S.

No List of Table Page No

3.1 Client APJ Service followed by Sonaiya Software Solutions

3.2 Client JSAromaa Service followed by Sonaiya Software Solutions

3.3 Client Footcure Service followed by Sonaiya Software Solutions

3.4 Client Footcure Success Reports by Sonaiya Software Solutions

3.5 Client APJ Success Reports by Sonaiya Software Solutions

4.1 Respondent’s profile

4.2 Do consumers rely on just one medium to get knowledge about

any brand

4.3 Sources of awareness for various brands

4.4 Details for information and time spend to take purchase of any

commodity

4.5 Descriptive statistic scores for information and time spend to

take purchase of any commodity

4.6 Knowledge about the use of internet

4.7 Frequency of being online

4.8 Descriptive statistic scores for knowledge about the use of internet

and frequency of being online

4.9 Purpose for using internet

4.10 Descriptive statistic scores Purpose for using internet

4.11 Do companies include online activities in their marketing

strategy

4.12 Descriptive statistic scores for Use of online activities in

their marketing strategy

S.No List of Table Page No

4.13 Importance of factors motivating respondents to like the

brand on internet

4.14 Descriptive statistic scores for Importance of factors

motivating respondents to like the brand on internet

4.15 Preference for the print ads or television commercials

4.16 Descriptive statistic scores for Preference for the print

ads or television SAFETY to use

4.17 Benefits of Digital Marketing over traditional marketing

4.18 Preference for Online advertising as it is SAFEST to use

4.19 Descriptive statistic scores for Preference for Online

advertising as it is

4.20 Loopholes in Digital Marketing over traditional marketing

tools Commercials
S.No List of Figures Page No

1.1 Sonaiya Software Solution Service Layout

3.1: Systematic Flow followed in Sonaiya Software Solutions

3.2: Digital Marketing Flow – Executives wise

4.1: Graphical representation of Sources of awareness of various brands

4.2: Graphical representation of Details for information and time spend

to take purchase of any commodity

4.3: Graphical representation of responses related to knowledge about the

use of internet

4.4: Graphical representation of responses related to Frequency of being

online

4.5: Graphical representation of responses related to Use of online activities

by companies in their marketing efforts

4.6: Graphical representation of Preference for the print ads or television

commercials

4.7: Graphical representation of Benefits of Digital Marketing over

traditional marketing

4.8: Graphical representation of Preference for Online advertising as it is

SAFEST

4.9: Graphical representation of Loopholes in Digital Marketing over

traditional marketing tools

 The Study: Effectiveness of Digital Marketing on consumer

behavior.

Introduction
This dissertation aims at finding factors that affect the online consumer’s buying behaviour. By
reading literature concerning consumer characteristics and online consumer characteristics I
believe to find implications for certain factors that are of importance for the online consumer.
The Internet is a worldwide accessible series of computer networks that transmit data by packet
switching using the standard I Internet Protocol. It is a "network of networks “that consists of
millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together
carry various information and services, such a select, file transfer, the interlinked WebPages and
other documents of the World Wide Web. Originally the Internet was mainly used by academics,
research scientists and students; however that scenario has changed as commercial organizations
have moved to incorporate the World Wide Web into their promotional campaigns, and by
offering the facility of online purchasing (Jobber&Fahy,2003). The Internet has evolved into a
worldwide accessible marketplace for information exchange and e-commerce. The strategic
importance to be available for consumers on the World Wide Web, with information and
services has become particularly relevant to firms.
According to Vesterby and Chabert (2001) the Internet can make it easier for companies to have
information about their products or services available to their customers or potential customers.
A company can satisfy the consumers’ individual need of information at a low cost in
comparison to sending out product brochures for example. As the user can choose information
from websites, which implies that the information provider can achieve better understanding of
the user’s needs and wants by collecting data. On the other hand, the Internet is a place with
hardly any structure or rules: therefore, large efforts are needed in order to show the consumer
where a specific site is located, and what services are available on that site. Vesterby and Chabert
(2001) claim that companies with no physical presence must market themselves considerably,
both online and offline, for the consumer to remember their name.
Whether it is the traditional market or the online market, the marketer must understand the
consumer and how he makes his decisions and purchasing choices(Hollensen,2004), because the
consumer is under a constant flow of stimuli from the marketers advertisements. The marketer
has the possibility to decide and to control the output that will be forwarded to the consumers,
but when the advertisement reaches the consumer that control ends. The consumer then interprets
the information that has been sent out in his own way based on specific factors for every
consumer. Therefore marketers have developed different theories that can explain why
consumers interpret information in a certain way, and there by understand certain behaviours
(Kotler&Armstrong,2007). Several articles have set out to identify the characteristics of the
online consumer. Allred, Smith and Swinyard (2006) identify the online consumer to have the
following characteristics: younger, wealthier, better educated, having a higher “computer
literacy” and are bigger retail spenders.
Donuthouand Garicia (1999) identify the online consumeras: older, make more money,
convenience seeker, innovative, impulsive, variety seeker, less risk aware, less brand and price
conscious, and with a more positive attitude towards advertising and direct marketing. Some of
these characteristics are similar, while others are the opposite.
Trying to identify the online consumer is difficult since the rapid development of e-commerce
has also led to an increase of both technologies and different types of consumers. It is also
known that the type of product has a significant influence on the online consumer behaviour
which makes it more difficult to identify consumer characteristics (Christopher&Huarng,2003).
There are still some characteristics that can be identified to specify the online consumer and the
following text will try to do so.

Customer Behaviour

Donal Rogan (2007) explains the relationship between consumer behaviour and marketing
strategy. He states that “strategy is about increasing the probability and frequency of buyer
behaviour. Requirements for succeeding in doing this are to know the customer and understand
the consumer’s needs and wants.”
Chisnall (1995) points out that human needs and motives are inextricably linked and that the
relationship between them is so very close that it becomes difficult to identify the precise
difference which may characterize them. People may buy new coats because it protects them
against the weather, but the irreal underlying dominant need may be to follow the latest fashion
trend. Buyers’ characteristics are important theories from Kotler and Armstrong (2007) and it
explains the way that the consumer interprets and receives stimuli from advertisements. The
decisions of consumers are influenced by a number of individual characteristics that are linked to
the consumer’s specific needs (Kotler & Armstrong, 2007).

Consumer Characteristics
Consumer characteristics are explained by: Cultural characteristics, Social characteristics,
Personal characteristics, and Psychological Characteristics. These characteristics are identified,
by the marketer, in order to identify the consumer and to be able to decide on the strategy to what
kind of consumer to target. Hence, these characteristics are used in order to segment the market
and target specific consumer groups.

Cultural Characteristics

The Cultural Characteristics are recognized as the main influencer of consumer behaviour. These
characteristics are developed by three features under pinning consumer behaviour: Culture,
Subculture, and SocialClass.
Culture is mentioned as the most basic cause of a person’s wants and needs. Kotler and
Armstrong (2007) argues that human behaviour is mostly learned and that I are exposed to
different sets of values and beliefs from a young age, and that these values influence our
behaviour and decision making. Hence, these characteristics are interesting for marketers and
important indicators of certain consumer behaviour and taste.
Subcultures are small group formations with a certain number of people that share values and
beliefs such as nationalities, religions or geographic regions. An identified subculture can serve
as an important and effective market segment which can be targeted.
Social class is recognized by Kotler and Armstrong (2007) as a class structure, consisting of a
combination of factors which gather different types of members. Some identified factors are
income, age, education, and wealth
Social Characteristics

The Social Characteristics are divided into three different categories, namely Reference Groups,
Family and Social Role and Status.
Reference Groups–According to Kotler and Armstrong (2007) the effects of the Reference
Groups is mainly based on the belief that a person’s behaviour is influenced by many small
groups. When a group has a direct influence it is called a Membership Group, for example:
family, neighbours and co-workers. Reference Groups are the groups to which the person often
wants to be long to and to be apart of but is not. These groups indirectly and directly form a
person’s behaviour and attitudes. There are three different ways by which these groups influence
a person’s behaviour; they may expose a person to new behaviours and lifestyles, influence a
person’s attitudes and self-concepts and also create a pressure of confirmation by Reference
Groups. Another influence of importance is the opinion leader . An opinion leader is a person
that influences others to follow his believes and attitudes towards certain issues, products or
areas (Kotler& Armstrong,2007).
Family–Family members have a great influence on the buying behaviour. The involvement and
influence by different family members varies, both to which degree but also in what way.
Therefore, it is important for marketers to understand which role is played by whom in the
family and direct the advertisement towards the main influencing part of the family.
Roles and Status–Each person belongs to different types of groups and also plays different roles
whilst having different positions in the various groups. Roles are identified by Kotler and
Armstrong (2007) as what activities people are expected to perform from other members of the
group.
Personal characteristics
These personal characteristics are categorized into: Age and Life-CycleStage, Occupation,
Economic Situation, Lifestyle, Personality and Self-Concept.
The Age and Life-Cycle Stage These stages explain different periods in life that the consumer
experiences as he goes through life. These different stages also represent different changes that
the consumer may experience when reaching a new stage. According to Kotler and Armstrong
(2007) marketers, therefore, define their target markets interms of the different stages in order to
develop appropriate marketing plans.
Occupation–The occupation tends to have an effect on the products and services bought by the
consumers. This leads to the possibility of developing different types of products or services that
suits interests identified to be above average within an occupation.
The Economic Situation–Wealth will affect a consumer’s product choice. A consumer may be
price- sensitive or not depending on the level of income, level of savings, level of interest rates,
and also the product or service itself.
Lifestyle–This is identified to be a person’s way of living which is recognized by the activities,
interest, or opinion she or she has and it also explains the way a consumer interacts in the world.
Personality–This is mainly explained by the terms self-confidence, dominance, sociability,
autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability and aggressiveness. These psychological factors are a
result of one’s environment. Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of
characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her motivations, and
behaviours invarious situations (Ryckman,2004).
Self-concept or Self Image–Is the conceptual understanding that people’s possessions reflect
their personalities. This concept does bring some conflicts in case people may have an image that
satisfies who they are but does not agree with who they want to be (the ideal self-concept),the
question then arises which one I would want to satisfy.

Psychological Characteristics
The psychological characteristics are divided into the following concepts: Motivation,
Perception, Learning, and Beliefs and Attitudes.
Motivation–Motivation refers to a person needs that must be satisfied. These needs are of
different kind; some are biological, such as hunger, thirst and discomfort ,and some are
psychological such as the need for recognition, esteem and belonging. Needs are not satisfied
until they reach a certain point of intensity and become a motive for the consumer to satisfy
them. Kotler and Armstrong (2007) discuss several motivation theories, among them are Freud’s
and Maslow’s theories of motivation. Freud argued that a person does not really and fully
understand his or her motivations. Maslow on the other hand wanted to understand why some
people set out to satisfy some needs before others.
He then came to the conclusion that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy from the most
pressing to the least pressing, as Kotler and Armstrong (2007) explains it. These needs are listed
as psychological needs, safety needs, socialneeds, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
When one need has been satisfied, a person moves on to satisfy the next.
Perception-This characteristicis based on the understanding of how differently I perceive the
same situation or the same stimuli. Kotler and Armstrong (2007) explains perception as the
process by which people select, organize, and interpret information. There are three different
processes that decide how I interpret certain information. These are Selective Attention,
Selective Distortion, and Selective Retention.
Learning–Learning is, according to Kotler and Armstrong (2007), an act that changes people’s
behaviour because of their experience. It occurs through drives: strong internal wants that call for
action, stimuli: object that drives for certain action, cues: small stimuli that determinate when,
where and how the person will respond and reinforcement: when the response and stimuli
towards an object is experienced more than once.
Beliefs and Attitudes–These are acquired by people through learning and experiencing. They
influence the buying behaviour by making up brands and product images in the consumer’s
heads. A belief is explained by Kotler and Armstrong (2007) as a descriptive thought about
something and is based on real knowledge, opinions or faith. Beliefs can also be emotionally
charged. Attitudes are described as a person’s evaluations, feelings, and tendencies towards
something, but also determinations of people such as like and dislikes.

Online Consumer Characteristics

More specific identifications of the online consumer need to be made in order to understand the
online purchase behaviour. The identified characteristics are some key characteristics in regard
to the online consumer. These key characteristics were made in order to identify online
consumers and to be able to segment them.

Cultural Online Characteristics

Smith and Rupp (2003) identify that the difference in social class creates a difference in
purchasing Online Behaviour. Consumers from a higher social class generally purchase more
and have a higher intention to purchase online because there is a higher probability that they
possess a computer and also have greater access to the Internet. Consumers from lower social
classes would not have the same properties. The authors also point out that consumers with lower
social class, and there by not having the same properties, would not have the needed computer
literacy to be able to leverage a computer.

Social Online characteristics

The social influence on the online consumer comes from new Reference Groups compared to the
tradition always. For the online consumer new Reference Groups were identified as virtual
communities, consisting of discussion groups on a website. The consumer can read about other
people’s experiences and opinions which have shown to have the effect of Reference Groups
(Christopher &Huarng, 2003). Other Reference Groups, which are identified by Christopher and
Huarng (2003), are links to product related websites, which encourages product selection and
contact information.

Personal Online characteristics

Monsuwé, Dellaert and Ruyter (2004) explored the personal online consumer characteristics and
concluded that income has a vital role for online purchasing behaviour. The authors discussed
Lohseetal .(2000) who pointed out that consumers with higher house hold income would have a
more positive attitude towards online shopping. This conclusion was explained by the fact that
house holds with higher income would have a positive correlation with the possession of a
computer, Internet access, and higher education.
Smith and Rupp (2003) also identified the age factor as a determinant for online purchase
intentions. They argued that older people who had no frequent interactions with the Internet and
the computer would not use the Internet as a medium for purchases, while young adults would.
This was concluded by that the young adults used the Internet and computers more frequently.
Younger people were also identified to have more technical knowledge. Monsuwéetal. (2004)
also supported this judgement by concluding that younger adults usually have greater interest in
using new technologies to browse for information and evaluate alternatives.
Psychological Online Characteristics
Smith and Rupp (2003) identified the psychological characteristics of consumer behaviour as
questions the online consumer would ask himself before making a purchase online.
Motivation–The consumers is reasoning for incentives to engage in a particular behaviour. He
may ask himself questions like: should I look around for better price? If online shopping saves
me time, should I shop online more often? How much do I really need this product?

Perception- The consumer is interpreting acquired information by classing it. Questions such as
the following may come about: I feel that this site seems pretty secure. It seems that this site has
a good product but how can I be sure?

Personality- The consumer is adapting to influences of his cognitions. He may ask himself, what
types of Web sites are best suited for his personal buying preferences.

Attitude- The consumer is working out what his likes and dislikes are in respect to a particular
situation. He may ask himself: I am pretty unsure about extra costs, should I really be buying
items from the Internet? If I do not buy the item online, how else can I get it?

Emotions-The consumer is without conscious effort detecting how he is being affected by his
cognitive choice. He may ask himself: The last time I ordered from the Internet I had a really bad
experience .Should I try buying online again? What is the future of buying online? If Websites
get better should I invest more time in buying online?

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Search engine optimization is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web
page in a web search engine's unpaid results—often referred to as "natural", "organic", or
"earned" results
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)
Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites
by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages primarily through paid advertising
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (SMM)
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or
service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia,
social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.
WEB ANALYTICS
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of web data for purposes of
understanding and optimizing web usage.

