimately, reach
and surpass goals in the future, you need to track the performance of your
individual tactics.

The first step here is to make a list of all of your tactics. There are countless
social media marketing tactics, but as an example, here are five:

• Content distribution
• Replying to all (appropriate) mentions
• Capitalize on trending topics
• Run contests
• Use Gifs in tweets

You need to understand why you are committing time and resources to each
of your tactics, and then figure out how those tactics contribute to a specific
goal. If a tactic isn’t contributing to a goal, it’s probably time to scrap it. If a
tactic isn’t sufficiently contributing to a specific goal, it might be time to scrap
that one too.

So, let’s continue with the example goal of trying to increase your conversion
rate. We’ll assume one of the tactics you’re implementing is distributing more
content. After a month of sharing more content on social media, you are
seeing that the pieces you share on social are not only getting more views, but
they’re also converting at a higher rate.

With this information, you can confidently say that social content distribution
is linked to higher conversion rates. Now that you’re armed with this
information, you can use it to inform your social strategy going forward.

Measure and Refine

So you’ve determined your goals, you know which tactics roll up into which
goals, now all you have to do is measure and refine.

You’re almost certainly going to need a tool to measure the metrics you want
to. If you already have a social media management tool, it will have some
measurement capabilities, but it’s crucial that your tool has
the right capabilities.

If your current social media management software doesn’t have what you
need from a performance management standpoint, go find the one that does
and make the swap. Your tool shouldn’t be defining what you measure, you
should.
Once that’s squared away create reports that provide all the info you need for
all of your metrics. Remember that this is an ongoing process, not a set it and
forget it situation.

You should be continuously evaluating your performance. If you are far-

exceeding some of your goals, maybe aim higher and vice versa.

You’ll find that when you get into a groove and are effectively measuring your
social performance, you’ll be able to be more calculated in your strategy, and
ultimately get more return on your investment.
Advertising on Mobile Devices, Mobile
Apps
Mobile advertising is type of advertising that appears on mobile devices such
as smart phones and tablets that have wireless connections. As a subset of
mobile marketing, mobile advertising can take place as text ads via SMS, or
banner advertisements that appear embedded in mobile web site, in
downloaded apps or in mobile games. Mobile technology used by companies
such as Google and Facebook tailor mobile advertisements based on
individual’s web browsing history, geographic location, and with data
collected by shopping habits. Because mobile devices typically have smaller
screens than computers or laptops, this form of digital advertising is usually
optimized for small displays by being concise.

Mobile Advertising

As mobile devices outnumber television sets now by almost 3 to 1, the

chances of a potential customer seeing a mobile ad are greater than that of
most other forms of advertising today. One of the popular models in mobile
advertising is known as cost per install (CPI), where payment is based on the
user installing an app on their mobile device. CPI mobile advertising networks
work either as incent or non-incent. In the incent model the user is given
virtual points or rewards to install the game or app.

Mobile Advertising History

The earliest form of mobile advertising took place via SMS test messages, but
has quickly evolved to mobile web and in-app advertisements. Many apps
offer a free version that can be downloaded at no cost, but which is paid for by
placement of advertisements within the app. Such advertisements can be
removed by purchasing a full or premium version of the app. Mobile versions
of websites also have advertisements which have been optimized for the
smaller mobile displays than would appear on the full version of the same
website.

Mobile Adverting Platforms

Mobile advertising also works hand in hand with mobile marketing, which
uses personal data collected and technology such as location services to
personalize ads based on user preference, habits, or location. Some mobile
advertisements may appear only when a mobile user is in close proximity to a
certain store or service provider. Mobile ad placement works by way of a
programmatic bidding process for ad placement, in which advertisers bid in
real time for the right to place an ad on a mobile device. The infrastructure
that allows for this process is known as a demand-side platform (DSP). Use of
such platforms allows advertisers to optimize their performance as based on a
number of key performance indicators (KPI), such as effective cost per click
(eCPC) and effective cost per action (eCPA).

Mobile marketing utilizes multiple distribution channels to promote products

and services via mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones. It makes
use of features of modern mobile technology, such as location services, to
tailor marketing campaigns based on an individual’s location. Mobile
marketing is a way in which technology can be used to create personalized
promotion of goods or services to a user who is constantly connected to a
network. Mobile advertising is a subset of mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing may include promotions sent through SMS text messaging,
MMS multimedia messaging, through downloaded apps using push
notifications, through in-app or in-game marketing, through mobile web sites,
or by using a mobile device to scan QR codes. Proximity systems and location
based services can alert users based on geographic location or proximity to a
service provider.

