DM/U1 Topic 1 The New Digital World- Trends That Are

Driving Shifts From Traditional Marketing Practices To Digital

Marketing Practices
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on
the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.

Digital marketing’s development since the 1990s and 2000s has changed the way brands and
businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms are increasingly incorporated into
marketing plans and everyday life, and as people use digital devices instead of visiting physical
shops, digital marketing campaigns are becoming more prevalent and efficient.

Digital marketing methods such as search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing
(SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-
driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-
mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, and optical disks and games are becoming
more common in our advancing technology. In fact, digital marketing now extends to non-Internet
channels that provide digital media, such as mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-
hold mobile ring tones. In essence, this extension to non-Internet channels helps to differentiate
digital marketing from online marketing, another catch-all term for the marketing methods
mentioned above, which strictly occur online.

The 5Ds of digital marketing

To understand the importance of digital marketing to the future of marketing in any business, it’s
helpful to think about what audience interactions we need to understand and manage. Digital
marketing today is about many more types of audience interaction than website or email… It
involves managing and harnessing these ‘5Ds of Digital’ that I have defined in the introduction to
the latest update to my Digital Marketing: Strategy, Planning and Implementation book. The 5Ds
define the opportunities for consumers to interact with brands and for businesses to reach and learn
from their audiences in different ways:

1. Digital devices – audiences experience brands as they interact with business websites and mobile apps
typically through a combination of connected devices including smartphones, tablets, desktop computers,
TVs and gaming devices.
2. Digital platforms – most interactions on these devices are through a browser or apps from the major
platforms or services, that’s Facebook (and Instagram), Google (and YouTube), Twitter and LinkedIn.
3. Digital media – different paid, owned and earned communications channels for reaching and engaging
audiences including advertising, email and messaging, search engines and social networks.
4. Digital data – the insight businesses collect about their audience profiles and their interactions with
businesses, which now need to be protected by law in most countries.
5. Digital technology – the marketing technology or martech stack that businesses use to create interactive
experiences from websites and mobile apps to in-store kiosks and email campaigns.

Why Are Businesses shifting from Traditional marketing to Digital Marketing?

The introduction of internet has caused rippled waves that have impacted every walk of life.
Looking at the massive scope of the internet, we can see changes happening at a fast pace. How
can the marketing needs for business remain unaffected by this vast potential? Big businesses are
ever increasing their digital marketing budget and small businesses are now able to market their
products effectively. Digital Marketing allows the small business owners to take their businesses
to the masses while earlier this was a remote possibility. For whatever the reason, we all can see
that the traditional marketing is taking a backseat and digital marketing is zooming ahead.

Some of the reasons why digital marketing is on the rise.

(I) Converting the marketing to sales

Traditional marketing takes the product to the masses but converting that reach to sales is another
requirement altogether. But with digital marketing, a click on the ad takes the customer to the
website where he can buy the product at once. Online stores like Amazon and eBay are still using
traditional ads to complement their online marketing strategy. This is because, the age-old
marketing methods like Television and Radio ads, still effectively take the product, in this case,
the website to millions of people.

(II) Interaction with customers

Marketing your product online, facilitates the customers to interact with the businesses. You can
understand the customer and can have a hand on their pulse, literally. You get an idea about your
target audience and they can let you know what they think about your product. This way you can
better stay connected with your audience and help make their experience better.

(III) Cost Friendly

There’s a considerable reduction in the cost of marketing after the companies adopted digital
marketing. Why? Because there is a shift in the way people buy products after internet shopping
was introduced. Customers have become smarter. They prefer to research and compare the prices
before they decide on a product and go to a store to buy. If you want your website to reach to the
customers, it needs to be SEO oriented and very easy to navigate on the user front. If your website
is not SEO oriented, you will be missing a major chunk of your customers.

(IV) Targeted Reach

While traditional methods of marketing like Television and Radio ads play a major part in reaching
the customers, they reach a broad audience. You cannot target certain audience you think will
benefit from your product. In such a case, you are losing money and you cannot be certain if your
product has reached the intended audience.

(V) Fair Play

The traditional methods of marketing have been a boon for big businesses who can shell out the
money for high profile and prime time ads. But with the digital marketing on the rise, even small
businesses get a chance to put together a solid marketing strategy.

All they need is a website with a fast response time and quality content. A well thought out
marketing strategy can easily increase the site traffic by leaps and bounds. You also don’t need to
wait for the statistics to find out if your strategy worked. With digital marketing, the ad reach is
immediately converted to purchase. So, the business owners would know what worked and what
didn’t in almost no time and they could change their marketing strategy.
 DM/U1 Topic 2 The Modern Digital Consumer And New
Consumer’s Digital Journey
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We all know that today’s consumer is more connected than ever before. But it’s still staggering
when you think about it: This one, single device that we keep in our pockets can be used to review
products, check prices, share purchases, request coupons – and sometimes even to purchase
products from one retailer’s online channel while standing in a competitor’s store.