ONLINE CREDITABILITY MANAGEMENT

For a credibility management system comprising at least one server with a processor and non-
transitory computer-readable memory, a computer-implemented method for facilitating real-time
management of one's credibility across a plurality of online sites, the computer-implemented
method comprising

Organization Profile

SONAIYA’s COMMITMENT
Sonaiya Software Solutions, today, is a new generation framework of technology innovators to
accelerate growth. In our each project, we emphasize on innovation. Our structured team works
with a methodology and knowledge to innovate and deliver excellent services.
We are committed to provide development and tech-support teams to software and high–tech
companies with the required infrastructure at a competitive rate from our State of the art
development centre based in Chennai, India. We provide a wide range of profiles including
project managers, project leads, Technical leads and Software Engineers. On the support side, we
provide Team leads, Senior, and Junior Technical support personnel on a 24 x 7 basis.
Values
Quality | Technology | Innovation | Customer Satisfaction | Win together
We aim to be the best at what we do. SONAIYA has a dream of evolving into a Global IT
Company, ensuring that the solutions being delivered include best practice in IT with the chosen
area of technology.
 We operate with complete focus to Maximize customer satisfaction.
 Develop and encourage an environment of mutual respect within company and extending
it beyond to clients.
 Encourage commitment and personal learning of workforce.
We are proud to have built our organization on the strong pillars of integrity, honesty, and self-
respect.

Vision
To build upon a reputation of being one of the most innovative IT Solution and Service
provider. We believe in doing our work in the most efficient way with robust and structured
methodology, with gradual evolution from hard-work to smart- work culture, at client’s end also.
Mission
To produce excellent services in the field of IT Services and Consultancy with maximum efforts
driven towards customer satisfaction.

SONAIYA delivers quality and timely solutions and services at a price that make our clients
smile. SONAIYA focuses on offshore development at our excellence centre in Chennai, India.
This allows us to scale up rapidly (leveraging on the plentiful supply of talent and thus cutting
down on execution time) at costs that are on an average 70% cheaper. An in-depth knowledge of
various technology areas enables us to provide end-to-end solutions and services. With our 'Web
of Participation', we maximize the benefits of our depth, diversity and delivery capability,
ensuring adaptability to client needs, and thus bringing out the most innovative solutions in every
business and technology domain. SONAIYA is your one stop partner where you can outsource
all your support services with complete peace of mind about quality and reliability. Sonaiya
Software Solutions’s strength lies in understanding the client’s business processes, culture,
vision and goals across the industry segments and offering client oriented solutions which are
highly reliable, creating customer comfort. Our team is committed to provide IT Services with:
Quality | Technology | Innovation
Our Services Include:
 IT Services
 Consultancy / staffing Services
 Education / Training
 Sonaiya Software Solutions

IT Services Consultancy Training

Web Solutions Staffing Service Training Program

Quality Employee Classroom Training Program
Online Training Program
Software Solutions Quality Relationship Hybrid Training Program
Corporate Training
Turnkey Solutions Strategic Partnership
Consultation

Offshore development

Application Maintenance &

Support

Figure no:1.1 Sonaiya Software Solution Service Layout

IT Services
With the dedicated and adroit employees at SONAIYA, it has been adept in assisting the growth
of the nation in the field of Information Technology. SONAIYA with its vision of quality and
innovation has been successful in catering the needs of those who seek our assistance in
following areas of IT enabled services:
1. Software Solutions
2. Web Solutions
3. Application Maintenance & Support
4. Turnkey Solutions
5. Offshore development

Software Solutions
Sonaiya Software Solutions has developed a number of products and MIS applications for its
clients in this service. Our mature software development processes, combined with excellent
infrastructure have significantly increased the “on-time and on-budget” delivery of software in
the offshore mode. We use a highly effective IMPACT Methodology for offshore and distributed
software development. Our services begin from analysis, moving through designing,
development, testing and implementation to maintenance. Our applications come in all sizes, be
it a one-table database, or a massive client-server application. The creation of complete database
applications is yet another field that we specialize in.
We offer:
 Interactive Application Development
 Custom Application Development/ Maintenance
 MIS and ERP Solutions & Support

1. Interactive Application Development

Interactive Application Development Interactive Application Development (iAD) is about
harmonizing art with technology. This business division of Sonaiya Software Solutions
complements the client's requirement of online and desktop applications - be it a workgroup
solution or mailing platform.
A strong team of software professionals empowers the application development capability at
iAD, Sonaiya Software Solutions. The applications developed range from Web-stores, online
service retailing to enterprise information systems. Our competencies in Java, Android, .Net
technologies, ASP, XML, PHP and C/C++ are demonstrated in various network-based
applications. SQL/ Oracle database engines support most of these applications.
2. Custom Application Development/ Maintenance
It is a well known fact that some of the ready-made, packaged applications have failed to meet
the requirements of the customers because of their unique needs and differing business practices
and processes. In addition, prohibitive cost of implementing a packaged application and the
maintenance thereafter becomes an unwelcome perspective.
We have experienced I.T. Consultants for Project analysis, formulation and concept planning,
right up to project management and installation. We develop customized Software that is
completely based on user’s requirement with GUI (graphical user- friendly interface) on any of
the mentioned platform / languages.
3. MIS and ERP Solutions & Support
We offer customized low cost solutions to industries based on open standards, contemporary
technologies and maintenance support. While incorporating the best of business practices, we do
take special care of the customer requirements.
ERP Solutions include the development of software in a distributed model, with some phases of
the project being conducted onsite and others being conducted offshore. Each phase is uniquely
defined and executed. After unit, and system testing the product is then sent to the client for
acceptance testing. We have satisfied customers find the solutions user friendly, flexible, and
comprehensive
Web Solutions
SONAIYA provides web solutions & services to help customer reach to a wider customer base.
The web is a new and different medium for communication and requires a different viewpoint
and skill set to use it in the most effective way. You need web consulting to get more return on
your investment in your web site. We can help you get the most effective solution through:

 Website Development
 Web Multimedia
 Intranet Development
 Web Promotion
 E-commerce

Application Maintenance & Support

We have years of experience in executing maintenance projects. Our team of experienced
consultants has been successfully managing maintenance projects of local clients as well as
offshore ones.
The quality of product deployment, training and support has everything to do with customer
success and satisfaction. We offer annual maintenance plans which are tailor-made as per the
client’s requirement. If required we depute technical team which works at the client site for the
system execution or support as per requirement. We also offer on-site service calls to
Customer’s facility. In such cases, our consulting charges are subject to service hour charge, plus
reasonable travel and out-of-pocket expenses.
Turnkey Solutions
Sonaiya Software Solutions takes up projects under this service for a fixed price and takes all
responsibility of execution and project management. These solutions are ideally suited for
projects that are fairly well specified and require well-defined interfacing with the client. We
have developed a number of products and MIS applications for its clients in this service. Sonaiya
Software Solutions’s mature software development processes, combined with excellent
infrastructure have significantly increased the “on-time and on budget” delivery of software in
the offshore mode. We use a highly effective IMPACT Methodology for offshore and distributed
software development.
Offshore Development
To get the best IT solutions, you don't need to be geographically near us. That's because we offer
quality offshore development centre. Our offshore software solutions in application development
and web site development guarantee cost savings without the need to compromise on either
speed or quality. Our 100% customer retention rates speaks for our quality, swift response and
cost effectiveness that has fetched us a large number of clients from all parts of the world. These
all feathers to our work make us a preferred offshore development house.

Finished Products
  

•     EDUSMITH – School ERP

•     Temple ERP- Madipakkam Ayyappan Temple (Customized)
•     Billing Invoice Software- AGC – Arabian Galvanizing Company
•     Trust Administrative System – Aruppukottai Nadar Sangam
•     Clinical software – Apollo Karaikudi (Customized)
•     BPO Instant Page Filling
•     School – Smart Education System (Android and PHP)
•     GST based Sales ERP – Tunaa Drops, Shelvaa Marketting
•     Victory Industry– UAE - accounts
•     Call Receiver Tracking
•    Industrial Communicator – New Metal Coats
•    Burglary Alarm Unit – Sivan Temple Keelasevalpatti
•    Sri Lakshmi Engineering – Billing Software

  

On Going Projects
 •    Super Market
•    Travel Agency
•    Digital Marketer
•    GPS ID Card Tracking for Schools (Android) – GOTEK
•    Salesman Tracking with DRS
  

Research and Development

• Fabrication Design Cutter / Planner

• Cardroid

• Human Behavior Analysis

• Child / Human Tracking through ID Cards

Consultancy / Staffing Services

Staffing Services
Twenty-first century business demands agility. SONAIYA’s flexible partnership model allows
us to be responsive to your unique needs — supporting short-term or seasonal contract
requirements, providing contract-to-hire talent for project-based support with the option to hire
the contractors as permanent employees, or finding the permanent top talent your company needs
today. By listening to our clients’ business needs, we have gained a unique perspective into how
we can help.
Quality Employee
We take the time to listen and understand your business, building quality relationships that,
combined with our access to the best talent, deliver quality employees.
Quality Relationship
But we don’t stop there. We stay connected with you to ensure our employees are meeting your
expectations and we are delivering on our promises.
Strategic Partnership
Working together, we develop a strategic partnership to provide workforce consultation to make
your staffing process more effective and evolve your business.
At Sonaiya Software Solutions, we not only provide recruitment consultancy services to our clients
but also give the applicants a perfect platform to get their dream jobs. We can help our clients to get
the suitable candidates, cultivate them and retain them. Our comprehensive recruitment and staffing
solutions as HR consultant ensure the delivery of profitable propositions for your workforce
requirements.

We have adopted the international practices and procedures that are designed to attract and hire the
best talent available in the market; thereby offering the best employee recruitment. We provide our
client companies with not only a set of candidates, but also discussion on best-fit market
availability, comparative benchmarking and a comfort knowing. Our online recruitment solutions
are the best in the market today.

Our Recruitment Process can be categorized into three phases, namely:

 Planning - Structure, Focus, Identity, Prepare
 Implementation - Contact, Motivate, Evaluate
 Closure - Select, Offer, Candidate joining
At Sonaiya Software Solutions, we follow a carefully structured recruitment and selection process,
which starts right from understanding the clients' needs and functions all the way to follow-ups with
both clients and candidates post recruitment.
 
Services:
Permanent Staffing
Permanent staffing is attaining great importance in the human resource industrial stratagem of
every company in today’s trend. Rightly so, as an organization that isequipped with quality and
dedicated permanent staff has a greater chance of surviving and succeeding in the long run…
Contract Staffing
Sonaiya Software Solutions involves contract-to-hire staffing module is the Made-to-order
solution wherein the companies looking for its expansion Plans can take this risk less staffing
module. Contract- to- Hire module is a safe alternative to permanent hiring.

Walk-in
A HR Professional will select one Employee from 'N' no. of. Candidates, All the Branded
companies wanted to meet their entire Targeted Crowd, which is not possible by them usually.
We help them in Gathering the entire Targeted Crowd in a Single place in a day and to conduct
the Interviews for them in huge Levels.

Turn Key Assignments

Manage the entire Recruitment needs of the Client, address hiring initiatives Providing best
sourcing strategies to stay competitive Work closely with the Hiring Manager, analyze hiring
needs, do job profiling, devise strategies and Selection procedures, forming SLAs and
maximizing joiners. Provide an exclusive dedicated team of professionals with skill expertise
coupled with a human Contact for all the hiring needs. Provide tailor made solutions to
streamline recruitment process, reduce cost per hiring, decrease joining time and enable business
focus for the clients.

Onsite Recruitment
Onsite recruitment is attaining great importance in the human resource industrial strategy of
every company in today’s trend to meet their specific requirement.
Onsite recruitment is a process of meeting your Specific bulk requirements from the targeted
area to fulfil the urge need of the client. Our straightforward and focused approach in the
business enables us to work in close partnership with our clients; thus ensuring a full and
complete appreciation for each vacancy and person specification.

Job Fair
At SONAIYA Staffing, we connect talented people with respected companies. Every day,
leading global employers ask us to present them with talented candidates for their most in-
demand positions. SONAIYA offers them a unique access to this employment.
Opportunities, matching your skills with intriguing projects and cutting-edge technologies; we
are organizing this JOB FAIR event in colleges & universities.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
where we take care of the Entire / part of recruitment activities of our Clients…This involves all
the works of pre-recruitment process to post recruitment and Employee& Industry Relations. 
Sonaiya Software Solutions manage the entire recruiting/hiring process from job profiling
through the on-boarding of the new hire, including staff, technology, method and reporting…Our
properly managed RPO process improves our client’s time to hire, increase the quality of the
candidate pool, provide verifiable metrics, reduce cost and improve governmental compliance.
Education / Training
SSS, our educational division. Sonaiya Software Solutions, the educational division of
SONAIYA, provides quality education in various fields of IT. In an age of cutthroat competition,
college education is not enough. To have an edge over your counterparts, you need to have
something EXTRA. That additional bit is provided by Sonaiya Software Solutions. We have
highly qualified, capable & experienced team of faculty comprising of professionals & technical
experts. Individual attention is provided to students and equal emphasis is given to both theory
and practical. Sonaiya Software Solutions also provide training to B.Sc, BCA, M.Sc, M.C.A’s,
BE, B.Tech’s and M.Tech’s.
The mission of Sonaiya Software Solutions is to provide quality education in the various fields
of information technology for people of all walks of life
 Sonaiya Software Solutions - Training Program
 Classroom Training Program
 Online Training Program
 Onsite Training Program
 Hybrid Training Program
 Corporate Training consultation

Corporate Training consultation

In our corporate training programs we emphasis on a course schedule that achieves following
objective for the corporate:
 Training should align with the business plan and address the core competencies of your
business
 It is necessary that training outcomes strengthen the job environment and organizational
practices but vice-versa is obligatory as well.
 Knowledge management and self-directed learning should be integral part of the
training/learning processes
 We ensure that Training process is effective, efficient and is properly staffed, organized,
and managed.
 We have feedback systems to monitor business plans, performance problems and training
results.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

With the rapid growth in technology, the internet is becoming an important one stop point for

consumers in finding most of their needs. Be it communication, entertainment, shopping,

information search, internet serves as a panacea for all their requirements. This has led 70%

of the ever users to glue themselves to the Internet and access it on a regular basis. The

problem is that, volumes of consumers are online everyday for their personal work, but do

they notice the ads, banners etc. displayed on that webpage, most important what is their

recall/remembrance value. What about the reach of online advertising, is it effective across

over all target groups? To fill these gaps, the current study sought to determine the

effectiveness of internet advertising on consumer behavior.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

 To understand the element in digital media

 To understand the effectiveness of branding through digital media

 To understand the effort behind fulfillment of brands objective through campaigns

  To choose appropriate media for communication

 To maintain relationship with clients

 To study the different criteria of digital marketing services.

 To study the growth of Digital marketing.

Limitations of the study

The study is limited to local suburbs.

2. Review of Literature
Literature on Integrated Marketing Communication

Philip Kotler & Kevin Lane Keller, Marketing Management, New Delhi, Pearson Education,

2006,

Integrated marketing communication can produce stronger message consistency and greater sales

impact. It forces management to think about every way the customer comes in contact with the

company, how the company communicates its positioning the relative importance of each

vehicle and timing issues. It gives some responsibility to unify the company’s brand image and

messages as they come through thousands of company activities. IMC should improve the

company’s ability to reach right customers, with the right message, at right time in the right

place. Thus personal and non-personal communication channels should be combined to achieve

maximum impact.

Warren J. Keeyan, Global Marketing Management, USA, Prentice-Hall of India Pvt. Ltd., 2002,

A revolutionary development in the shift to the strategic concept of marketing is in the marketing

objective – from profit to consumer benefits. There is a growing recognition that profits are a

reward for performance (defined as satisfying customers in socially responsible or acceptable

ways). To compete in today’s market, it is necessary to have an employee team committed to

continuing innovation and to producing quality products. In other words, marketing must focus

on the customers and deliver value by creating consumer benefits. This change is revolutionary

idea that is accepted today by a vanguard minority marketing practitioners.