Mobile marketing an indispensable tool for companies large and small as

mobile devices become ubiquitous. The key players in the space are the
brands (and companies that they represent through advertising), and service
providers that enable mobile advertising. Mobile advertising targets
audiences not so much by demographics but by behaviors (though
demography plays a part, such as the fact that iPad users tend to be older and
wealthier). One notable behavior in the mobile marketing space known as
“snacking,” which is when mobile device users check in to media or messaging
for brief periods. Such seeking of instant gratification equates to more points
of contact for marketers.

In mobile marketing, the device (especially screen size) does make a

difference — users of smartphones and iPad tablets react differently to mobile
marketing. For example, smartphone users tend to find informative content to
be the most relevant, yet iPad users tend to be captivated by interactive
advertising that features rich media presentations with eye-catching imagery
(the message of the content is a secondary concern).

Mobile Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Unlike traditional marketing efforts, mobile marketing takes advantage of the

fact that many users of mobile devices carry them around with them
wherever they go. As a result, location-based services can collect customer
data and then offer coupons, deals or promotions based on their proximity to
a store or a place frequently visited by the consumer. These marketing
campaigns can be more targeted and specific to the individual user, and
should therefore be more effective for the company doing the marketing. One
example may be a marketing campaign that sends food-related coupons to a
customer any time they come within half a mile of a specific supermarket.

Mobile Marketing Concerns

There are privacy issues concerning how the data collected by mobile devices
is used and whether or not companies have the right to collect such data
without explicit consent. Such data can be used for identity theft or to send
spam if it falls into the wrong hands due to data theft or poor security of the
information. Also, the tracking of individual’s locations and movements may
be considered crossing the line by some.
Tracking Mobile Marketing Performance
When it comes to mobile advertising performance, there are various metrics
available to determine if your efforts are on the right track.

Here are the key metrics that can help you understand how effective your
mobile ad campaign is.

First, the 4 easily accessible KPIs:

• Click-through Rates: CTR is the ratio of the number of clicks on an ad

to the number of ad impressions (number of times an ad has been
viewed). CTR is not considered an ideal measure of ad
performance. Nielsen research has shown a high CTR to have a negative
correlation with ad interaction. CTR doesn’t take into account user’s
intent while clicking (clicks can be accidental) or calculating
engagement, brand awareness, etc.
• Leads generated: The number of prospective customers identified
during the ad campaign.
• Cost Per Acquisition: CPA shows the expenditure a business has to
incur to convert a user.
• Sales Revenue Determines how much revenue was generated per ad (ad
campaign).

These indicators give a narrow view of how a campaign is performing.

To gather a more holistic view of your marketing efforts, you

should consider these 6 metrics:

1. Conversion Rate (CR): This metric gathers data on the number of

users who performed the desired action e.g. installs, registrations,
purchases etc.
If a user saw an ad and performed the desired action, he is a potential
customer. This can be used to build a sales funnel and determine how
many users abandon a sale and at which step. It can be computed
according to an advertiser’s goals, eg. Installs/Clicks;
Registrations/Installs; Sales/Installs etc.
2. Retention Rate: or Percent Retention is a very strong KPI. Advertisers
instead should see that the user not only installs the app but also uses it
in the long run. It’s typical for a user to abandon an app in the quest for
more features, freebies, and offers.
Retention Rate captures how many users use the app more than once
within a specified time frame, by monitoring the user’s interactions
 with the app. It is more logical and profitable for advertisers to retain
existing users rather than spend large budgets on acquiring new ones.
3. Social Metrics/ Social Engagement: Social Media Platforms have
become imperative to any ad campaign. Using social networks also
open better targeting opportunities based on location, age, gender,
interests etc.
Measuring the number of likes, shares, re-tweets or brand mentions can
help analyze how well consumers react to an ad. This metric determines
customer engagement and can indicate whether a customer will
recommend your brand or buy from you again.
4. Brand Lift: If your mobile ads don’t generate the targeted number of
clicks, but help increase brand awareness; they have done a part of their
job. If a mobile ad was successful, brands would see a spike in search
queries on search engines and higher web traffic on their site and social
media pages.
5. Return on Ad Spend (RoAS): This is the revenue generated after
accounting for all ad expenditures. It is important to consistently track
profits or loss combined with other metrics, you can then decide
whether to invest more in the ad or reduce the ad spend.
6. Secondary Actions: Measuring actions that users take after they view
the ad reveal if the ad generated an interest. These actions are easily
measurable and comprise click-to-call, search queries about the
business, sharing statistics on social media or accessing map or driving
directions. This information can help marketers channelize their
resources accordingly to plan more personalized campaigns that lead to
conversions.