While mobile connectivity has empowered the consumer to shop in many different ways – it has
also created opportunities for retailers. Namely, it opens the door for retailers to interact with
customers more purposefully and to become more personalized in those interactions.

Seven characteristics of the modern consumer

1. Around-the-clock-shopping. “There’s an expectation among today’s consumers that the ability to

consume is a 24/7 thing,” says Eric Singleton, Chico’s Chief Information Officer. “When consumption can
take place at any time of the day, retailers have to address the nuances and the requirements of different
consumer needs throughout day.” According to Singleton, the Internet of Things will compound this issue
in the coming years. “Our challenge as a businesses is to address those expectations on every conceivable
platform.
2. Consumers are in control. “Customers in today’s era are much more in control of their shopping
experience, and they know they can dictate the shopping experience that they want,” Gayatri Patel, eBay’s
Director of Global Data infrastructure. “They have the means to explore, research and share every
purchase decision. And they can do it in a very quick way. If you lose them, it may not be just for that
purchase. It may be for a long time. You have to be responsive to their needs immediately instead of trying
to direct them. That balancing act is the biggest challenge.”
3. Omnichannel shopping. “The biggest trend we see right now is this blurring of lines across channels,” says
Sahal Laher, Brooks Brothers Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. “No matter where
he is shopping, the consumer is the consumer. You have to break down those barriers between channels,
empower the consumer in a uniform way and engage them in the same way on your site as you would in
your store.”
4. Content consumers. “Customers are branching out with this significantly broader ability to explore your
products in the moment,” says Singleton. “They have closer relationships with what they’re buying and
the reasons for buying it in their mind. Content has tremendous influence on how they’re behaving, so
Chico’s is also looking at content to complement decisions in a more enriched way for customers,
especially on social channels.”
5. Global experience. “It’s a truly global economy,” says Laher. “We need to understand the customers’
needs wherever they are. Whether they’re in our NYC store or our Tokyo store, we need to arm associates
with the tools that will make the customer interaction as meaningful as possible.”
6. Collaborators. “There is a lot more collaboration and sharing of information that can influence consumer
decisions compared to the offline experience,” says Patel. “eBay can complement those experiences with
our retail partnerships.” Singleton agrees, saying “There’s definite use of devices to check out and share
new products, to see if something complements your existing wardrobe or to validate what you saw on
the Web.”
7. Social sharers. “The relevance of social media on retail is untapped but growing very rapidly,” says Laher.
“It goes beyond retail reviews of purchases. We are working with an outside partner to leverage social
feedback before we even have products in the store. We can have various online groups give feedback on
ideas and colors before investing time and money to create different colors and incur the costs of
manufacturing and shipping, for example. That feedback mechanism didn’t exist before.”

Understanding the Customer’s Journey

The modern customer journey begins with self-evaluation, and this customer “self education”
begins with social. It has been estimated that 57 percent of the buying process is complete before
“sales” is contacted. Think about a consumer going into a retail store in the mall to purchase a
phone. While the sales representative will try and push the consumer to purchase a particular
product, the customer—before entering the store—has already done his or her homework. He or
she has researched the brand on social, read product reviews, compared prices and more.

The flare-up around advertising blockers on mobile devices is just the latest salvo in the digital-
technology “arms race” that has made today’s consumer a formidable force. From social media to
mobile devices, technologies have given consumers unprecedented power to compare prices,
complain loudly, and find the best deals.

This tipping of the balance of power in favor of consumers has been evident for years. In 2009, we
declared that the traditional “funnel” model—in which consumers began with a set number of
brands in mind and whittled them down until they decided what to buy—had been usurped by
what we called “the consumer decision journey.”1 This journey involved shoppers taking
advantage of technology to evaluate products and services more actively, adding and removing
choices over time. And it included a feedback loop, where customers kept evaluating products and
services after purchase, pressuring products to perform and brands to deliver a superior experience
on an ongoing basis.

In the past few years, brands have been playing catch-up, investing in new technologies and
capabilities in a bid to regain relevance with shoppers and exert greater influence over how they
make purchasing decisions. Our experience advising more than 50 companies and researching
more than 200 on best practices for building digital capabilities—coupled with detailed
conversations with dozens of chief digital officers and more than 100 digital-business leaders
worldwide—has convinced us that brands today can not only react to customers as they make
purchasing decisions but also actively shape those decision journeys. A set of technologies is
underpinning this change, allowing companies to design and continuously optimize decision
journeys. More important, companies today can use journeys to deliver value to both the customer
and the brand. Companies that do this well can radically compress the consideration and evaluation
phases—and in some cases even eliminate them—during the purchase process and catapult a
consumer right to the loyalty phase of the relationship (exhibit). The journey itself is becoming the
defining source of competitive advantage.