The idea of integrated marketing communication (IMC) is to create consistency and synergy by

combining marketing communication elements so that they support and enhance each other, to

promote potential communication understandings (Duncan and Everett, 1993).

Integrating Online & offline marketing together, Fitzpatrick Michele, Direct marketing, Oct

2003,

The concept of integrating online & offline marketing to build success is one who time has

come. While many companies still view their online & offline efforts as separate entities, savvy

marketers are slowly realizing that success comes through integration through all channels to

provide consumers with what they demand-accessibility, choice & convenience.

Viral marketing is an IMC technique that is mostly used for trendy brands; Marketers are

increasing acknowledging Viral marketing as an important IMC tool because it offers the

traditions benefits and effectiveness of advertising. In viral marketing the organization promotes

its product using Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), utilizing individual's communication

networks, and relying on their individual recommendations to sell the product. Companies

actively seek viral marketing, by fueling discussion on their offerings. (Groucutt, J. et al 2004).

As per Don Schultz (2008), ―IMC is a strategic business process used to plan, develop,

execute and evaluate coordinated, measurable, persuasive brand communication programmes

over time with consumers, customers, prospects, and other targeted, relevant external and
internal audiences. The key difference in this definition of IMC from that of simple Marketing

Communication is highlighted by use of three words: i) strategic, ii) evaluate and iii) measurable.

In essence, IMC enforces use of marketing communication mix in such a way that it is

strategically designed to achieve certain objectives, measured to enforce accountability over

marketers and are evaluated over time. These elements are also stressed on by various IMC

authors (Schultz, 1996; Duncan & Caywood, 1996), who believe that although the concept of

IMC is not new, but the fact that previously marketing communication was not coordinated

strategically and strategy is now believed critical, gives this concept a new look.

In another definition of IMC given by a well-known author on IMC literature, Kliatchko (2005)

reflects the same concept. As per the author, IMC is the concept and process of strategically

managing audience-focused, channel-centered and results-driven brand communication

programmes over time. This definition is a bit more specific and along with strategy and

accountability it emphasizes specifically on communication being channel-centered and

audience-focused. Managing and coordinating the integration of company‘s communication

across different media and channels is an important aspect of IMC. IMC does involve a

process/plan aimed at providing consistency and impact through integration of communication

via different mediums (Larich & Lynagh, 2009)

Kitchen and Schultz (1997) believe that integrated marketing communication has significant

value for the organization, specifically in lowering costs and having greater control over the

marketing communication program. This is supported by Duncan and Everett (1993) who extend

the benefits to include gaining competitive advantage through IMC.

Radio, Newspapers, however, now the future of marketers appears to be digital as technology

has become an important part of daily lives (Pall & McGrath, 2009). Concepts like convergence
have come in to bring more versatility in the communication mediums being used. Convergence

represents a paradigm shift – a move from medium specific content towards content that flows

across multiple media channels, towards the increased interdependence of communication

systems, towards multiple ways of accessing media content, and towards ever more complex

relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture.(Jenkins, 2006)

According to Kotler & Armstrong (2003), there are five traditional IMC elements quoted as

Advertising, Sales Promotion, Direct marketing, Personal selling and Publicity/Public relations.

According to Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), Advertising refers to "the means of

providing the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects at the lowest

possible cost". Kotler and Armstrong (2003), provide an alternative definition: "Advertising is

any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through

mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor".

According Perkin (2003) “as media-blitzed, ad-cynical, time-poor, channel-flicking audience

living in a fast-paced, attention-challenged world” The fact is that due to fast pace of technology,

and globalization of the world, consumer behavior around the world is changing. Today

customers have more control over what to see, and read and therefore IMC need to tailor the

organization campaign as per the requirements of the market.

IMC tries to maximize the positive message and minimize the negative once and communicate

them using the proper tools. A successful IMC program uses the combination of the right tools,

define their role and coordinate their use. The company should use the contact method that offers

the best way of delivering the message to the target audience. (Duncan, 2002).

IMC supports the AIDA model where in it helps to gain attention of consumers, generate

interest, create desire, and result in purchase action. AIDA model developed by Elmo Levis is
the set of stair –step stages, describes the stages through which every potential customer passes

till the act of purchase.

This basic model guides the copywriters in writing persuasive copy. AIDA is an acronym of

Attention – grab the attention of target audience and attract them towards ad message. It leads to

generate -

Interest – in the central theme of the ad that presents a forceful selling point, which arouses

Desire – to give positive response and act in a favourable manner that ultimately leads to –

Action – of purchasing product or making an inquiry for the product.

Tools of IMC

As stated earlier, more and more resources are allocated away from the traditional mass media

advertising and used on other communication tools. This allocation of communication budgets is

deeply connected to the appearance of, and is the major part of IMC. (Holm, 2006)

The classic tools –

It is very seldom that companies use one tool of marketing communication. Companies have

used a mix of tools for a long time but that does not mean that they are practicing IMC. The

difference when using IMC is the strategy behind the use and how the mix is coordinated.

Duccan (2002) lists the different tools or functions as advertising, public relations, sales

promotion, the personal connection

(direct response & personal sales) and experimental contacts (events & sponsorships).

Advertising
Mass media advertising, or the awareness builder, consists of “non-personal, one way, planned

messages paid for by an identified sponsor and disseminated to a broad audience in order to

influence their attitudes and behavior.” (Duncan, 2002, p. 506). Advertising is the most common

of all the IMC tools and this is equal to marketing for many people. It is a very broad tool and

primary objective is to create awareness.

Personal selling

Personal selling is defined as “Two way communication in which a seller interprets brand

features in terms of buyer benefits.” (Duncan, 2002, p. 617). Also called the face-to face

function, it involves one-to-one marketing using face to face communication. Before, personal

selling was focused primarily on sales, but now has to focus on salving problems and adding

value.

Public relations
Also called as credibility builder, public relations seek to affect the public opinion as well as

company stakeholder. It can be a concept, a profession, and a management as well as a practice.

Public relation can create a goodwill and a positive understanding between an organization and

its stakeholders. Marketing PR is defines as non-paid media to deliver positive brand information

designed to positively influence costumers & prospects.” (Duncan, 2002, p. 543)

Sales promotion

Sales promotion [SP] and the value added communication, is a communication tool that

encourages people to action by adding value. It is “a short term, added- value offer designed to

encourage and accelerate a response” (Duncan, 2002, p. 569). SP can be coupons, price

reductions, rebates to name a few and is used to persuade the customers to buy or motivate in

other stages of the decision process. Important to know is that it works in the short term.
Events & sponsorship

Event marketing & sponsorship are not the same but they overlap and have many things in

common. They are designed to create involvement and are effective to bond customers to a brand

or company. Event marketing a used to involve, increase awareness, reach audience and gain

publicity. Sponsorships have increased over the year and both differentiate and add value. The

definition is the

“the financial support of an organization, person or an activity in exchange of brand publicity

and association.” (Duncan, 2002, p. 640)

Internet (the contemporary tool of marketing)

The advances in technology has led to one of the most dynamic and revolutionary changes in the

history of marketing, the dramatic changes in communication using interactive media such as

Internet. Interactive media allows communication on a two way form instead of one way

communication. And a two way communication plays vital role in IMC. (Belch, Belch, 2001)

Mohammed Bin Afif (2012) believes that the power of ideas; integration across all media: The

P's of the marketing mix are argued by some to be the four C's, with communication replacing

promotion. This article champions communication as an effective tool in marketing. Within the

marketing sphere there are many mediums by which advertising messages can be conveyed to

consumers. The marketing manager must utilize all of the mediums in their thinking in order to

determine the right mix of mediums to use and in the right frequency in each to best convey their

message to the selected target market.

This article argues that mediums must work together for a unified message to be conveyed to

consumers with a feedback mechanism in place for consumers and the organization to be
involved in two-way communication. Also stated is the importance of word-of-mouth

communication, which is often overlooked by marketing managers. This ties in closely with

integrated marketing communication as the mediums must come under one umbrella, or message

to be communicated, that covers all the mediums used to ensure a single clear message is

communicated to consumers.

The marketing manager must therefore be creative in their planning to not only differentiate

their marketing from the clutter that exists in the advertising world but also to create the most

effective and cost efficient marketing mix as possible. The brand must engage with the consumer

to facilitate its success and one means of achieving this is to advertise in a setting or context that

the brand can borrow the interest from or that compliments the brand.

Literature on Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing users in One to one marketing, Fosket, Sally, Direct marketing; Nov 1996,

Online services will drive marketing to the opposite end of the spectrum from

“mass” marketing to customized “one-to-one” marketing. Online marketers communicate

instantly and directly with the prospective customers and can provide instant fulfillment as well.

Marketers with carefully designed World Wide Web sites are already interacting computer to

computer, with prospective customers or an individual basis, much as ATM does in very

primitive fashion. Online one to one approaches while innovative and still glamorous in their

pioneering aspects, offer significant new challenges. The significant aspect is the access with the

customers. Communication and information technology development has encouraged the

emergence of new communication channels that have increased the options available to

organizations for building relationships with clients.

How important is Internet marketing to the success of an organization?

There are no exact answers for this question. It depends on the nature of one company business

line. There are many companies currently using the Internet as their main business transaction

such as DELL, AirAsia, etc… However, companies such as UPM, the world’s leading forest

products producer only uses the Internet as a media to introduce the company and its products to

customers via its website.

Besides that, during the whole purchasing decision making process, customers not only use the

Internet in isolation to search for products but other media such as print, TV, direct mail and

outdoor as well. These media still play an extremely

important role for the marketers to communicate with customers, for example, direct or face – to

– face marketing more or less helps marketers build up the trust in customers and encourage

them to purchase the products. Therefore, it is better to use the Internet as part of a multi-channel

marketing strategy which “defines how different marketing channels should integrate and

support each other in terms of their proposition development and communication based on their

relative merits for the customer and the company.” (Chaffey et al. 2006, 5)

Mohan Nair (2011) takes social media as a complex marriage of sociology and technology that

cannot be underestimated in its impact to an organization marketing communication, choice as to

when to engage, how to manage and measure, and whether to lead or to follow is complex but

not an impossible task. These cannot be answered simply by one formula because the context

and the market dynamics are strong variables in these decisions. Even though the interest for

social media is huge, few companies understand what the term ―social media can mean to their
businesses. But how much it has been given importance, as an IMC tool, varies from region to

region (PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 2009; BuddeComm & Chiltern Magazine Services Ltd.

(BCMSL), 2009).

According to research conducted by Nielsen, we know that 92% of consumers report that “word-

of-mouth and recommendations from people [they] know” are the leading influence on their

purchase behavior. Only 37% trust search engine ads, and just 24% trust online banner ads. They

trust their friends and family the most when looking for brand recommendations. But what types

of recommendations carry the most weight? Brands are eager to tap into the power of

recommendations, and many companies measure an “NPS,” or Net Promoter Score, which

illustrates how likely someone is to recommend a specific brand or company. According to a

U.K. study by Fred Reichheld, “a 7% increase in word of-mouth advocacy unlocks 1%

additional company growth.” His research also shows that “a 12% increase in brand advocacy,

on average, generates a 2x increase in revenue growth rate plus boosts market share” and,

conversely, “a 2% reduction in negative word-of-mouth boosts sales growth by 1%.”

It is important to understand the relationship between digital communication and traditional

communication in the old media; for example, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboard

ads, the communication model was and is one-to-many compared to one-to-one or many-to-

many communication model in digital media like blogs, social networks, wikis and other social

media (Chaffey, 2003).

The increased fragmentation of media and customers, as well as the revolution in mass

communication by the new communication channels – internet and mobile communication

technologies – has created the need for a new approach to marketing communication that can

ensure centralized management and a consistency of communication messages sent towards

various audiences (McArthur and Griffin, 1997; Semenik, 2002; Smith, 2002).

Foux (2006) suggests Social media is perceived by customers as a more trustworthy source of

information regarding products and services than communication generated by organizations

transmitted via the traditional elements of the promotion mix.

Johnson and Greco (2003) explain that desires and different hopes from different clients can

sometime require certain unique information and contact strategies. Communication channels

and strategies now differ broadly from the ones in former times or offline times.

Digital Marketing is today seen by many practitioners as the new arena for market

communication and on top of the list of users of the different mediums is Facebook, Blogs,

Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn (Steltzner, 2009).

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media as ―a group of Internet-based applications that

build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which facilitates the creation

and exchange of user-generated content. It consists of different Internet applications such as

blogs, social networking sites, content communities, collaborative projects, virtual game worlds

and social worlds. Russell S. Winer (2009) affirms that many companies today are using some or

all of the new media to develop targeted campaigns that reach specific segments and engage their

customers to a much greater extent than traditional media.

Mangold & Faulds (2009) argue that marketing managers should comprise social media in the

communication mix when developing and executing their Integrated Marketing Communication

strategies and they presented the social media as a new hybrid element of promotion mix.

Even as organizations realize the need to engage customers at as many touch points as possible,

there is still a need to stay ahead of the rapidly shifting marketing and communication landscape
by integrating social media into traditional strategies to reach out to B2B and B2C audiences.

Online opportunities and their future impact on traditional marketing are as expensive as your

imagination can provide. (Pownall, 2011).

The role of exigencies in marketing: a rhetorical analysis of Three online social networks, thesis

presented to the graduate school of Clemson university, By Greg Brian Martin, May 2007,

Traditional marketing efforts have focused on determining exactly what channel to advertise

through, in order to properly segment the potential audience, but users of online social networks

have often times segmented themselves. Users of Joga, for instance, are soccer fans, users of the

Communities are interested in Adobe, and users of MySpace have the option to supply whatever

information about themselves that they wish. Marketers can spend more effort focusing on the

messages that they will use, and less time on proper audience segmentation.

Another benefit to marketing in a virtual community is that once the audience enters the network,

they may be able to ignore advertising messages, but they cannot avoid them (immersion).

Consider the Adobe Communities, for instance, which uses no outside advertisements or popup

ads (that the typical user can avoid easily), but rather advertise through immersion in that the

entire network is the respective marketing effort.

The structure of Digital Marketing communication channels, Robert Owen

Texas A&M University-Texarkana; Patricia Humphrey, Texas A&M University-Texarkana;

Journal of Management and Marketing Research,

Digital Marketing communication are moving toward interactions between individual recipients

and consumers rather than being directed from a marketing organization to masses of consumers.

It is now possible for an individual to be just as efficient in broadcasting information, both

positive and negative, about an organization as it is for a large corporation to promote itself. The
social networking that allows the quick and easy dissemination of information and mis-

information is in part a product of changes in online communication channels, but these

communication channels are in part enabled by such social networking.

From a marketing perspective, we are at a pioneering stage in understanding how these work.

The emergence and popularity of social networking websites and social media has made it just as

easy for an individual to communicate in real time with thousands of total strangers as with a

single close friend. Social networking websites have also been a great equalizer, making it just as

easy for an individual to build or break a marketing brand as for a large corporation – as well as

making it easy for a large corporation to mimic a sincere "grassroots" individual who lacks

corporate motives. A social networking website is defined here as "one that allows internet users

the ability to add user-generated content such as: comments, feedback, ratings, or their own

dedicated pages" (iProspect, 2007, p. 3). Websites such as epinions.com, for example, allow

product users to post ratings, comments, opinions, and full reviews about products.

Wikipedia.com makes it possible for

anyone to edit information about an organization or person, enabling a view that is not

necessarily the official whitewashed company version.