A few other metrics worth measuring:

• View-ability: measures if an ad was seen by a human, and how many

times it was viewed. Sometimes the adsare not viewable because they
take too long to load or aren’t visible for at least one second and the
user quickly scrolls away.
View-ability is related to ad effectiveness and brand recall. You can use
it to measure how well different mobile ad formats are working.
• Purchase Intent: Monitoring a user’s wish-list or shopping cart
indicates how close the person is to purchasing a product. Marketers
can adjust campaigns accordingly to motivate them.
Marketers must use a combination of metrics to gauge the true measure
of their mobile ad effectiveness
Web Analytics-Meaning, Key Metrics and
Tools
Web analytics is reporting and analysis of data on website visitor activity. It
is not only a tool to measure web traffic but also can be used as a tool for
business and market research. Techniques used to access and improve the
contribution of e-marketing to a business, such as referrals, clickstreams,
online research data, customer satisfaction surveys, leads and sales. Thus,
marketers use web analytics exploring data and reports to build their
knowledge on customers’ preference and behavior according to types of sites,
which areas customers click more often when they online. It also helps
marketer understand their customers better and improve their business
performance. (Dykes, 2012)

These are three stages that they need to concern when setting up a web
analytic tool. The analysis is the ticket for them move from Steupland to
Actionland. It is the isolating of meaningful and actionable insights in data and
reports that when acted upon by your organization can drive business value.

Alignment Stage:

At this early planning stage, it is necessary for marketer to gather their

business objectives and capture stakeholders’ online behavior by their online
measurement strategy. Clearly understand measurement strategy and well
analyze visitors is critical to success. Thus, marketers have to carefully
handling relevant and meaningful data which will directly affect the business
in the long-term.

Collection Stage:

At this point of stage, large companies may spend amount of time on technical
implementation such as multiple web domains and online marketing
initiatives. (Dykes, 2012)

Reporting Stage:

This is the last stage for companies move from Setupland to Actionland. This
stage is important where you create report and distribute them to
organization using a manual or preferably automated approach.

TOOLS AND METHODS USED TO HELP MARKETER

There are two types of web analytics, on-site and off-site web analytics.

ON-SITE ANALYTICS

On-site web analytics is used for marketers to measure a visitor’s activity

when he browses on your website. This includes its drivers and
conversations, for example which ads on landing page encourage more people
to purchase and which title of information visitors click most. This data is
used to analysis visitors’ online behavior and can be used to improve website
or marketing campaign’s audience response.

Simply, on-site web analytics tools are used to analysis and measure
behaviors of visitors’ journey and actual visitor traffic arriving on your
website. For example, which landing page encourage visitors to make a
purchase, what links visitors clicked on (from search engine to get to the site
or came there directly) to the site, and time they spent and stayed on given
page. Therefore, On-site web analytics measures of website in a commercial
context.

For the business, website became more important than ever before, it handles
more information. Companies also need to know if their marketing campaigns
are working on internet-based, just like John Shumway, the global vice
president of product management at Akamai says “marketing people are
increasingly driving the need for we analytics”. (Dave Chaffey, 2003)

Firms can conduct on-site web-analytics through the following ways:

Analytics Software Produced by Companies

Some companies such as WebTrends and Google Analytics produce web

analytics software that converts data by using combination of tables and
graphs. It automatically monitors your website’s traffic and highlights any
significant changes, thus, managers can easily understand and analysis the
effectiveness of their campaigns. And, where visitors come from and which
pages retain visitors the longest, and also, track visitors progress s they click
though the site. It can be simply shows daily visit on your website, type on
traffic and time on site by country.

Other technologies for data collection

Other technologies companies used for data collection are eye tracking system
and mouse tracking analytics. It is a key method for testing visitors’ behavior
and areas they focus more often when they on a web page, and both eye
tracking and e mouse tracking analytics studies offer businesses accurate and
actionable results. Therefore, the result can be used to improve a web site or
marketing campaign’s audience response.