We’ve found that a company’s ability to deliver that value relies on four distinct but
interconnected capabilities:
• Automation streamlines journey steps. One example is letting people take a picture of a check and
deposit it through the bank’s app rather than doing it in person. While automation of processes is highly
technical, the focus is on enabling simple, useful, and increasingly engaging experiences.
• Proactive personalization uses information about a customer—either based on past interactions or
collected from external sources—to instantaneously customize the experience. Remembering customer
preferences is a basic example of this capability, but it extends to personalizing and optimizing the next
steps in a customer’s journey, such as immediately putting a valued traveler on an upgrade list.
• Contextual interaction uses knowledge about where a customer is in a journey to deliver them to the
next set of interactions, such as a retail site showing a customer the status of a recent order on the home
page. Some hotels are experimenting with using their app to operate like a key when a customer gets to
his or her room.
• Journey innovation extends the interaction to new sources of value, such as new services, for both the
customer and the brand. Companies mine their data and insights about a customer to figure out what
adjacent service her or she might appreciate. The best companies design journeys that enable open-ended
testing to allow for constant prototyping of new services or features. This may include, for example, an
airline’s app that has the ability to integrate with a taxi service so that travelers can book cars to pick them
up when they arrive at their destination.

Activating customer journeys to capture value requires journeys to be treated like products that
need to be actively managed, measured, and nurtured. How well companies are able to do that will
dictate how successful they are in making customer journeys a competitive advantage.

DM/U1 Topic 3 Marketing Strategies For The Digital World

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Many years ago, developing effective marketing strategies was a much simpler task than it is today.
With only a small number of television channels, radio stations, newspapers, and relevant
magazines pertaining to a given market, advertisers could develop fairly targeted marketing
strategies to generate sales. In the emerging digital environment, marketing strategies have become
a far more complex task. There are now vast arrays of different marketing channels, tools, and
tactics that must be unique in strategy while seamless and integrated in application. Companies
also need to connect and engage with customers, and create memorable, lasting experiences. To
develop a successful marketing campaign in today’s digital environment, companies must focus
on three strategic components. Marketers must establish clear, strategic, and targeted objectives
and ensure that they are tactical in the rollout and implementation of new campaigns. Companies
should also focus on the development of a separate team to identify and analyze emerging
marketing opportunities. Companies that are able to clearly identify the strengths and weaknesses
of each digital medium will likely be more successful in their campaigns.

With technology’s rapid evolution also come changes in consumer behavior. Here are 10 strategies
to emerge into a smarter marketing era, grow as a company and strengthen the performance of
your brand.

1. Marketing: integrate your sales and marketing for optimal performance.

 Yes, it is a “thing” although you probably won’t find this word in Webster’s Dictionary. It means
that you integrate sales and marketing to optimize performance of marketing efforts.

Gone are the days when a consumer peruses an ad in print media then purchases that product later
during the appointed shopping day of the week. Digital ads are portals to online sales. Marketing
and sales all happen in the same place with the tap of a finger or click of a mouse.

If a potential customer has a question about a product, that, too, happens in the same place in cyber-
world through chat window features. If your company is not marketing, it is losing significant sales
potential.

2. Experience: Reaching a digital customer, requires that you become one yourself.

Have you walked in the shoes of your customers? Have you surfed the web to map the path of
discovery to your product’s online ad? Did you click and see where your landed in cyberspace?
What about the purchasing process? Was it a secure experience?

If you have not walked a mile in your customer’s shoes, how can you know if the process is
efficient? That’s one of the best ways to fine tune your online presence.

Learning a new language requires complete immersion. Otherwise you’ll need an interpreter and
in the case of digital marketing, that mean a savvy digital marketing agency.

3. Playing Field Dynamics: Not every digital marketing challenge is solved by throwing more money at it.

In the olden days the playing field belonged to the company that could afford the biggest print ad
or a prime-time television/radio slot for a commercial.

Digital advertising has seriously leveled the playing field. Just look at what happens when a
YouTube video goes viral. A company doesn’t always have to outspend a competitor to solve a
marketing problem.

4. Engagement: Having a Digital Presence is not enough.

So you have a company blog and a profile with every social media platform under the Sun. Yet
you haven’t seen a significant impact on sales. What is going on?

Creating a digital presence is only the first step. Now you have to engage, engage, engage. That
means creating content that inspires a reaction. Calls to action, surveys, asking viewers to name
the new company cat rescued from the alley are all great ideas to create intrigue and stimulate
engagement.

You’ve got to do something with your digital presence: connect with people. offer value and get
them communicating with you.
5. Who’s In The Driver’s Seat? Let data drive the decision-making.

If data is not behind every decision, then your company is flying blind. The greatest thing about
digital marketing is that every single action can be measured.

Did switching background colors result in more traffic? Good decision. But, even if it had been a
bad decision, analytics reflecting a noted drop in traffic, or less time spent by visitors on your site,
would have alerted you to the need to re-adjust accordingly. Data must captain the ship.