The distribution of products, information and promotional benefits to target customers through

interactive communication in a way that allows response to be measured. It accounts for direct

connections with carefully targeted individual customers to obtain an immediate response and

cultivate lasting customer relationship. (Jobber, 2007)

Forbes Magazine reports retail is down and e-commerce is up. One clear example of the power

of e-commerce comes from Macy’s recent returns. Forbes reports the

154-year-old retail chain saw online sales rise 40% in 2011 while same-stores sales grew just

5.3%. Maybe you’re not a billion-dollar business like Macy’s, but the numbers don’t lie. Online
sales are overtaking retail sales. Safe to say e-commerce is trending upward more and more each

year. It’s not too late to jump onboard the e-commerce train.

According to Forrester research, considering the current volume of internet marketing business,

it’s hard to believe how young the internet marketplace is.

While the timeline of internet marketing has been short, the cumulative events leading up to

where we are now have impacted the entire globe faster than any marketing revolution in history.

In 1994, spending for internet marketing totaled nearly nothing, but increased to over $300

million in 1995. Now, little more than a decade later, marketing spending and internet marketing

business has exploded to nearly $200 billion.

Quiroga & Kamila (2010) in their research- Marketing and Facebook, describe how fashion

companies promote themselves on social media platforms such as Facebook. This study took 34

Swedish companies into consideration. Nida, Sadaf, Sanya & Umair (2010) in their research-

Evolution of Digital Media as an IMC tool and its relevance for Pakistan aim to analyze the

trends of digital media within IMC over the years in Pakistan, the factors that have contributed to

the change and explore the importance of digital media in the marketing mix in future. Chen et

al.

(2007, pp.1047) notes that ―from both theoretical and practical perspectives, it is worth

studying what makes marketing communication introduce and promote products effectively,

especially in high-tech industries.

User Generated Content

User generated content (UGC) includes online blogs, contributions to wikis, comments in

forums, and pictures and status updates on social networking sites.

It‘s also called consumer generated media‘, or consumer created media, and is a core component

of the so-called second generation web or Web 2.0. (Chris Grannell, 2009).

According to Constantinides and Fountain (2009), the power structure has changed due to fact

that customers have access to information which previously was not available for them. As a

result, the consumer attitudes changes leading to new consumer needs, values and buying

behavior. Also Hearn, Foth and Grey (2009) acknowledge that the participatory culture, enabled

by recent technological innovations, shifts the communication flows away from a central

business-to-consumer model. The development is towards consumer-to-consumer flows of

communication as customers start to create content on their own by using new media

applications and services. (Hearn, Foth and Grey 2009, pp.49.)

Mangold and Faulds (2009) point out that the popular business press and academic literature

offers marketing managers very little guidance for incorporating social media into their

marketing communication strategies. Social media should be included in the promotion mix

when developing and executing their integrated marketing communication strategies. It is a

hybrid element of the promotion mix because it combines characteristics of the traditional

integrated marketing communication tools with a highly magnified social media influence

whereby marketing managers cannot control the content and frequency of such information.

Social media is also a hybrid due to it springs from mixed technology and media origins that

enable instantaneous, real-time communication. Is also utilizes multi-media formats and

numerous delivery platforms, with global reach capabilities. (Mangold and Faulds 2009, 359.)
The internet has become a mass media vehicle for consumer sponsored communication. It now

represents the number one source of media for customers at work and the number two source of

media at home. Customers are turning away from the traditional sources of advertising: radio,

television, magazines, and newspapers. Customers also consistently demand more control over

their media consumption. They require on-demand and immediate access to information at their

own convenience. Customers are turning more frequently to various types of social media to

conduct their information searches and to make their purchasing decisions (Lempert, 2006;

Vollmer & Precourt, 2008).

The internet and the marketing mix

Nowadays, the concept of Internet marketing has expanded and brought more opportunities for

companies to approach their customers. In the past, the Internet was only used as a tool to

contact customers, part of direct marketing. Nowadays, the Internet, particularly websites has

been becoming a popular media for any firms to introduce their products and services. The

Internet is considered as an independent and effective marketing tool. During eight years, from

2000 to 2008, the number of Internet users has increased by 4 times from about 361 millions to

more than 1, 46 billion (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm ), in which, Asia, the

continent with the biggest population accounts for 39.5% of World Internet Users.

In Finland, nearly four out of five Finns aged 15 to 74, or over three million persons, used the

Internet in Spring 2007 (www.stat.fi). To understand precisely how the Internet offers new
opportunities to traditional marketing model, it is necessary to examine it based on the marketing

mix which is traditional but still applicable.

In 1960, Jerome McCarthy introduced the marketing mix - widely referred as the 4 Ps of

Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Until now, it still plays an important role in formulating

and implementing marketing strategy. The 4 Ps have been developed and extended to the 7 Ps

with the appearance of People, Process and Physical evidence (Booms and Bitner, 1981). It

provides an effective strategic framework for changing different elements of a company's

product offering to influence the demand for products within target market (Chaffey et al. 2006,

215).

However, the researchers only focus on the first main and traditional 4 Ps in this paper due to

some limitations.

According to Philip Kotler (2003), Product is the solution to customers wants or/and needs. It

refers to the characteristics of a product, service or brand. The Internet offers options for varying

the core product, options for changing the extended products, conducting research online,

velocity of new product development and velocity of new product diffusion (Chaffey et al. 2006,

217 - 222). Many digital products now can be purchased easily over the Internet via providers’

website. For other products, instead of providing actual products to customers, many companies

publish the detailed product information with pictures or images. Thanks to this, consumers still

have concepts about different kinds of product even when staying at home. Besides that, for

some companies, it is possible for buyers to customize products. Dell is a typical example.

Through its websites, a customer can build a laptop or a desktop with the desired functions and

features. Besides that, companies also can supply more extended product user guides, packaging,

warranty, after sales services in a new method. For example, new drivers or updated package for

a computer or software are easily downloaded via producers’ websites. It brings conveniences
for both of buyer and seller/ producers. In addition, it is obvious that the Internet provides a new

tool to collect customer feedback quickly and accelerate new product development since process

of testing new products is more rapid and effective. The information about new products will

spread out more wildly and quickly.

Price is the most flexible element comparing to other three elements of the marketing mix, since
it can be changed quickly to adapt to the market's demand.

Companies can use the Internet to build differential price for different customers in different

countries, based on IP (Internet Protocol) analytic technologies. For buyers, they are able to find

out the price differences by visiting companies' websites or price comparison sites. In addition to

this, the Internet also reduces costs and price per product by reducing operating costs of stores

and number of staffs. Therefore, the Internet is considered as the most effective marketing tool.

(P S Verma et al. 2003, 135-156). Together with these advances, many new payment methods

are created. The online payment method using credit cards is the most popular, efficient,

convenient and flexible way for companies and customers. Bills can be paid at any time and in

anywhere. Moreover, companies can cut costs by reducing paper works since the customers fill

all the necessary information such as their own private information and credit cards information

by themselves.

Beside these conveniences, online customers still have to worry about securities and privacy

matters. Hence, some third parties provide services to protect consumer privacy and to secure

transactions. PayPal is one of the most successful companies in this business sector.

Place in the marketing mix refers to how the product is distributed to customers. New method of

distributing goods through online selling is offered by the improvement of the Internet. It is
possible for customers to make their purchasing decisions anywhere at any time. The Internet has

the greatest implications for the Place in the marketing mix because it has a large market place

(Allen and Fjermestad 2001, 14-23). Companies now can expand their business from local areas

to the whole country even to international market. They also can use the Internet to exploit new

markets with low cost international advertising since they do not have to establish sales

infrastructure in different countries (Chaffey, 2006, 237-243).

The Promotion element of the marketing mix refers to how marketing communication are used

to inform customers and other stakeholders about an organization and its products (Chaffey,

2006, 243). The Internet can be used to review new ways of applying each of elements of

communication mix such as advertising, sales promotions, PR and direct marketing; assess how

the Internet can be used at different stages of the buying process; and assist in different stages of

customers relationship management from customer acquisition to retention (Chaffey, 2006, 243 -

245).

Internet Advertising: It is a form of advertising that uses the Internet to attract customers by

delivering messages through websites or advertising banners on other popular websites which

leads online users to a company site. The company website must be well-organized, well-

designed and user-friendly in order to attract more target customers. (Rowley, 2001)

Sales promotion: Thanks to the Internet, sales promotions such as competitions or price

reductions can be provided to visitors of the company’s website in a cost-reduced way. Not only

encourage the customers to visit the company website again, this also provides the means for the

company to build a long term relationship with their customers (Chaffey, 2006, 243-245).
Public relations: The Internet is a new medium for Public Relations (PR). Blogs, Podcasts /

Internet radio shows, online newsrooms and media kits offer companies a new opportunity to

publish the news directly while in traditional marketing they would wait for periodical

publications (Chaffey, 2006, 243-245).

Direct marketing: Thanks to the Internet, companies nowadays have a new tool for direct

marketing and advertising that may be cost effective and maximum delivery to targeted

customers. By using e-mail addresses, the company can establish a two way communication

method with customers (Chaffey, 2006, 243-245).

The 21st century is predicted to be a century of technologies when everyone, every company,

every organization apply them to make their works become much easier and more effective. The

popularity of using the Internet, together with the improvement of computer hardware and

software industries, completely boost the development of e-marketing in the whole process of

buying from pre-sale to sale to post-sale and further development of customer relationship. New

comers in this area have to consider very carefully the use of these modern channels. Since, the

role of Internet marketing is to support the multi-channel marketing which is the combination of

digital and traditional channels at different points in the buying cycle (Chaffey et al. 2006, xiv -

xv). They have to understand which the main marketing channel is and which the supportive

marketing channel is. Below is some results drawn from different articles and researches which

touch upon different parameters that make many companies pursue Internet marketing.

Consumer privacy

In an effort to understand New Zealand consumers more, Chung W. and Paynter J.(2002, 2402-

2411), based on their work, drew a conclusion that it was a must for companies to have privacy
policy statements under their website to protect consumer privacy information, to make sure that

their customers’ information cannot be misused. Some solutions were also discussed in this study

to protect customers' privacy. For the authors, solutions such as legislation, self-regulation and

technical solutions had be combined together to maximize its effectiveness.

According to Liebermann Yehoshua and Stashevsky Shmuel (2002, 291-300), the factors which

can prevent customers from using and believing in e-commerce include: Internet credit card

stealing, fear of supplying personal information, pornography and violence, vast Internet

advertising, information reliability, lack of physical contact, not receiving Internet products

purchased, missing the human factor when Internet purchases are made, Internet usage addiction.

The participants for this study come from different genders, group ages, high/low education

background, and different marital status. Other variables are also examined for example Internet

user/non user, bought online/not bought online and heavy/light Internet user.

According to Chaffey et al. (2006, 381), Paid search listings or sponsored links are very

important for any company to be visible in all search engines. To achieve highest positions and

regularly appear, websites should take bid strategy and click through rate into consideration very

carefully. Bid strategy helps advertisers maximize their exposure on PPC search engines such as

Google, Yahoo or MSN.

In cases when using Google, setting a maximum bid in the Adwords platform means how much

an advertiser is willing to pay for a click on a specific keyword. Based on what other advertisers

are bidding for the same keyword, you may be charged less but will never be charged higher than

your set limit. The maximum bid you set will be one of the main factor determines what your

rank number in sponsored links list. If for a same term, you bid
higher than other advertisers, your ad will probably appear in the top three positions. If you bid

too low, your ad may not be listed on the first page of result or even will not appear at all.

Meanwhile, the click through rate refers to the 27 number of persons who click on the link.

Google also takes click through rate into account to rank the sponsored links. When the click

through rate of a link is low or a zero, the link will be dropped down or taken away from

sponsored link list.

Google Adwords is not the only choice for PPC advertising. Yahoo Publishers or

Microsoft’s MSN are main competitors of Google in this market. Any company must be careful

in calculating the advertising costs which relate to the actual purchase or lifetime value they can

get from the average customer. As well as examining the cost-per-click (CPC), companies also

have to take into account the conversion rate when visitors come to their websites.

Interactive marketing refers to place ad banners on other websites. If ad site visitors click on ad

banners, visitors will be redirected to destination sites. In some aspects, it is quite similar with

Pay-per-click search engine. The main difference between these two types of marketing activities

is: there is no interference of the third parties or search engine providers. Besides traditional

banner ads (468 by 68 pixel), there are now many different forms of interactive advertising such

as popups/ layer, video ads, or new large-format ad spaces (button 2, skyscrapers, wide

skyscrapers, Leaderboards). The main purposes of interactive advertising for example are:

delivering detailed information of a destination site’s offer, leading to a sale, and brand

awareness.

The foundation of interactive advertising results in the appearance of many new different terms,

for instance page impression (occurs when an Internet user views a webpage), ad impression

(occurs when a person views an advertisement on the webpage), reach (a number of unique

individuals view an advertisement), Click through (occurs each time a webpage visitor clicks on
an ad banner which leads them to destination website) and click through rate (CTR) (is the

number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown

(impressions) in ad sites (http://adwords.google.com)). According to an ADTECH research

(2007), in Europe, the click through rate has fallen from 0.33% in 2004 to 0.18% in 2007.

Compared to other countries, the CTR in Finland is the lowest one, only 0.09%.

Dirk Freytag, CEO, ADTECH, said: “The decreasing numbers overall in my opinion are due to

the fact that the users have increasingly gotten used to online advertising during the last years.

Banners are now commonplace on the Internet. New formats, such as video ads are needed to

draw attention and generate clicks. Layer and Leaderboards in contrast have a high reminder

potential even beyond the Web.” (http://www.adtech.info/archive2007_1/pr-070510.htm)

What is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing [VM] is a mix of marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to

increases brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives of a business. Viral

marketing helps to increase product sales with help of various processes and modules that

resemble viruses. Video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software,

images, or even text messages are some of the forms of viral marketing services to add to the

promotion of a website/business. Sometimes, WOM [word-of-mouth] communication and

network effects of the Internet also work as a tool of viral marketing.

Viral Marketing is any marketing technique that encourages web site, Internet, email or wireless

users to pass on a message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the

message's visibility and effect. Viral Marketing is extremely attractive to businesses because it

can deliver astounding results in a relatively short period of time. Advertising and marketing

budgets no longer stretch as far as they used to, and the iperceived savings by using viral web

promotion techniques are too attractive to ignore.

A well known example of successful viral email marketing is Hotmail, a company, now owned

by Microsoft that promotes its email service and its own advertisers' messages at the end of every

Hotmail user's e-mail notes. longer stretch as far as they used to, and the iperceived savings by

using viral web promotion techniques are too attractive to ignore. Viral Marketing methods

include email marketing, "refer-a-friend", "pass-it-on", "send-an-article", ecards, ebook

distribution, video email, and many more. Internet experts at ViralBuzz can implement web

promotion strategy to virtually any web site or promotional campaign. A well - known example

of successful viral email marketing is Hotmail, a company, now owned by Microsoft that

promotes its email service and its own advertisers' messages at the end of every Hotmail user's e-

mail notes.

E-mail marketing

According to the Double click website, there are three key measures for email marketing:

delivery rate (non-bounce rate), open rate and click through rate (click rate). Delivery rate simply

shows the percentage of delivered emails. Emails will bounce when the email addresses is no

longer exist or blocked by a spam filter. Open rate indicates how many emails are opened,

however these figures are not accurate. It can be explained that a number of users have preview

panes in their email reading programs which load the image even though it is deleted without

reading. Besides that, some email readers such as Window Live Mail block images by default. It

results to the open rate decline gradually through time. Click through rate or click rate refers to

the number of delivered emails are clicked through by readers.