Eye tracking system is utilized by many top enterprises such as Google. This
tracking system uses specialist software to track internet visitors where the
eyes land on a webpage.

Similar to eye tracking system, Mouse tracking analytics follows the mouse
movements of internet users to simulate eye movement on a webpage. From
the research, it has shown when both methods of testing are conducted
simultaneously, in the result, they find out exactly what the visitors look at on
the page which contains 84%-88% accuracy. In addition, both method of
tracking analytics deliver valuable information to managers about visitors’
involvement and engagement with your website. This is vital to work out
what changes you need to make in order to benefit your visitors’ experience
as well as improve the website. (ClickTale, 2010)

OFF-SITE ANALYTICS

Off-site analytics data can be obtained for any website-including your

competitors and partners. Which means is analysis the internet as a whole for
the websites. Thus, the key differences of off-site web analytics measures from
your potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and buzz
(comments).

Unlikely to on-site web analytics only captures what happens when visitors
visit and engage with your website, by using various technologies to help
monitor and analysis website to create meaningful actions and results.
However, as social website becomes more popular and ascendant channel for
internet users, and everything becomes more transparent on social web,
organization information are shared, spread on it, thus, through this platform,
marketers are able to measure the latest buzz about website or [Link]
is important for marketers to monitor not only what happens on the website
but also outside of your website. Improving from what other people are
saying about the company and provide products and services match
customers requires. Off-site Web Analytics solutions can help businesses stay
on the leading edge of overall trends. (Monitoring Buzz With Off-Site Web
Analytics, 2010)
Firms can conduct off-site web-analytics through the following available
software:

Alexa and Compete

There are numbers of web analytics software provided service to measure

your competitors how much and what type of traffic are garnering to their
site. Alexa and Compete are two free services help marketers to find top-level
information, including the top searches people used to find the site, as well as
traffic comparisons versus other Websites. For more comparison capabilities
and a deeper level of demographic information, marketer can just simply
upgrades their account.

Similar to Alexa and Compete system offerings monitor and aggregate a wide
swath of Web traffic, paid services from Quantcast and Nielsen NetRatings
also provide analytics tools and research related to online audiences, as well
as online ad buying and selling.

As by shown example of how Alexa provide services for marketers by

monitoring and aggregating a wide swath of Web traffic from multiple sources
to develop estimates for overall ranking and other factors.

On the table 1 below, shows top 5 sites on the web. According to off-site web
analytics is measuring about your competitors and monitoring the internet as
whole website, it is obvious for marketers to analysis the market, so that
company can generate more sales, reduce marketing costs, enhance campaign
performance, provide better user experience, and reach specific target
segments. As well as on table, more specific shows competitor daily/monthly
search traffic and top queries from search traffic and more other details. Thus,
research on your competitors and understand their strategy, is the advantages
for the company to take step forward than others in the market.

Co Tweet and HootSuite

There are other tools like CoTweet and HootSuite are relative newcomers to
the market when they looking further out into the social web. Especially for
small and medium-size business that use tools to monitoring and engaging
with social web. It started as management tools Twitter, but they are now
expanding their support for other social channels such as Facebook and
LinkedIn. It simply for an organization tracks the effectiveness of multiple
marketing efforts in multiple social channels, and also from platforms.

Because social web such as Twitter and Facebook, it creates more effective
buzz to a company. Therefore, this platform is critical important for for small
and medium-size business to enhance awareness. CoTweet is a web-
based social media management and analytics tool. With CoTweet you can not
only manage clicks on content you publish within the application, but also
integrate any web analytics platforms with campaign codes and shortened
URLs. Just like Bobowski believes “it provides closed-loop reporting and
allows marketers to associate revenue and other success metrics to social
media activity”. (Peters, 2011)

As shown table below, CoTweet also provides updates and follow-up

messages to be assigned to specific social media managers. Different
knowledge of social media managers can responses immediately to
appropriate questions and comments from followers, which shows to
followers that there are person behind responding the questions. Also, from
the questions and buzz marketers will know who he is talking with if question
arise for as specific tweet. It helps marketers collected more accurate data and
responded visitor’s needs.

CONCLUSION

This report has shown that Web continues to have growing importance in
marketing efforts, therefore on-site and off-site Web Analytics solutions will
likely become more crucial tools that lead to greater business success. This is
supported by the number of toolset made available to businesses of all sizes to
monitor and analyze web traffic on their sites in order to determine what is
happening not only throughout the rest of the Web ecosystem but also in
social media.