6. Value: You must offer education & value.

There is more to value than getting a great product at a great price. Content is the most valuable
commodity in the digital age. The information you share needs to have value to viewers.

Cultivate an online reputation for being the premier authority on your particular industry. It’s easy
to Google an answer to a question. But believing in the integrity of a source is the value that will
bring readers back time and again to your site for reliable information

7. Personalized Automation: So you don’t lose that personal touch.

Automated e-mails and notifications don’t seem very personal, do they? It kind of has the flavor
of SPAM. Au contraire, mon ami. That’s the lovely thing about data!

As of 2014, nearly 70% of businesses were using a marketing automation platform.

Analytics identifies so many unique characteristics of customers and viewers that marketing
automation can take on amazing personalization aspects. You can send birthday greetings or
religious holiday observances according to each individual. An anniversary of a loyal customer’s
first purchase can be noted.

A customer’s purchasing history can generate a suggestions list of other products of interest.
Marketing automation can definitely create that personal experience that online customers still
crave.

8. Get Out More: Your customers don’t spend all their time in one place, and neither should you.

In the time of yester-year, sales executives had to get out and mingle in order to bring in more
customers. It’s the same in the digital age. Your content needs to get out more.

This is often called a multi-channel digital marketing strategy which means ads are delivered to
other online targets. For example, when Google recognizes the potential of a Facebook user to find
your brand interesting, it places your ad before their eyes as suggested content. Voila. You just
mingled online.

9. Digital Agility is a must.

 There are all sorts of technical lingo to explain concepts like “agile sales”. All you really need to
know is that things can change.

You’ve heard us say before: “your website is not an office building, so don’t treat it like one!” In
the ever-changing digital world, you must be ready to change with it– and that includes your
website.

So that website you built? Is it turning out to be lousy? Don’t despair! Be agile! Change it! When
you build something to be accessed by others through the worldwide web, it’s not set in stone like
a brick and mortar store.

If they turn out to be a bomb, tweak it. The digital age means everyone gets do-overs until you get
it right.

10. Chatter Matters: Business practices, good and bad, will catch up with you eventually.

That old saying, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” does not apply to what your company
or brand is doing online. Reviews matter. Feedback matters. Social media chatter matters.

If you get a bad review, be responsive and get things resolved. Stay focused on good customers
service because all of your digital footsteps are out there for the entire world to see.

DM/U4 Topic 1 Social Media Marketing

THESTREAK24/02/2019 2 COMMENTS

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

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

How Are Search & Social Media Marketing Related?

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

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

Social Media Marketing At Marketing Land

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

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

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

• Increasing website traffic

• Building conversions
• Raising brand awareness
• Creating a brand identity and positive brand association
• Improving communication and interaction with key audiences

DSMM/U2 Topic 2 Introduction to Blogging

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Blogging is often described as an online diary, but this is a bit of an inadequate definition, as
it’s become much more than that. We prefer to describe it simply as an easy interface to
publish content on the web.

Blogs can be used to publish news and reviews and to discuss products and ideas. They are
easy to update and an excellent way to communicate online with customers and people
interested in a particular industry or topic. From the readers’ perspective, a good blog
provides useful, free information and helps them to stay informed on the subject of their
interest.

The internet contains blogs on almost every issue imaginable – in fact, it is estimated that
there are currently over 150 million blogs floating around on the Internet! Some blogs focus
on just one topic, while others talk about a variety of different things. Some blogs are
maintained by one person, and others feature a host of different writers.

Downsides to Blogging
Regular Updates
For blogs to be effective they must be updated regularly otherwise readers lose interest – and
so do the search engines! Some people find this a challenge; the good news is that we will
be giving you some ideas for content in our ‘Content Creation‘ lessons!

Spam

Perhaps the biggest problem for blog owners is spam. While the comment function is the life-
blood of any good blog, it is also frequently misused by spammers to advertise other websites
and products; fortunately, a lot of blog-software writers have cottoned on to this, and most
blogs now contain sophisticated features to help reduce spam significantly.

How Do I Blog?

You can either set up a stand-alone blog or a blog on your own domain. A stand-alone blog
can be set up in just a few minutes via a weblog hosting service.

There are three weblog services worth a mention. They are:

Blogger.com

Blogger is a free service and possibly the simplest to use. However, scalability options are
limited and we are not going to be spending time on this service in future lessons.

Typepad.com

Typepad claims to be the world’s most advanced weblog service – but it’s also the most
expensive, with subscription plans ranging from $4.95-$89.95 per month.

WordPress.org

WordPress is also free but contains many state-of-the-art publishing features. WordPress is
the service we recommend and will be our focus in subsequent Affilorama lessons on
blogging.