Online PR
PR stands for “public relations”. In some cases, it is also used as an acronym for “press release”

or “press relations”. According to Chaffey et al. (2006, 384 - 388), online PR refers to

maximizing favorable mentions of an organization, its brands, products or websites on third-

party websites which are likely to be visited by its target audience. Online reputation

management, which controls the reputation of an organization through monitoring and

controlling messages placed about the organization, is another aspect of online PR

There are many activities which belong to Online PR. Communicating with media (journalists)

online is one of Online PR activities. It uses the Internet to spread out press releases via email

and on-site. A company can create a press-release area on its webpage or send email alerts about

news those journalists and other third parties can sign up to. It also can choose to submit its news

stories or releases to online new feeds. Link building is another activity of Online PR since it

aims to make your brand visible on third parties’ webpage.

Joanna Lord (2013) states that Digital Marketing in 2012 could be summed up in a few words:

mobile, big brands and Google updates. As we look back at the events and advancements that

shaped last year in Digital Marketing, naturally we should look forward and wonder what 2013

will have in store. While the execution of all this might vary wildly, there is no doubt a few areas

will capture our attention and be the driving forces behind business decisions over the next 12

months.

1. A surge in 'second screen' value: By second screen I'm referring to mobile. With more than

75 percent of the world having access to mobile devices, today’s marketer can’t ignore the value

of offering second screen value for their brands and clients.

Last year we were tasked with making our websites mobile-friendly - meaning responsive and

easy to use on mobile devices but this year will be all about offering value in mobile app form.
What value can your brand or client offer a mobile device user? It goes beyond ease of use and

searching ability. This type of value will be in new information, new formats for consumption

and entirely new resources.

2. The evolution of 'attribution modeling': Last year was one heck of a year for analytics. We

saw the rise of analytics packages and solutions, breaking down channel silos and marketers

taking a more holistic approach to what's called attribution tracking -- the process of assigning a

specific value to a marketing action that results in a conversion.

3. The rise of gamification: Applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make

them more fun and engaging has been growing steadily, but expect it to reach a tipping point in

2013. Big brands, new startups and every company in-between will be spending more money and

resources on "gamifying" their products and services this year. The rise of easy-to-use platforms,

such as BigDoor and PunchTab, and the inherent value of an engaged user, have made this a

must-consider marketing strategy.

4. An increased focus on 'inbound marketing': With the growth of social marketing,

marketers now must invest in adding a new kind of value. Enter "inbound marketing,” a type of

marketing in which brands spend resources to

create content, conversations and valuable resources that draw customers to their products or

websites without paid marketing.

5. Improved data visualizations: It is believed that there will be a renewed focus on beautiful

data visualizations in 2013, which is the way we visualize complex data sets in easy to
understand formats that are worth sharing. Last year we saw big data catch fire, but this year we

will need to make that data accessible to everyone.

6. More loyalty marketing: By now, we are all pretty aware that it is more costly to acquire a

new customer than to retain an existing one. Add to that how consumers have never before been

so connected and willing to share opinions of purchases and experience. Guess what you get?

Marketers` brainstorming creative ways to make customers feel appreciated and satisfied. What

was once an afterthought should now find its way into the early stages of marketing roadmaps.

7. Brands as social influencers: Thanks to platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook and

Foursquare, we've seen brands build followings of unparalleled size, which has left them with

legitimate influence over consumers. In 2013 we will see brands continue to grow their

communities and the reach of their voice, opinions and products.

8. More analytics: As we see more marketing channels in play and an improved ability to

understand how they all touch, it is predicted that marketers will be seeking out new ways to

prioritize their many opportunities. Unlike traditional web analytics -- the measurement of how

your website is performing -- marketing analytics is the measurement and optimization of your

marketing activities.

9. Design is king: Piggybacking the growing importance of inbound marketing and the trend in

improved data visualizations comes a rising of the bar around web design. With designer

community sites like dribbble and forrst, we’ve seen the

design community grow in leaps and bounds. Beautiful design has never been so affordable and

in demand. To stand out in 2013, strengthen your in-house resources or contract a team to get

your website design up-to-speed.

10. Local marketing goes mainstream: Local companies have never before had so many tools

available to understand how to improve local search results, engage with customers and measure

their success. Sites like GetListed have made local marketing easy to track and manage, at a

price small businesses can afford. This New Year will only bring more, and improvements to

those already out there. That is why It is believed that everyone will see local marketing

demystified for the masses, and more successful small businesses as a result.

Krishan Kant (2005) states that Integrated Marketing Communication is a term used to describe a

holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the

complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels.

Digital Marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine

optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, and affiliate, and email, banner to latest web related channels

for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels

are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations,

billboard, radio, and television. A company develops its integrated marketing communication

program using all the elements of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion).

Jerry Ihejirika (2009) believes that Marketing on the internet have become the best and most

widely accepted form of global communication. Internet marketing communication consists of

the global sharing of ideas, concepts, and information about products and services.

Digital Marketing communication is initiated through the use of marketing media vehicles such

as social media networks, forums, e-mail, ads, blogs, press release, RSS distribution, and other

promotional tools.

If you have a website selling products or services, it can help you generate traffic of visitors to

your website and before you know it, you are getting leads and making sales. Generating traffic
to your website is very important, but of course, your website needs to look unique, well-

structured, rich contents, and search engine optimized. This will make you stand out and above

your competitors. However, those new visitors will help in word-of-mouth communication by

telling others about your unique and rich content website.

The internet marketplace is getting flooded on a daily basis. These have resulted to several large

companies hiring Digital Marketing specialists to do a great job in promoting their web

businesses. It is the small- and medium-sized enterprises who are looking for cost effective

solutions. Of course, if a company does not have the money to hire a services provider and they

are willing to learn as much as they can about marketing on the internet, they could do a great

job of promoting their website.

 Research Methodology

For accomplishing this project, I planned to use two methodologies. One is gathering data from

client servicing executives in sonaiya software solutions and another one is a research to

understanding the consumer buying behavior of Indians in digital era using an online

questionnaire.

Sonaiya Software Solutions – Organization Worked

Pitch Presentation: Presentation made by the Sonaiya Software for client based on the brief, by

analyzing industry and digital media. Mostly used for new clients.
 Requirements Discussion

Approaching Client
Keywords
Analyze feature

Domain name

WS Structure
Content Collection

Landing page
WS Developing

WS Launching
Traffic

Off Page (Social Media)

Back links

Local Business

Leads - Branding

Positive closing

Figure 3.1: Systematic Flow followed in Sonaiya Software Solutions

Proposal: Proposal put forward by Sonaiya Software including campaign

objective, target market, strategy, approaches, estimated cost and outputs.

Digital Marketing – SEO

SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) is defined by Wikipedia as: “the process of
improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via
“natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results”.

Search engine optimisation can be split into 2 main areas;

• “On-Page SEO” (changes to the subject website and its pages, also known as Technical
SEO”). It provides about 20%-30% of the total ranking score.

• “Off-Page SEO” (getting links from external websites, otherwise known as Content
Marketing & Online PR). It provides about 70%-80% of the total ranking score.

We have to do Keyword Planning before starting the process.

a) Search a Target keyword using Google Adwords
b) Select High monthly searches & Low completion keywords

SEO Factors
1. Domain Age – Age of the domain will increase the authority of the website and improve
ranking.
2. Keyword Appears in Top Level Domain
3. Keyword as First Word in Domain
4. Domain registration length – Should be less than 63 characters.
5. Keyword in Subdomain Name – Put the keyword in the subdomain or pages.
6. Domain History: A site with volatile ownership (via whois) or several drops may tell
Google to “reset” the site’s history, negating links pointing to the domain.
7. Country TLD extension: Having a Country Code Top Level Domain (.in .cn, .pt, .ca) helps
the site rank for that particular country…but limits the site’s ability to rank globally.
8. Keyword in Title Tag: The title tag is a webpage’s second most important piece of
content (besides the content of the page) – Less than 160 characters.
9. Title Tag Starts with Keyword: Title tags that starts with a keyword tend to perform
better than title tags with the keyword towards the end of the tag:
10. Keyword in Description Tag: Another relevancy signal.
11. Keyword Appears in H1 Tag: H1 tags are a “second title tag” that sends another
relevancy signal to Google.
12. Keyword is Most Frequently Used Phrase in Document: Having a keyword appear
more than any other likely acts as a relevancy signal.
13. Content Length:  Content with more words can cover a wider breadth and are likely
preferred to shorter superficial articles.
14. Keyword Density: (3%-10%) Keyword density is still something Google uses to
determine the topic of a webpage. But going overboard can hurt you.
15. Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords in Content (LSI): LSI keywords help search
engines extract meaning from words with more than one meaning .
16. LSI Keywords in Title and Description Tags: As with webpage content, LSI keywords
in page meta tags probably help Google discern between synonyms. May also act as a
relevancy signal.
17. Page Loading Speed via HTML: Both Google and Bing use page loading speed as a
ranking factor. Search engine spiders can estimate your site speed fairly accurately based
on a page’s code and filesize.
18. Duplicate Content: Identical content on the same site (even slightly modified) can
negatively influence a site’s search engine visibility.
19. Rel=Canonical: When used properly, use of this tag may prevent Google from
considering pages duplicate content.
20. Image Optimization: Images on-page send search engines important relevancy signals
through their file name, alt text, title, description and caption.
21. Magnitude of Content Updates: The significance of edits and changes is also a
freshness factor. Adding or removing entire sections is a more significant update than
switching around the order of a few words.
22. Historical Updates Page Updates: How often has the page been updated over time?
Daily, weekly, every 5-years? Frequency of page updates also play a role in freshness.
23. Keyword Prominence: Having a keyword appear in the first 100-words of a page’s
content appears to be a significant relevancy signal.
24. Keyword in H2, H3 Tags: Having your keyword appear as a subheading in H2 or H3
format may be another weak relevancy signal.
25. Keyword Word Order: An exact match of a searcher’s keyword in a page’s content will
generally rank better than the same keyword phrase in a different order.
26. Outbound Link Quality: Many SEOs think that linking out to authority sites helps send
trust signals to Google.
27. Grammar and Spelling: Proper grammar and spelling is a quality signal.
28. Syndicated Content: Content should be original, i.e., Unique.
29. Number of Internal Links Pointing to Page: The number of internal links to a page
indicates its importance relative to other pages on the site.
30. Broken Links: Having too many broken links on a page may be a sign of a neglected or
abandoned site. The Google Rater Guidelines Document uses broken links as one was to
assess a homepage’s quality.
31. Reading Level: There’s no doubt that Google estimates the reading level of webpages.
32. HTML errors/W3C validation: Lots of HTML errors or sloppy coding may be a sign of
a poor quality site.
33. URL Length: Long URLs may hurt search visibility.
34. Website traffic
35. Bullets and Numbered Lists: Bullets and numbered lists help break up your content
for readers, making them more user friendly. Google likely agrees and may prefer content
with bullets and numbers.
36. Priority of Page in Sitemap: The priority a page is given via the sitemap.xml file may
influence ranking.
37. User Friendly Layout
38. Site Architecture: A well put-together site architecture helps Google thematically
organize your content.
39. Terms of Service and Privacy Pages: These two pages help tell Google that a site is a
trustworthy member of the internet.
40. Duplicate Meta Information On-Site: Duplicate meta information across your site
may bring down all of your page’s visibility.
41. Breadcrumb Navigation: 
42. Mobile Optimized – The website should be mobile friendly.
43. YouTube: There’s no doubt that YouTube videos are given preferential treatment in
the SERPs (probably because Google owns it).
44. Bounce rate.
45. Use of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools: Some think that having these
two programs installed on your site can improve your page’s indexing. They may also
directly influence rank by giving Google more data to work with (ie. more accurate bounce
rate, whether or not you get referall traffic from your back links etc.).
46. User reviews/Site reputation – Need to have positive reviews with large numbers in
our website and other websites.
47. Alt Tag (for Image Links): Alt text is an image’s version of anchor text.
48. Links from .edu or .gov Domains
49. PR of Linking Page: The PageRank of the referring page is an extremely important
ranking factor.
50. Authority of Linking Domain: The referring domain’s authority may play an
independent role in a link’s importance (ie. a PR2 page link from a site with a homepage
PR3  may be worth less than a PR2 page link from PR8).
51. Social Shares of Referring Page: The amount of page-level social shares may
influence the link’s value.
52. “Sponsored Links” Or Other Words Around Link: Words like “sponsors”, “link
partners” and “sponsored links” may decrease a link’s value.
53. Internal Link Anchor Text
54. Links from “Hub” Pages: Getting links from pages that are considered top resources
(or hubs) on a certain topic are given special treatment.
55. Link from Authority Sites: A link from a site considered an “authority site” likely pass
more juice than a link from a small, microniche site.
56. Linked to as Wikipedia Source: Although the links are nofollow, many think that
getting a link from Wikipedia gives you a little added trust and authority in the eyes of
search engines.
57. DMOZ Listed: Many believe that Google gives DMOZ listed sites a little extra trust.
58. Yahoo! Directory Listed: The algorithm might also have a special place for the Yahoo!
Directory, considering how long it’s been cataloging sites.
59. Forum Profile Links: Because of industrial-level spamming, Google may significantly
devalue links from forum profiles.
60. Word Count of Linking Content: A link from a 1000-word post is more valuable than
a link inside of a 25-word snippet.
61. Organic Click Through Rate for a Keyword
62. Direct Traffic: It’s confirmed that Google uses data from Google Chrome to determine
whether or not people visit a site (and how often). Sites with lots of direct traffic are likely
higher quality than sites that get very little direct traffic.
63. Repeat Traffic: Sites with repeat visitors may get a Google ranking boost.
64. Chrome Bookmarks: Pages that get bookmarked in Chrome might get a boost.
65. Number of Comments: Pages with lots of comments may be a signal of user-
interaction and quality.
66. Dwell Time: Google pays very close attention to “dwell time”: how long people spend
on your page when coming from a Google search.
67. Local Searches: Google often places Google+ Local results above the “normal” organic
SERPs.
68. Facebook Shares: Facebook shares - because they’re more similar to a backlink
69. Authority of Facebook User Accounts: As with Twitter, Facebook shares and likes
coming from popular Facebook pages may pass more weight.
70. Pinterest Pins: Pinterest is an insanely popular social media account with lots of
public data. It’s probably that Google considers Pinterest Pins a social signal.
71. Verified Google+ Authorship:
72. Number of RSS Subscribers
73. Disavow Tool: Use of the Disavow Tool may remove a manual or algorithmic penalty
for sites that were the victims of negative SEO.
74. Reconsideration Request: A successful reconsideration request can lift a penalty.

Client servicing

Analysis the industry and digital media for clients, formulating strategies and

executing them based on the objectives of client.

Figure 3.2: Digital Marketing Flow – Executives wise
 Client Name URL Keywords Giving Services
APJ Smartworks www.apjsmartworks.com Redmi Service Centre in Ambattur SEO
MI Service Centre in Ambattur SMM
Xiaonmi Service Centre in Ambattur Google mapping
iPad Service Centre in Ambattur Google My Business
iPhone Service Centre in Ambattur
letv Service Centre in Ambattur
Lenovo Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Intex Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Panasonic Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Motorola mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Asus mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
LG Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Sony Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Samsung Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Videocon Mobile Service Centre in Ambattur
Gionee Service Centre in Ambattur
Micromax Service Centre in Ambattur
Honour Service Centre in Ambattur
Swipe Service Centre in Ambattur
Lyf Service Centre in Ambattur
Coolpad Service Centre in Ambattur
Vivo Service Centre in Ambattur
oppo Service Centre in Ambattur
Lava Service Centre in Ambattur
Xolo Service Centre in Ambattur
karbon Service Centre in Ambattur
One Plus Service Centre in Ambattur
Meizu Service Centre in Ambattur
Celkon Service Centre in Ambattur
Blackberry Service Centre in Ambattur
Nexus Service Centre in Ambattur
Nokia Service Centre in Ambattur
HTC Service Centre in Ambattur

Table 3.1: Client APJ Service followed by Sonaiya Software Solutions

 Client Name URL Keywords Giving Services
Jai Sai Aromaa www.jsaromaa.in Black Magic Removal in Chennai SEO
Website is in under constructon BEST NUMEROLOGISTS IN INDIA SMM
Best Numerology Consultant in Tamil Nadu Google mapping
Aroma Magic Oil in Chennai Google My Business
VASHIKARAN SPECIALIST IN TAMIL NADU
BEST VASTHU CONSULTANT IN CHENNAI
BEST ASTROLOGER IN TAMIL NADU
BEST ASTROLOGER IN CHENNAI
GEMSTONES IN CHENNAI
LOVE MARRIAGE SPECIALIST ASTROLOGER IN TAMILNADU

Table 3.2: Client JSAromaa Service followed by Sonaiya Software Solutions

Client Name URL Keywords Giving Services

Footcure www.footcure.com Comfort footwear in Chennai SEO

Corrective Footwear in Chennai SMM

Customized Footwear in Chennai Google mapping

Diabetic Footwear in Chennai Google My Business

MCP Footwear in chennai

Ortho Footwear in chennai

Ortho Shoes footwear in chennai

Skin allergies footwear in chennai

Veircose vein footwear in chennai

Wound Healing Footwear in Chennai

Table 3.3: Client Footcure Service followed by Sonaiya Software Solutions
 Reports: Reports submitted by which vendors to Sonaiya Software, based on the

running campaigns of clients

FOOT CURE [ footcure.com ]

Mar-14 Mar-26 Apr-03
Keywords
Page place page place page place
COMFORT FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI First 4 first 4 second 2

First 4 first 3 first 1

CORRECTIVE FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI
First 7 first 8 first 9
CUSTOMIZED FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI
First 3 first 4 first 4
 DIABETICS FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI
First 6 first 4 first 4
MCP FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI
First 2 first 4 first 2
Ortho Footwear in Chennai
First 1 first 1 first 1
 SKIN ALLERGIES FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI
First 1 first 1 first 1
Varicose Vein Footwear in Chennai
First 3 first 1 first 1
best WOUND HEALING FOOTWEAR IN CHENNAI 

Table 3.4 : Client Footcure Success Reports by Sonaiya Software Solutions

 APJ SMART WORKS [apjsmartworks.com ]
Mar-14 Mar-26 Apr-03
Keywords
page place page place page place
Redmi Service Center in Ambattur first 3 first 3 first 3

MI Service Center in Ambattur first 4 first 4 first 3

Xiaomi Service Center in Ambattur first 4 first 4 first 4

iPad Service Center in Ambattur first 2 first 2 first 3

iPhone Service Center in Ambattur first 7 first 8 first 8

letv Service Center in Ambattur first 2 first 1 first 1

Lenovo Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 6 first 8 first 8

Intex Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 5 first 4 first 4

Panasonic Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 4 first 4 first 6

Motorola Mobile Service Center in Ambattur second 2 first 7 first 10

Asus Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 4 first 3 first 4

LG Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 6 first 5 first 5

Sony Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 2 first 2 first 2

Samsung Mobile Service Center in Ambattur second 2 second 2

Videocon Mobile Service Center in Ambattur first 6 first 4 first 4

Gionee Service Center in Ambattur first 5 first 3 first 4

Micromax Service Center in Ambattur first 9 first 8 first 9

Honour Service Center in Ambattur first 5 first 5 first 3

Swipe Service Center in Ambattur first 6 first 6 first 6

Lyf Service Center in Ambattur first 2 first 2 first 2

Coolpad Service Center in Ambattur first 5 first 4 first 3

Vivo Service Center in Ambattur first 6 first 4 first 8

 Oppo Service Center in Ambattur first 4 first 4

Lava Service Center in Ambattur second 2 first 7 first 10

Xolo Service Center in Ambattur second 2 first 9 first 10

One plus Service Center in Ambattur first 5 first 6 first 6

Meizu Service Center in Ambattur first 1 first 2 first 1

Celkon Service Center in Ambattur first 6 first 5 first 5

Blackberry Service Center in Ambattur first 2 first 3 first 3

Nexus Service Center in Ambattur first 1 first 1 first 1

Nokia Service Center in Ambattur second 2 second 2 second 2

HTC Service Center in Ambattur first 3 first 3

Table 3.5: Client APJ Success Reports by Sonaiya Software Solutions

Data Analysis & Discussion

The term analysis refers to the computation of certain measures along with searching for patterns

of relationship that exist among data groups.

The data after collection has to be processed and analyzed in accordance with the outline laid

down in research plan or research design. This is essential for a scientific study and for ensuring

that we have all relevant data for making comparisons and analysis. Technically processing of

data implies editing, coding, classification and tabulation of collected data so that they are

available for analysis. Analysis particularly in case of surveys involves estimating the values of

unknown parameters of the population and testing of hypothesis for drawing inferences.

“Thus in the process of analysis, relationships or differences supporting or conflicting with

original or new hypothesis should subject to statistical tests of significance in order to determine

with what validity data can be said to indicate any conclusions.”

Analysis therefore may be categories as descriptive analysis and inferential analysis which is

often known as statistical analysis.

Descriptive Analysis:

Descriptive statistics is the term given to the analysis of data that helps describe, show or

summarize data in a meaningful way such that, for example, patterns might emerge from the

data. Descriptive statistics are simply a way to describe our data.

“Descriptive analysis is largely the study of distribution of one variable. This study provides us

with profiles of companies, work groups, persons and other subjects on any of a multiple

characteristics such as size, compositions, efficiency, preferences etc.”

Descriptive analysis is more specific in that they direct attention to particular aspects or

dimensions of research target. Such studies reveal potential relationship between variables, thus

setting the stage for more elaborate investigation later.

It is a search for broader meaning and research findings. It is the device through which the

factors that seem to explain what has been observed by researcher in the course can be better

understood and provides theoretical conception which serve as a guide for further researches. It

is essential because it will lead towards findings of the study and proper effective conclusions of

the study.

Descriptive approach is one of the most popular approaches in these days. In this approach, a

problem is described by the researcher using questionnaire or schedule. This approach enables a

researcher to expose new ideas or areas of investigation.

Direct contact between respondents and researcher is brought through this descriptive approach.

Inferential Analysis:

Inferential analysis is used to generalize the results obtained from a random (probability) sample

back to the population from which the sample was drawn. This analysis is only required when: a

sample is drawn by a random procedure; and the response rate is very high. The methods of

inferential statistics are (1) the estimation of parameter(s) and (2) testing of statistical

hypotheses.

In the present study researcher used descriptive statistical tools. Primary data is used while

analyzing and drawing inferences.

Descriptive Analysis of Primary Data:

This part of study is mainly focused on verifying main objectives of study. Researcher used

statistical tools like mean, standard deviation and graphs for analysis of primary data.

Sample Design and Size

Survey for research work was conducted in the city of Chennai keeping in mind that Digital

Marketing is still a metropolitan phenomenon in the developing country like India. Sample of

200 respondents was selected for survey. The questionnaire included a segment on customers
profile as a classification of their demographic factors such as gender, age & occupation. During

data collection phase, due care was taken in order to make sure that the given questionnaire is

completely filled by the respondents.

The detailed respondent profile is as follows :

Table 4.1: Respondent’s profile

Occupation Gender

Age Self
Student Service Total Male Female Total
Employed

18 to 25
81 0 0 81 38 43 81
years

25 to 35
19 41 3 63 31 32 63
years

35 to 45
0 47 9 56 29 27 56
years

Total 100 88 12 200 98 102 200

Out of 200 respondents - 100 are students out of which 81 are between the age 18 to 25 years

& 19 are between the age 25 to 35 years. There are 88 respondents who are jobber out of

which 41 are between the age 25 to 35 years & 47 are between the age 35 to 45 years. Also

there are total 12 respondents who are self employed out of which 3 are between the 25 to 35

years & 9 are between the age 35 to 45 years.

As far as gender wise segmentation is concerned, there are total 98 males out of which 38 are

between the age 18 to 25 years, 31 are between the age 25 to 35 years

 & 29 are between the age 35 to 45 years. And there are total 102 males out of which 43 are

between the age 18 to 25 years, 32 are between the age 25 to 35 years

& 27 are between the age 35 to 45 years.

Importance of Integrated Marketing Communication:

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is an approach used by organizations to create

brand awareness and coordinate their communication efforts. The American Association of

Advertising Agencies defines IMC as "a concept that recognizes the added value of a

comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines,

and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communication

impact." The primary idea behind an IMC strategy is to create a seamless experience for

consumers across different aspects of the marketing mix. Marketing mix include the combination

of various promotion tools such as print ads, outdoor ads, television commercials, direct mailers,

public relations personal selling, sales promotion etc.

It is the guiding principle that organizations follow to communicate with their target markets. It

is the most innovative function of marketing endorsed by advertising and marketing

practitioners. To understand the importance of IMC researcher asked respondents about number

of medium to get knowledge about any brand, sources of awareness of various brands, amount of

information required to take purchase decision and time spent in purchase of any commodity.

The details are discussed as below.

1. Number of medium to get knowledge about any brand:

In today’s market scenario, due to wide number of small & large as well as local & global

competitors; it has become difficult for the advertisers to reach their target audience exactly.
Ever-changing likes & dislikes of consumers have also provided the impetus to this market

vulnerability. As a result of which, advertisers today, are using the maximum possible ways that

will convey their ad message to the right prospects at the right time and through the right

medium which will further create brand awareness and influence customers’ purchase decision.

Mediums used for creating awareness comprise of a number of traditional as well as

contemporary media vehicles such as print media, television commercials, outdoor ads,

advertising through internet etc. Each medium contributes to mass communication depending

upon how target audience [TA] likes to prefer each medium. When combinations of these

mediums (more than two mediums) are incorporated in marketing strategy, the phenomenon

termed as Integrated Marketing Communication [IMC]. IMC is applied with the aim of having

maximum coverage of TA so as to spread more & more brand awareness, to share information

about the brand, to improve brand image, subsequently to boost the sale.

The details of responses given regarding the medium to get knowledge are given in the

following table.

Table 4.2: Do consumers rely on just one medium to get knowledge about any brand

Frequency Percent

No 82 41.0

Somewhat 47 23.5

Yes 71 35.5

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

It is observed that when respondents were asked if they rely on

just one medium to get knowledge about any brand;

i. 41% have given negative response.

ii. 35.5% respondents have given complete positive response while only,

iii. 23.5% responded that they rely partially.

It means major percentage is with negative response. This reveals that consumers reckon upon

more than one medium to get knowledge of any brand. Due to unlimited brand choices & price

sensitivity, they undertake a detailed evaluation of various brands by referring more number of

sources of information. So they may be using combination of various mediums such print ads,

television commercials, in-store promotion to know about different aspects of the brand.

2. Sources of awareness of various brands:

Excessive competition, globalization, fluctuating wants of consumers and advent of

technology are the major factors that encourage advertisers to make use of various sources

available to reach their TA. These sources can be print media (through newspapers &

magazines), electronic medium (like Television commercials, radio spots, Mobile

marketing and online advertising), Outdoor media (like hoardings, banners, neon signs) and

Point of Purchase (like in-store promotion, standees, merchandising racks & cases etc.)

Many a times consumers may also rely on various sources to get product related
information. Using IMC may help advertisers to convey this information to the customers

wherever they go. So while reading newspapers or magazine, watching Television, halting

at railway station or on traffic junctions or while surfing internet; everywhere advertisers

can drag the attention of their prospects towards their brand. The details of responses given

regarding different sources of awareness of various brands are given below.

Table4.3: Sources of awareness for various brands

Sources of awareness Frequency Percent

Print ads 22 11.0

Television commercials 53 26.5

In-store promotion 37 18.5

Outdoor media 18 9.0

Online media 70 35.0

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

It is observed that when respondents were asked about which source do they refer the most to

get awareness of various brands;

i. 11% have chosen print ads,

ii. 26.5% respondents have chosen Television commercial,

iii. 18.5% have chosen In-store promotion,

iv. Only 9% have chosen Outdoor media,

v. 35 % respondents have chosen Online media, which is the higher of all.

It means consumers do refer various mediums to get awareness but highest preference is
being given to online media. Online media incorporates blogs, onlinePR, Window displays,
banner ads etc. And consumers today are more exposed to these forms of online advertising as
compared to advertising through other mediums.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows,

Figure 4.1:Graphical representation of Sources of awareness of various brands

(3.)(4.) Amount of information required to take purchase decision:

Consumers may often get confused in making choice about which brand to purchase. In

such case, they may require detailed information to evaluate and differentiate among

various brands available. This information can be in the form of brand’s attributes, its

features, functional benefits etc. Sometimes just one medium cannot convey the maximum

possible information to the consumers due to certain limitation of each medium. So

advertisers can mix & match variousmediums by adopting IMC in order to spread

awareness, educate & inform them about the brand. Once they get the required information,

it becomes easier to take the purchase decision consequently saving their time in

evaluation at the last moment of purchase. For example, blending print ads or TVC with

in-store promotion may create positive impact of the brand and may increase confidence

level of consumer in making purchase decision.

To analyze in detailed respondents were asked to give their view on agreement scale

considering two different attributes. The responses were coded as below:

5. Strongly agree 4.Agree 3. No opinion 2. Disagree 1. Strongly disagree

The results of analysis are tabulated below.

Table 4.4: Details for information and time spend to take purchase of any commodity

Do not require much Do not prefer to spend much

information to take of my time in purchase of any
 purchase decision commodity

Frequency Percent Frequency Percent

Strongly 33 16.5 27 13.5

Disagree

Disagree 80 40.0 38 19.0

No opinion 36 18.0 34 17.0

Agree 28 14.0 68 34.0

Strongly agree 23 11.5 33 16.5

Total 200 100.0 200 100.0

Interpretation:

It is observed that when respondents were first asked whether they require much information to

take purchase decision; secondly whether they spend much time for purchasing any commodity;

i. 16.5% respondents shown strong disagreement to the first question and 13.5% to second

question,

ii. 40% respondents were disagree to the first question and 19% to second question,

iii. 18% were neutral for first question and 17% to second question,

iv. 14% respondents were agreed to first question and 34% were to second question,

whereas,

v. 11.5% respondents have shown strong agreement to first question and 16.5% to second

question.
Thus majority of consumers require more information to take purchase decision but they do not

like to spend much of their time for purchasing any commodity.It reveals that consumers do

require plenty of information to take purchase decision. This information may increase their

knowledge and assurance on brands’ attributes & benefits consumers are likely to gain that will

eliminate their confusion in choosing any particular brand. Once they obtain the required

information on various brands, they take less time in the purchase of any commodity.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows

Figure 4.2: Graphical representation of Details for information and time spend to take
purchase of any commodity

Considering data of complete sample of all respondents descriptive statistics

parameter scores are calculated and tabulated below.

Table 4.5:Descriptive statistic scores for information and time spend to take purchase of
any commodity

Parameter Do not require much Do not prefer to spend much

information to take purchase of my time in purchase of any
decision commodity

Mean 2.6400 3.2100

Median 2.0000 4.0000

Mode 2.00 4.00

Std. Deviation 1.24020 1.30168

Skewness 0.553 -0.314

Kurtosis -0.721 -1.078

It is observed that
1. Mean value scores for parameter much information to take purchase decision is not required

is 2.64 with positive skewness 0.553 indicates respondent disagreement. It means they really

required much information to take purchase decision. Median and mode values are equal to

2 also support this result.