DSMM/U2 Topic 3 Create a Blog post for your project,

Including headline, imagery, links and post, content planning
and writing
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 How to Write a Blog Post in Five Easy Steps [Summary]:

1. Step 1: Plan your blog post by choosing a topic, creating an outline, conducting research, and checking
facts.
2. Step 2: Craft a headline that is both informative and will capture readers’ attentions.
3. Step 3: Write your post, either writing a draft in a single session or gradually word on parts of it.
4. Step 4: Use images to enhance your post, improve its flow, add humor, and explain complex topics.
5. Step 5: Edit your blog post. Make sure to avoid repetition, read your post aloud to check its flow, have
someone else read it and provide feedback, keep sentences and paragraphs short, don’t be a
perfectionist, don’t be afraid to cut out text or adapt your writing last minute.

Headlines

There are two main approaches you can take to writing blog post headlines. You can either decide
on your final headline before you write the rest of your post (and use your headline to structure
your outline), or you can write your blog post with a working title and see what fits when you’re
done.

Using Images Effectively

Writing for the web is an entirely different animal than writing for print. Oftentimes, people simply
don’t have the time, will, or ability to focus on lengthy blog posts without some visual stimulation.
Even a well-formatted blog post consisting solely of text is likely to send your reader screaming
back to Reddit or Twitter within minutes, which is why it’s so important to include images in your
posts.

Images Help Your Blog Post Flow More Effectively

One of the most important reasons to include images in your blog posts is to break up the
text. Many people scan blog posts rather than pore over every word, and interspersing images
throughout the copy will make your post seem less intimidating and more visually appealing.

Images Make Great Visual Punchlines

Everyone likes a good laugh, and a well-chosen image can help lighten the tone of your posts and
inject some much-needed humor into a piece. This can be particularly effective if you’re writing
about a dry (or flat-out boring) topic.

Content planning and writing

You’ve got to find out which method works best for you, but here are the items we believe every
content plan should contain:

• Delivery date/time: Remember, timing is important for content marketing, and this will help make sure
you’re writing to deadline.
• Title: You can’t start writing without a title, even if it’s just a working one. This should outline the main
premise of the piece.
• Wordcount: This will determine how much depth and detail the piece will go into.
• Quick summary: Just two or three sentences – outlining key points and your conclusion. You can always
add an ‘additional ideas’ section if you want some extra room for your ideas.
• Sources: Find sources you can use for research and as inspiration for your piece. This will save you time
later and might spark some ideas. Just make sure they’re credible!

6 Tips for Top-Notch Content Planning:

So, you know what your content plan should include, but you could probably do with a few
additional pointers to get you going. We’re happy to oblige – take a look!

1. Consider your brand’s stance

Everything you say should fit with your brand’s guidelines, ethos and values. So, forget what you
know about the subject personally – what does your brand think?

Your content plan should be written from your brand’s perspective and subtly align your offering
as the solution. Remember that word though – ‘subtle’ – as your content should always be more
educational than promotional.

2. Know your audience

Who is your piece meant to be targeting? Which segment of your audience should it speak to?

You need to think long and hard about this, as it will define the direction of your piece. Think
about the needs of the individual and where he or she might be in your sales funnel by using
audience personas based on existing customers.

Think about how you can structure your content specifically for your users, and give them
everything they want to know about the subject. Then you can think about getting started on
writing your content.

3. Brainstorm lots of ideas

With those two key things in your mind, start brainstorming ideas – we find mind-maps work well!

Generate as many ideas as possible, just go crazy. Yes, some may not be as good as others, and
some may not even be realistic, but you can hone these down to create highly-targeted, engaging
content.
 4. Decide which angle you’ll take

This is key to good content planning – an angle that will grab attention and help you stand out
from the crowd.

Visit competitor sites to see what they’re doing and see if you can switch it on its head. If you’re
stuck, use the four-pillar approach like this:

1. What is happening to Uber in London?

2. Where can I still get an Uber?
3. Why is TFL and Sadiq Kahn banning Uber in London?
4. How can I stop Uber leaving London?

There you go, four different approaches to the same topic. Take your pick!

5. Set a goal for each piece of content

Each piece of content should have a goal. It can either be something explicit (e.g. increasing
newsletter sign-ups, or downloading guides), or something more implicit (like educating,
informing or explaining a process). The latter is more suited to content marketing.

6. Choose a strong focus keyword

Pick a keyword now, so you can consider it throughout the content planning process. It will help
you stay on track and prepare your piece for SEO.

These content planning tips will help you create an effective plan that will act as a great foundation
for your content. Try our ideas out next time content planning rolls around, and see how your
content quality improves!

DSMM/U2 Topic 4 Introduction to Facebook, Twitter,

Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest; their
channel advertising and campaign
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How to Use Facebook for Marketing

It’s important to start by building your fanbase on Facebook. Publicize your page and post a
link to it anywhere you can, including adding a social icon onto your website.

Once you’ve created a strong following it’s important to use status updates or photos to share
your products, offers, services. You should also post things that get your audience to engage
with your posts. Things that they will click, “like,” comment on, and share. The more people
are engaging, the more frequently you’ll appear in others timelines.