2. Mean value scores for parameter much time is required to spend to take purchase of any

commodity is 3.21 with negative skewness -0.314 indicates respondent agreement. It means

they do not prefer to spend much of their time in purchase of any commodity.

This shows that consumers try to gain more information before they make purchase. They

receive this information through various mediums; so integration of these mediums is required

so as to feed the necessary information to the customers for brand evaluation which in turns will

save their time & efforts while making an actual purchase.

Importance of Online advertising in changing market scenario:

Digital Marketing refers to a set of powerful tools and methodologies used for promoting

products and services through the internet. It connects organizations with qualified potential

customers and takes business development to a much higher level than traditional marketing.

Digital Marketing synergistically combines the internet’s creativity and technical tools, including

design, development, sales advertising, while focusing on the primary business models such as

E-commerce, Lead based websites, Local search etc.

Digital Marketing includes a wider range of marketing elements than traditional business

marketing due to the extra channels and marketing mechanisms available on the Internet.

Digital Marketing can deliver several benefits such as:

 Growth in potential
  Reduced expenses

 Elegant communication

 Better control

 Improved customer service

 Competitive advantage

Digital Marketing is also known as Internet marketing, Web marketing, digital marketing and

search engine marketing (SEM).

To understand importance of online advertising in changing market scenario respondents were

asked on their knowledge about use of Internet, online frequency, Purpose for using internet and

Use of online activities by companies in their marketing efforts. Details of which are given

below.

5. Knowledge about the use of internet:

Today, Internet is one of the most important parts of our daily lives. There are large numbers of

activities that can be done using internet and so it is very important. Most of the traditional

communication media including telephone, music, film, and television are being reshaped or

redefined by the internet. It has enabled and accelerated new forms of human interactions

through instant messaging, internet forums, and social networking. Online shopping has

boomed both for major retail outlets, small artisans and traders. Prospects from almost every

age group right from teenagers to adults make use of internet for their own respective purposes.

Such uses can be social networking, media sharing (photo, songs & video), online shopping,

local search etc. It allows greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the

spread of unmetered high speed connections.

To understand whether respondents are convergent with the use of Internet; they were asked

about their knowledge about use if internet. The details of which are tabulated below.

Table 4.6:Knowledge about the use of internet

Code Response Frequency Percent

1 Not knowledgeable about 14 7.0

2 Somewhat knowledgeable about 28 14.0

3 Knowledgeable about 67 33.5

4 Very well knowledgeable about 91 45.5

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

it is observed that when respondents were asked about their convergence with internet;

i. 7% were not knowledgeable about internet.

ii. 14% were somewhat knowledgeable about internet.

iii. 33.5% were knowledgeable about internet.

iv. 45.5% were very well knowledgeable about internet.

It means major percentage of respondents is very well knowledgeable about internet. They are

well convergent with various usage, functions and benefits being offered by internet. While out
of 200 respondents, only few i.e. 7% are not knowledgeable about internet. So it reveals that

there is high degree of literacy for internet usage.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows.

Figure 4.3: Graphical representation of responses related to knowledge about the use of

Internet

6. Frequency of being online:

The number of people using internet has really gone up due to technological advancements.

People use internet for a variety of reasons. However, major reasons why they use internet is to
get access to information, social networking, communication, transferring files, entertainment,

internet transactions, marketing, online education as well as to make money.

The internet allows greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the

spread of unmetered high-speed connections. The internet can be accessed almost

anywhere by numerous means, including through mobile internet devices.

The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills has made

collaborative work dramatically easier, with the help of collaborative software. Not only can a

group cheaply communicate and share ideas but the wide reach of the internet allows such

groups more easily to form.

The details of frequency of being online are tabulated below.

Table 4.7: Frequency of being online

Code Response Frequency Percent

1 Very Low 16 8.0

2 Low 25 12.5

3 Moderate 44 22.0

4 High 60 30.0

5 Very high 55 27.5

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:
 it is observed that when respondents were asked about their frequency of being online;

i. 8% chosen very low frequency,

ii. 12.5% chosen low frequency,

iii. 22% chosen moderate frequency,

iv. 30% chosen high frequency

v. 27.5% chosen very high frequency

It means majority of respondents i.e. 30% use internet with high frequency followed by

27.5 % respondents with very high frequency of using internet. So, due to its attribute of

making life easier by allowing the users to have instant access with every informational,

educational, interactive & entertaining material; Internet is heavily used medium today.
vi.
To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows.

Figure 4.4: Graphical representation of responses related to Frequency of being

online
To analyze in detailed, some important statistic (parameter) were calculated and the results of
analysis are tabulated below.

Table 4.8:Descriptive statistic scores for knowledge about the use of internet and

frequency of being online

Are you convergent with the use Frequency of being

of Internet? online

Mean 3.1750 3.5650

Median 3.0000 4.0000

Mode 4.00 4.00

Std. Deviation .92120 1.23832

Skewness -.901 -.551

Kurtosis -.105 -.662

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. Mean value scores for parameter their convergence with internet is 3.17 with

negative skewness -0.901 indicates respondent agreement of being convergent with

 internet. It means they are well versed with the use of internet. Median and mode

values are 3 & 4 respectively, close to each other, support this result.

ii. Mean value scores for parameter frequency of being online is 3.56 with negative

skewness -0.551 indicates respondent agreement of being online. It means they use

internet heavily for one or the other purpose.

Hence, most of the consumers are well versed with the usefulness of internet and they actually

make maximum utilization of the various functions served by internet and therefore their

tendency of being online is high.

7.Purpose for using :

Internet can be used for various purposes out of which the major purposes are social networking

– Facebook, orkut, linkedin are few examples of social networking sites which help the users to

enjoy their social life by allowing the scope to find new & old friends and share views with

them; media sharing sites helps users to download the enticing material such as songs, photos,

video clips etc.; blogs have introduced a new system of interaction. Blogs - It is a discussion

informational site published on the World Wide Web. It can be proved as the best way to one’s

voice among online crowd; podcasts & RSS – Podcast is a digital medium consisting of an

episodic series of audio, video, PDF files downloaded through web syndication to computer or

mobile device, collaborative website can be developed by small or big businesses through web

developers. It helps users to gain more information on various companies in terms of their

history, product offers & features; content sharing websites such as google.com, Wikipedia etc.

help users to gain wide range of information on wider variety of topics; online shopping offers
the wide choices to the consumers while selection among different brands and also saves their

efforts and time in travelling to shops.

To understand the real purpose for using internet respondents were asked to ranking each

purpose between the scales of 1 to 5, where 1 is the most important and 5 is least important.

The details are tabulated in the following table.

Table 4.9: Purpose for using internet

Other
Media Collaborat-
Social Podcasts content Online
sharing Blogs & RSS ive
networks sharing shopping
sites websites
websites

F % F % F % F % F % F % F %

Most 73 36.5 50 25 26 13 33 16.5 32 16.0 43 21.5 60 30.0

important

2.00 65 32.5 48 24 42 21 32 16.0 43 21.5 43 21.5 42 21.0

3.00 20 10 22 11 45 22.5 25 12.5 25 12.5 29 14.5 21 10.5

4.00 20 10 34 17 40 20 47 23.5 38 19.0 37 18.5 40 20.0

Least 22 11 46 23 47 23.5 63 31.5 62 31.0 48 24.0 37 18.5

important

Total 200 100 200 100 200 100 200 100 200 100 200 100 200 100

Interpretation:
 it is observed that

i. Social networks are considered most important 36.5% respondents and

least important by 11% respondents.

ii. Media sharing sites are considered most important 25% respondents

and least important by 23% respondents.

iii. Blogs are considered most important 13% respondents and least

important by 23.5% respondents.

iv Podcast & RSS are considered most important 16.5% respondents

important by 31.5% least respondents

v. Online shopping is considered most important 30% respondents and least

important by 18.5% respondents.

It means that Social networking is the foremost purpose for which majority of respondents use

internet. Certain social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, Linkedin etc. have become

popular in recent times, used to share the personal & professional views with known and

unknown people who can be found out through these sites. After Social networking, second

preference given to the online shopping. It allows flexibility to the consumers to view a wide

range of products & brands, evaluate them online by reading their features and making an online

purchase. Media sharing is at third place. It allows them to share media material such as photos,

music, video, news etc.

To analyze in detailed, some important statistic (parameter) were calculated and the results of

analysis are tabulated below.

Table 4.10:Descriptive statistic scores Purpose for using internet

 Other
Media content
Social sharing Podcasts Collaborative sharing Online
Network
s sites Blogs & RSS Websites websites shopping

N 200 200 200 200 200 200 200

Median 2.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.50 3.00 2.00

Mode 1.00 1.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 1.00

Percentiles 25 1.00 1.25 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00

50 2.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.50 3.00 2.00

75 3.00 4.00 4.00 5.00 5.00 4.00 4.00

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. Modal value for Social networks, Media sharing sites, online shopping is 1 indicates

that majority of respondents feels that these three are the most important purposes for

using internet.

ii. Modal value for Blogs, Podcasts & RSS, Collaborative websites and other content

sharing websites is 5 indicates that majority of respondents feels that these four are the

least important purposes for using internet.

iii. Median values and percentile values also support above interpretations.
Hence, respondents strongly feel that the most important activities to be done through internet

are social networking as it connects them with others, online shopping as it offers them

convenience of shopping and media sharing site as it allows them to download their favourite

enticing material such as songs, video, games etc.

8.Use of online activities by companies in their marketing efforts:

Since in recent days, consumers rely more on the information shared by internet, they use this

information for brand evaluation and for making purchase decision. This opportunity must be

grabbed by both small & large scale businesses by having their online presence. For them online

presence can be a tactic that involves use of internet as a medium to obtain website traffic and to

target & deliver advertising messages to the right customers. Online advertising is geared

towards defining markets through unique and useful applications. Having an online presence will

first bring their business to the potential customer’s attention. If online presence is complete with

positive reviews and a professionally updated website; customers will see the reputation of the

brand and will be more likely to choose those brands.

To analyze in detailed respondents were asked to give their view on agreement scale considering

two different attributes.

The responses were coded as below:

5. Strongly agree 4.Agree 3. No opinion 2. Disagree 1. Strongly disagree

The results of analysis are tabulated below

Table 4.11:Do companies include online activities in their marketing strategy

Code Response Frequency Percent

1 Strongly disagree 32 16.0

2 Disagree 41 20.5

3 No opinion 22 11.0

4 Agree 43 21.5

5 Strongly agree 62 31.0

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

it is observed that when respondents were asked whether companies should use online activities

in marketing efforts;

i. 16% were strongly disagreed.

ii. 20.5% shown disagreement.

iii. 11% had no opinion on this question.

iv. 21.5% shown agreement and,

v. 31% were strongly agreed.

It means majority of respondents are completely agreed that companies should use online

activities in their marketing efforts. Since online activities facilitate good access and higher
reach to the customers; companies must take this advantage by incorporating online advertising

in their marketing strategy.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows.

Figure 4.5:Graphical representation of responses related to Use of online activities by

companies in their marketing efforts

To analyze in detailed, some important statistic (parameters) were calculated and

the results of analysis are tabulated below.

 Table 4.12:Descriptive statistic scores for Use of online activities in their marketing

strategy

Parameter Value

N 200

Mean 3.3100

Median 4.0000

Mode 5.00

Std. Deviation 1.48828

Skewness -.268

Kurtosis -1.412

Percentiles 25 2.0000

50 4.0000

75 5.0000

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. Mean value scores for parameter companies should use online activities in marketing

efforts is 3.31 with negative skewness -0.268 indicates respondent’s agreement. It

means they strongly feel that companies must incorporate online activities in their

marketing efforts.

ii. Median and mode values are 4 & 5 i.e. closed to each other also support this result.
Hence, consumers are with the strong opinion that companies use online activities to spread

awareness & sell their product.

The reasons for growing popularity of Digital Marketing:

Internet has changed customer shopping habits and with rapid technological developments

accessing the internet has become easier than ever. People can access the internet whenever and

wherever they like. Listed below are some of the benefits of the internet for the customer.

a. Customers Stay Updated

Internet keeps customers updated through websites, emails, online adverts and social networking

sites. Many customers can access the internet on the move through things technology such as

smart phones and tablets. Manufacturers and retailers can instantly update their customers

through the internet.

b. Customers Can Compare Online

One of the greatest advantages for the customer is that they can compare products or services

they wish to purchase from the comfort of their own homes. Instead of having to visit a number

of different retail outlets, the user simply has to open different internet window tabs to compare

prices or features of the product/service they wish to purchase. There is also price comparison

websites that customers can use to get the best possible price for their products.

c. Clear Product Information for the Customer

Websites offer clear and consistent product information to all internet users. There is little

chance of misinterpretation or mishearing what the sales person said as in a retail store. The

internet has comprehensive product information whereas in a shop the customer is reliant in the

knowledge of their sales advisor.

d. Reduction in Personal Carbon Footprint

Looking after the environment and the world we live in is important for many customers. When

consumers shop online they use their cars less and their personal carbon footprint is reduced.

Retailers can support carbon reduction by sorting deliveries so that purchases by customers

living close to each other can be delivered on the same day.

e. 24/7 Shopping
There is no time restriction on when a consumer can shop online; the internet is available all day.

Many online sales now started at midnight on a particular day encouraging customers to shop all

hours of the day.

To understand different reasons for growing popularity of Digital Marketing researcher asked

respondents about important factors motivating them to like the brand on internet, preference for

the print ads or television commercials for awareness and Benefits of Digital Marketing over

traditional marketing.

The details are discussed as below.

9.Important factors motivating respondents to like the brand on internet:

1) discount - marketers can offer products at discounted rates as they do not need to invest in

expenses for rent, electricity & channel intermediaries when they are marketing their products

through internet. 2) Through internet, consumers stay updated about various activities of

companies. Companies develop their own websites wherein information related to their brand, its

features & corporate identity readily available for consumers. 3) Through certain commercial

websites like zomato.com, flipcart.com, myntra.com etc. consumers get knowledge about range

of brands available in the market in given product category. 4) Good imagery & creative inputs

make the brand more attractive, entertaining & interesting for consumers, 5) Internet allows

getting access to the exclusive content which people do not obtain form any other medium. They

can get access to various schemes related to the brand, description of specific benefits, they are
likely to enjoy through brand 6) Internet is truly an interactive medium when it comes to

purchase the brand, they can order online also they can share their feedback freely with the

company on the strengths & weaknesses of any particular brand. The details importance of

responses is discussed as below.

Table 4.13 :Importance of factors motivating respondents to like the brand on internet

Stay For fun, Get access Interaction

Informed entertain- to the
about the Get updates ment exclusive
Activities On brands content
of and its future
Discount Company extensions

F % F % F % F % F % F %

Most 49 24.5 52 26.0 36 18.0 33 16.5 53 26.5 48 24.0

important

important 66 33.0 52 26.0 49 24.5 56 28.0 59 29.5 61 30.5

Least 44 22.0 42 21.0 61 30.5 45 22.5 42 21.0 36 18.0

important

Not 41 20.5 54 27.0 54 27.0 66 33.0 46 23.0 55 27.5

important

Total 200 100 20 100 200 100 200 100 20 100 200 100
0 0

Interpretation:

it is observed that when respondents asked about factors

motivating to use internet;

i. 24.4% respondents consider discount factor as most important and 20.5%

respondents do not consider it as important.

 ii. 26% respondents consider other factor ‘to stay informed about company’s

activities’ as most important and 27% respondents do not consider it as important.

iii. 18% respondents consider other factor ‘to get updates on brands and its

future extension’ and 27% respondents do not consider it as important.

iv. 16.5% respondents consider other factor ‘Fun & entertainment’ and 33% respondents do

not consider it as important.

v. 26.5% respondents consider other factor ‘to get access to exclusive content’ as most

important and 23% respondents do not consider it as important.

vi. 24% respondents consider interaction factor as most important and 27.5% respondents do

not consider it as important.

It means majority of respondents are motivated to use internet as it offers them products at

discounted rates, gives access to exclusive content such as specific functional & emotional

benefits of the brand and facilitates interaction about the brand directly with the company.

To analyze in detailed, some important statistic (parameter) were calculated and

the results of analysis are tabulated below.

Table 4.14:Descriptive statistic scores for Importance of factors motivating respondents

to like the brand on internet

Get excess
Discount Stay Get For fun, to
updates the
informed on entertain- exclusive
brands
about the and ments content
activities of its future
company extensions Interaction
 200
N 200 200 200 200 200

2.00
Median 2.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00

2.00
Mode 2.00 4.00 3.00 4.00 2.00

Percentiles 25 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00

2.00
50 2.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00

4.00
75 3.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 3.00

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. Modal value for discounts, get access to exclusive content and interaction is 2

indicates that majority of respondents feels that these three are the most

important factors.

ii Modal value for Stay informed about the activities of company, for fun &

entertainment is 4 indicates that majority of respondents feels that these two are
the least important factors.

iii. Median values and percentile values also support above interpretations.

Hence, consumers use Digital Marketing extensively as it offers discounts and access to

exclusive content, and it facilitates interaction with the advertisers.

10.Preference for the print ads or television commercials:

Print ads are the advertisements which get published in print media such as newspapers, bulletins

& magazines, whereas television commercials [TVCs] get telecasted through television. Both the
forms incorporate the ad message and visuals but the major difference is print ad has the static

images whereas TVC includes motion pictures and has more entertainment value than print ads.

Print ads TVCs both have succeeded at a good extent in reach the masses and conveying

advertiser’s intent to the masses since longer time. But with the advent of new & innovative

forms of advertising, these two mediums are loosing its popularity.

When the respondent were asked whether they don’t prefer the print ads or

Television commercials much to get the brand awareness, respondents have given following

responses.

Table4.15:Preference for the print ads or television commercials

Frequency Percent

Strongly disagree 23 11.5

Disagree 41 20.5

No opinion 19 9.5

Agree 39.5
 79

Strongly agree 38 19.0

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

it is observed that whether they don’t prefer the print ads or

Television commercials much to get the brand awareness,

i. 11.5% respondents have shown strong,

ii. 20.5% respondents were disagree,

iii. 9.5% were neutral,

iv. 39.5% respondents were agreed whereas,

v. 19 % respondents have shown strong agreement.

It means majority of respondents agreed that they do not prefer Television commercials or print

ads to get brand related awareness. So these popular traditional mediums are no longer

remained first preference for the consumers to receive ad messages.

Figure 4.6:Graphical representation of Preference for the print ads or television

commercials
To analyze in detailed, some important statistic (parameter) were calculated and the results

Table 4.16:Descriptive statistic scores for Preference for the print ads or television

Commercials

Parameter Value

N 200

Mean 3.3400

Median 4.0000

Mode 4.00
Std. Deviation 1.30880

Skewness -.447

Kurtosis -1.059

Percentiles 25 2.0000

50 4.0000

75 4.0000

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. Mean value scores for parameter do not prefer the print ads or a Television

commercial to get brand awareness is 3.34 with negative skewness -0.447 indicates

respondent agreement. It means they really do not rely on print ads & television

commercials.

ii. Median and mode values are equal to 4 also support this result.

Hence, it reveals that today consumers do rely on print ads television commercials

much to get awareness.

11. Benefits of Digital Marketing offer over the traditional marketing:

Traditional marketing is a broad category that incorporates many forms of advertising and

marketing. It is the most recognizable type of marketing, encompassing the advertisements that

we see and hear every day. Most traditional marketing strategies fall under one of four

categories: print, broadcast, direct mail, and telephone.

a) Print: Includes advertisements in newspapers, newsletters, magazines, brochures, and

other printed material for distribution

 b) Broadcast: Includes radio and television commercials, as well as specialized forms like

on-screen movie theater advertising

c) Direct mail: Includes fliers, postcards, brochures, letters, catalogs, and other material

that is printed and mailed directly to consumers

d) Telemarketing: Includes requested calling and cold calling of consumers over the phone

Internet marketing is not a singular approach to raise interest and awareness in a product.

Because of the vast number of platforms the Internet creates, the field encompasses several

disciplines. It involves everything from email, to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), to website

design, and much more to reach an ever-evolving, ever-growing audience. It offers certain

advantages to consumers over traditional marketing.

The Internet is pervasive and ubiquitous. It has grown to encompass nearly every aspect of

society, augmenting or outright replacing older methods of communication. This means that any

organization, from the smallest non-profit, to the largest corporation, and even the individual, has

an incentive to create a strong online presence. It allows great flexibility to choose wide range of

brands demonstrated online without investing their efforts & time.

When respondents were asked about the benefits of Digital Marketing over traditional

marketing, respondents have given following responses.

Table 4.17:Benefits of Digital Marketing over traditional marketing

Frequency Percent
Wide range of information 48 24.0

Ease of shopping 46 23.0

Time saving 31 15.5

Low cost 24 12.0

Interactive medium 51 25.5

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. 24% of respondents find Digital Marketing advantageous as it offers wide range of

information about the brand,

ii. 23% of respondents find Digital Marketing advantageous as it offers ease of shopping,

iii. 15.5% of respondents find Digital Marketing advantageous as it saves consumer’s time,

iv. 12% of respondents find Digital Marketing advantageous as it involves low cost in

purchase,

v. 25.5% of respondents find Digital Marketing advantageous as it is an interactive

medium.It means majority of respondents favor for interactive ability of Digital

Marketing which is not applied in case of traditional mediums like print ads,

television commercials or outdoor media. Consumers like to exchange their views and

share their feedback when it comes to evaluating the brand or for taking purchase

decision.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows.

Figure4.7: Graphical representation of Benefits of Digital Marketing over

traditional marketing
12. Limitations of Digital Marketing as IMC tool

Digital Marketing has outsold traditional advertising in recent years and continues to be a high-

growth industry. Yet there are some limitations that make Digital Marketing disadvantageous at

certain extent. Those are;

1. Digital Marketing is not free as the cost of hardware, software, wed site design, online

distribution costs, maintenance of your site and yes time, all should be factored into the cost of

providing your product and service.

2. Still, the internet is considered as a source just to gather product related information. Many

people are there who still prefer the live interaction when they buy.

3. So many scams on the internet.

5. Timing of updates is critical so it’s easy to have outdated information online.

6. Because of the fear of website’s security, many of the visitors will not want to use their

credit card to make a purchase if they don’t know that the site is secure.
7. The majority of online marketers lack inquiry response programs and customer service. Also,

the majority of sites have poor navigation that makes it tough for the visitor to find what they are

looking for. Many sites were created without a customer service point of view.

The respondents were asked whether they prefer online advertising as it is SAFEST to use on an

agreement scale. The responses were coded as below:

5. Strongly agree 4.Agree 3. No opinion 2. Disagree 1. Strongly disagree.

Table 4.18:Preference for Online advertising as it is SAFEST to use

Frequency Percent

Strongly disagree 40 20.0

Disagree 58 29.0

No opinion 33 16.5

Agree 34 17.0

Strongly agree 35 17.5

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:
it is observed that when respondents were asked whether they find Digital Marketing safest to

use;
 20% were strongly disagreed.

 29% shown disagreement.

  16.5% had no opinion on this question.

 17% shown agreement and,

 17.5% were strongly agreed.

It means majority of respondent feel Digital Marketing is not very safe. In order to know the

reasons, respondents were being specifically asked to identify limitations.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows.

Figure 4.8:Graphical representation of Preference for Online advertising as it is SAFEST

To analyze in detailed, some important statistic (parameter) were calculated and the results of

analysis are tabulated below.

Table 4.19:Descriptive statistic scores for Preference for Online advertising as it is

SAFEST to use

Parameter Value

N 200

Median 3.0000
Mode 2.00

Percentiles 25 2.0000

50 3.0000

75 4.0000

Interpretation:

it is observed that

Modal value for parameter preference for Digital Marketing as it is safest to use is 2, this

indicates that majority of respondents feel Digital Marketing is not safest to use.

Hence, though respondents prefer Digital Marketing to salve their various purposes, they do not

entirely believe that it is safest to use.

13.Loopholes in Digital Marketing over traditional marketing tools:

Increasing techno-friendly attitude of consumers is encouraging them to use Digital

Marketing, but at the same time some limitations are refraining 100% acceptance of

Digital Marketing; these limitations can be 1) Susceptibility – consumers may

have vulnerable approach towards the use of internet, 2) fraudulent activities – there is a scope

of providing wrong information, offering fake brands or overpromising, 3) Privacy issue –

consumers may be reluctant to share their credit card number, bank details or any other

sensitive information, 4) Lack of demonstration – at times, there may be creative visualization

of products on the website in order to attract the consumers but in reality these may be different,

this discrepancy may prevent them to prefer online purchase, 5) Often interrupting – frequent

pop ups, spams or web banners may create an obstacle in web surfing which may lead to

generate consumers’ negative attitude towards Digital Marketing

To understand loopholes that Digital Marketing carry over traditional marketing tools,

respondent’s responses are tabulated below.

Table 4.20:Loopholes in Digital Marketing over traditional marketing tools

Frequency Percent

More Susceptible 33 16.5

More scope for fraudulent activities 52 26.0

Lack demonstration 40 20.0

Privacy Issue 42 21.0

Often interrupting 33 16.5

Total 200 100.0

Interpretation:

it is observed that

i. 16.5 % of respondents find Digital Marketing is not safe as it is more susceptible.

ii. 26% of respondents find Digital Marketing is not safe as there is more scope of

fraudulent activities.

iii. 20% of respondents find Digital Marketing is not safe as it lacks demonstrations.
 iv. 21% of respondents find Digital Marketing is not safe as it may result in some serious

privacy issues.

v. 16.5% of respondents find Digital Marketing is not safe as it is often interrupting.

It means majority of respondents feel that Digital Marketing is not safe as there is more scope of

fraudulent activities followed by privacy issues. These may include cheating customers by

offering them faulty items, giving wrong demonstrations, taking confidential information such as

bank details, credit card details and misusing the same.

To analyze further we represent above data graphically. This is as follows.

Figure 4.9:Graphical representation of Loopholes in Digital Marketing over traditional

marketing tools
This chapter makes detailed analysis of the data collected from respondents with the help of

statistical tools. Analysis of data has been presented in tabular forms, graphical illustration and

description thereafter. This systematic analysis has majorly helped to drag the final conclusions

so as to achieve objectives of this study.

Conclusion

The study concludes that consumers rely upon more than one medium in order to enhance

their brand related knowledge. It means that they use the combination of various sources for

making final purchase decision. Along with the traditional sources, they heavily rely on

modern marketing tool i.e. online advertising. Consumers do require detailed information

about the brand so as to evaluate its strengths & weaknesses; this ample amount of information

then saves their time by allowing them to make the purchase decision quickly. The study also

reveals that main reason for growing importance of Digital Marketing is the increasing literacy

about internet among people. They have identified that internet is truly advantageous through

which they can serve their various purposes mainly social networking, online shopping &

media sharing (photo, music, video). This efficacy of internet has intensified their tendency of

being online. Today’s consumers strongly feel that every company must use this efficacy to

strengthen its marketing efforts. So that they will get motivated to use online marketing with

the intent of getting access to exclusive content about the brand and getting discount and

sharing their feedback about brand with the advertiser .With the advent of internet technology,

consumers’ preference towards traditional marketing tools has decreased. Most popular

traditional marketing tools are television & print media. The major benefits of Digital

Marketing are its capability of interaction between consumers and advertisers followed by
availability of wide range of information & ease of shopping. These benefits make Digital

Marketing superior than traditional marketing. But at the same time consumers are susceptible

about the user-safety side of internet.

Findings and Suggestions

Clients feel that Digital Marketing is unsafe as it may lead to increase in frauds & privacy

issue. Conclusion given above reveals that consumers use more than one medium to make

brand choice, therefore it is recommended that Companies should mix & match various

mediums to reach their desired target audience. This will help to spread awareness

among them and to influence buyers behavior thus companies must formulate an

effective Integrated Marketing Communication plan where they can combine various

tools to grasp maximum prospects.

It is also revealed that consumers have good enough knowledge about internet technology and

they are in favor of using online marketing, therefore it is recommended that

Every company big or small should grab this advantage and include online marketing in their

marketing efforts. Online marketing forms can be mainly web marketing, E-commerce,
social media marketing.

Consumers find certain benefits in online marketing over traditional marketing; therefore

companies can spend more on online media rather than the traditional tools.

But along with its advantages, online marketing has certain limitations also, limitations like

possibility of fraudulent activities or privacy issues are beyond control. Cyber crime can not be

eradicated easily or completely therefore, it is recommended that

Companies should not rely entirely on online marketing; they must make it a part of Integrated
Marketing Communication strategy. As aresult of which limitations of online marketing will be
covered as the other mediums will build the required credibility and positive image about the
brand. This credibility will generate trust among consumers towards the brand.

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Research Questionnaire

Respondent’s details
Name : ______________________________________(optional)

Gender : Male Female

Occupation : Student Service

Self employed

Age : Between 18 to 25

Between 25 to 35

Between 35 to 45

Contact details : _________________________________(optional)

(Please tick √ in the box besides option/s matching your response)

1. I rely on just one medium to get knowledge about any brand.

Yes Somewhat No

2. Which source do you refer the most to get awareness of various brands?

Print ads

Television commercials

In-store promotion

Outdoor media
3. I do not require much information to take purchase decision.
Strongly agree Agree
No opinion
Disagree

Strongly disagree

4. I do not prefer to spend much of my time in purchase of any commodity.

Strongly agree Agree

No opinion Disagree

Strongly disagree

5. Are you knowledgeable about the use of Internet?

Not knowledgeable about

Somewhat knowledgeable about

Knowledgeable about
Very well knowledgeable about
6. What is your frequency of being online?

Very Low Low Moderate

High Very high

7. Please indicate your purpose for using internet by ranking each purpose between the scale of
1 to 5 (where, 1 is the most important and 5 is least important)
a. Social networks
b. Media sharing sites
 (Video, photo, music sharing & Gaming)
c. Blogs

d. Podcasts & RSS

e. Collaborative websites
f. Other content sharing websites g.
Online shopping

8. Companies should use online activities in their marketing efforts.

Strongly agree Agree

No opinion Disagree

Strongly disagree

9.How important following factors are to motivate you to like the brand on internet?
Most Important Least Not
important important important

 To receive discount

 To stay informed about

activities of company

 To get updates on

brands and its future extensions

 For fun, entertainments

 To get excess to the

 exclusive content

 To interact (share ideas,

provide feedback)

10. I don’t prefer the print ads or Television commercials much to get the brand awareness.
Strongly agree Agree

No opinion Disagree

Strongly disagree

11. What benefits does Digital Marketing offer over the traditional marketing? (Tick only
one, which is more prominent according to you)

Wide range of information Low cost

Ease of shopping Interactive medium

Time saving

12. I prefer Online advertising as it is SAFEST to use.

Strongly agree Agree

No opinion Disagree
 Strongly disagree

13. What loopholes does Digital Marketing carry over traditional marketing tools? (Tick only
one, which is more prominent according to you)
More Susceptible Privacy Issue

More scope for fraudulent activities Often interrupting

Lack demonstration