It’s important to keep in mind that many use Facebook as a personal network to connect with
their friends or loved ones. Your brand needs to fit into this atmosphere naturally in order to
keep people interested in what you’re posting. So don’t make it solely about selling.

Tool to Utilize: Advertising

Facebook Advertising is really picking up speed in the business world.

It uses social graph and activities to pinpoint those who fall into your buyer demographics,
making Facebook Ads incredibly effective. Facebook ads are more likely to bring in strong
leads that are actually looking for your services.

They help make sure your advertising budget isn’t wasted on those who aren’t really
interested in what you’re offering and helping to put product or service put into the hands of
the exact person who wants or needs it. To go much deeper into mastering Facebook,
download this free guide.

Twitter

Twitter is fast-paced, concise, and easy way to connect with your audience. With over 310
million registered users (and growing), Twitter is a sea of information of 140 character or less
content waiting to be read, clicked, followed, and re-tweeted.

How to Use Twitter for Marketing

Twitter generates over 175 million tweets daily and allows you to share quick pieces of
information and photos in an effort to drive people back to your site or landing pages. You
only get a small amount of characters, so make them count!

When marketing on Twitter, you need to have content that is enticing enough for people to
stop and click through. People are normally scrolling through quickly so it takes more than
just simple text to stop them in their tracks. Make sure when you’re constructing your tweets,
you’re making people want to click through.

Try using quotes, statistics, or questions related to the link you’re tweeting as a way to people
wanting to read more. Incorporate photos, polls, gifs, or even short videos. (All of these are
now natively supported by the platform!)

While Twitter is a great way to share quick thoughts and generate traffic to your website and
offers, it’s important to make sure you’re also building relationships with followers.
People follow you because they like what you have to say, but often also to engage in
conversation. Like you would on Facebook, ask and respond to questions, respond to
mentions and direct messages. Twitter is as useful for driving traffic as it is for customer
service.

Tool to Utilize: Hashtags

Hashtags (#) are you key tool on Twitter. These tags allow you to reach a wider audience
than just your followers by getting involved in existing conversations.

People searching for specific information will often check hashtags to see what’s out there.
Do some research what your buyer persona is hashtagging to make sure your posts are going
to be found by the right people.

Our free guide “Tune Up Your Social Media Marketing” will teach you everything you need to
know to master Twitter for business. You can get it here.

LinkedIn

How to Use LinkedIn for Marketing

LinkedIn is different from the rest of the social media outlets because it’s specifically designed
for business and professionals. Users mainly go to LinkedIn to showcase their job experience
and professional thoughts, making it one of the more important platforms to use for those in
B2B.

Between features like LinkedIn Pulse, Company Pages, InMail, Groups, and “Get Introduced”
and the ability to see who’s viewed your personal profile, LinkedIn is a valuable tool for not
only driving traffic, but prospecting, establishing thought leadership, as well as recruiting.

DM/U3 Topic 1 Understanding the Relationship between

Content and Branding and Its Impact on Sales
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

To understand branding, it is important to know what brands are. A brand is the idea or image of
a specific product or service that consumers connect with, by identifying the name, logo, slogan,
or design of the company who owns the idea or image. Branding is when that idea or image is
marketed so that it is recognizable by more and more people, and identified with a certain service
or product when there are many other companies offering the same service or product. Advertising
professionals work on branding not only to build brand recognition, but also to build good
reputations and a set of standards to which the company should strive to maintain or surpass.
Branding is an important part of Internet commerce, as branding allows companies to build their
reputations as well as expand beyond the original product and service, and add to the revenue
generated by the original brand.
 When working on branding, or building a brand, companies that are using web pages and search
engine optimization have a few details to work out before being able to build a successful brand.
Coordinating domain names and brand names are an important part of finding and keeping visitors
and clients, as well as branding a new company. Coordination of a domain name and brand names
lends identification to the idea or image of a specific product or service, which in turn lets visitors
easily discovery the new brand.

Branding is also a way to build an important company asset, which is a good reputation. Whether
a company has no reputation, or a less than stellar reputation, branding can help change that.
Branding can build an expectation about the company services or products, and can encourage the
company to maintain that expectation, or exceed them, bringing better products and services to the
market place.

Content Marketing is the New Branding

Branding isn’t your company name. It’s not a tag line. It’s not a logo. Branding is just another
name for creating a perception. A brand is a promise. It’s an expectation of an experience. The
company and tag line and logo and brand colors only exist to call that experience to mind. Brands
can meet that expectation, exceed that expectation … or in the worst cases, fall short of that
expectation

When marketers ask, “How do we want to brand this product?” what they’re really asking is how
they want their audience to think about that product once it comes to market.

Content

1. Content Marketing involves

• Educate
• Convince
• Entertain

2. Content communicates your purpose with

• Consistency
• Value
• Originality

3. Content aligned to your audience.

Impact on Sales

Using user generated content is recognizing that fact that digital marketing has changed:
consumers takes now an active part in the promotion process. A recent study reveals that 70% of
consumers prefer peer recommendations and reviews rather than professionally written content.
Gone are the days when you could just sell with a one-fits-all marketing campaign. In fact,
consumers are now in control of the entire digital message, they own their story and listening to
what they want is far more effective than any typical marketing campaign. When used with brand
content, UGC is very effective and leads to sales generation. Here are 4 reasons UGC and brand
content should both be included in your digital marketing strategy.

They both create authenticity

Brand content, is the very voice of your company’s values and philosophy and it truly sets you
apart from your competition. But when you integrate user generated content to it, you provide an
authentic user experience.

As a result of this more personalized and engaging experience, your marketing campaigns will be
more effective and more impactful. A perfect digital strategy is the right balance between the voice
of your brand the voice of the consumer, which at the end, both contribute to improve brand image
and sales.

Visual content is key

A recent statistic revealed that consumers only remember 10% of information they receive, after a
period of three day. But if visual content is associated with that same information, people are said
to remember 65% of the information after the same time period.

In that sense, people are more likely to remember your products and services if they saw relevant
images of it, as in a social wall for example. Not only does social walls act as recommendations,
but they also are advertise your brand without screaming: “buy me!”.

You should include UGC and brand content to rour digital strategy in order to increase your ROI.

Brand content proves your expertise

How many times when you Googled the definition of a concept, have you found yourself in the
blog section of a website? Probably a lot. The reason is that the content you found is considered
relevant by people who look for it, and therefore by search engines too. Blogging for your business
is a very import part of your content marketing strategy. By doing so you are proving to future
consumers that you are an expert in you are and that they should trust using your products/services.

Website benefits

By combining UGC and brand content, you are creating opportunities for visitors to stay on your
website.

This will allow visitors to see how well you know your area of business and how your customers
are. In a sense, you are responding to the visitors’ questions before they even ask them, which will
develop a sense of safety in their mind. Another benefit of including UGC and brand content in
 your strategy is SEO. The more you are creating relevant content, the more visibility and indexing
you will get on search engines.

DM/U3 Topic 2 Search marketing

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

For many businesses, a customer’s journey start with a search and a query. This is where Search
Marketing comes up. It is all about increasing the visibility of a brand or a product on search
engines by serving an ad at the precise moment it will be relevant to the audience’s intent or by
optimizing its ranking naturally.

Search Marketing is a term that refers to both paid and unpaid search activities. It is used as an
umbrella term for SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Both are online techniques for
increasing a brand or product’s visibility to audiences using search engines to find information.

Be careful with this last term: SEM is just about paid ads and does not include SEO. It is a
marketing method that focus on ads displayed on the search engines results, typically appearing
on the top or on the right of the SERP. Basically, the higher the bid one offers to pay for an ad, the
higher the ad will be on the page, depending of the degree of competition.

Search Engine Marketing or paid search is divided between these terms:

• Paid search ads

• Paid search advertising
• PPC (pay-per-click) :

PPC (pay-per-call) – some ads, particularly those served to mobile search users, may be charged
by the number of clicks that resulted in a direct call from a smartphone.

• CPC (cost-per-click)
• CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions)

Most search ads are sold on a CPC / PPC basis, but some advertising options may also be sold on
a CPM basis.

Google AdWords is the main resource for paid search followed by Bing Ads – which is also
supporting Yahoo ads. Social networks also offer PPC options.

Who employs search marketing?

All websites are “crawled” by search engines in an effort to determine a particular site’s page
rankings. Those that employ dedicated teams to actively manipulate those rankings through search
marketing are much more likely to end up at the top of the results. This means that all websites
looking to draw traffic (whether for e-commerce, information, or another service) should employ
search marketing.

Attention to relevant keywords is invaluable for all websites, no matter what product or service
they offer. Every website can benefit from analyzing each page of its site to make sure that some
combination of relevant keywords shows up in the content.

For example, a Google search of the phrase “custom cookies” first returns the
website http://www.CustomCookies.com. Because they bought that URL, they show up first. In
second, third, and fourth positions, however, are Veronica’s Treats, Memaw’s Cookies, and
Rolling Pin Productions – all modestly-sized cookie manufacturers who do a good job
implementing search marketing strategies. Because they made sure that the phrase ‘custom
cookies’ was prominent in their web content, they have made themselves easy to find.

How is a search marketing plan developed and employed?

Before a team develops an active search marketing campaign, they should make sure that their
websites are up to par. It is imperative for visitors to like what they find once they reach the desired
website. This means that all links should be working, all content should be informative and easy
to read, and the look and feel of the site should fit the brand or company’s message.

Then, the search marketing team can begin working on keyword research and analysis. Research
determines the most relevant and searched keywords on the site, and uses these findings in a way
that generates traffic and makes sense to users.

For example, when a search marketing team working for an electronics website determines that
the most popular search terms driving traffic to the site are “best digital camera,” “refurbished hard
drive,” and “top ten smartphones,” they can’t just list those terms over and over again at the top of
a webpage or worse – hide them in a background-matching text.

These practices, known as “black hat” SEO, are extremely frowned-upon in the search marketing
world. While they may help a website jump to the top of search results temporarily, Google’s
intelligent analysis will not only remove these high rankings, but ban the website from being
indexed correctly in the near future. Moreover, Internet users dislike and mistrust these practices.
(See also Black Hat Marketing)

To use keywords correctly, they should be integrated into the content, headlines, meta tags and
search descriptions in a way that feels natural to the reader, not forced. Additionally, search
marketing teams should analyze lesser-used search terms that they may be able to monopolize. For
example, while a local electronics store website may not be able to compete with online giants
Amazon and Best Buy for search terms like “best digital camera,” they could corner the market
on a search term like “refurbished Canon Elph, Springfield MO.” Used correctly, this keyword
might be sprinkled into a paragraph that reads: “Are you looking for a refurbished Canon Elph?
Springfield MO electronics shop Electric Shop carries all models, and guarantees their refurbished
products for 24 months.”
 Next, the search team can begin analyzing their website’s saturation and link popularity. These
determine how much presence a site has on search engines, and can be analyzed through page
counts, indexed pages, and backlinks from other places. If all the website’s pages contain keywords
and “crawlable” content (searchable text, not photos with words written in them, Flash or videos),
it should lead people to the site and rank well in the search engines. To help them measure
saturation and popularity, a search team can use tools like Google Analysis, Marketleap’s Link
Popularity, and Search Engine Saturation.

Back end tools like Google Analytics and HTML validators measure the success of a website by
providing data on visitors. More than just counting traffic, these sophisticated back end tools can
reveal important information about specific web pages and how they’re being used. Once a search
team knows where they’re gaining and losing website visitors, they can target their keywords to
fill those holes.

What types of careers work with search marketing strategies?

Because search marketing is a digital marketing field, a career in search marketing requires
marketers to not only have a marketing background, but also a firm understanding of the ever-
changing world of social media, search engine analytics, and broad-based online marketing. An
effective search marketing team will be made up of individuals who are extremely comfortable
with technology trends and have the creativity to help a website stand out from the crowd.

DM/U3 Topic 3 Mobile Marketing

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel, digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching a target audience
on their smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices, via websites, email, SMS and MMS,
social media, and apps.

Mobile is disrupting the way people engage with brands. Everything that can be done on a desktop
computer is now available on a mobile device. From opening an email to visiting your website to
reading your content, it’s all accessible through a small mobile screen. Consider:

• 80% of internet users own a smartphone.

• Mobile platforms, such as smartphones and tablets, host up to 60% of digital media time for users in the
U.S.
• Google anticipates search queries on mobile devices to surpass desktop searches by the end of 2015.

Effective mobile advertising means understanding your mobile audience, designing content with
mobile platforms in mind, and making strategic use of SMS/MMS marketing and mobile apps.
 How to Create a Mobile Marketing Strategy?

As with any marketing effort, every brand and organization will develop a unique mobile strategy
based on the industry and target audience. Mobile technology is all about customization and
personalization, which means mobile marketing is, too.

Step 1 – Create Mobile Buyer Personas

Understanding your audience is the first step to any marketing strategy, and buyer personas are a
valuable tool to aid in that understanding. Buyer personas are simply fictional representations of
your various types of customers. Create a profile that describes each one’s background, job
description, main sources of information, goals, challenges, preferred type of content, objections,
and/or role in the purchase process. It is easier to determine a channel and voice for your marketing
messages when you have a clear picture of your target audience.

Make a specific point to detail your target audience’s mobile habits as well. How much of their
web usage happens on mobile devices? Are they comfortable completing a purchase on a
smartphone? A simple way to start is to research big data reports on mobile usage. Some interesting
observations include:

• 65% of all email is first opened on a mobile device.

• 48% of users start their mobile internet sessions on a search engine.
• 56% of B2B buyers frequently use smartphones to access vendors’ content.
• 95% of adults primarily use their smartphones to access content/information.

To better understand your specific target market, monitor Google Analytics for your site’s mobile
traffic numbers. You can also ask or survey clients and prospects about their mobile web usage.

A/B testing—which compares two versions of the same campaign on a certain channel—can also
be informative for developing any aspect of buyer personas. When all other factors are the same,
do your email campaign landing pages get more views when you send a related email on weekends
or on weekdays? In the mornings or in the evenings? Which title or email subject gets more click-
throughs?

Both the general and specific data will help develop audience personas that include mobile usage.

Step 2 – Set Goals

The key to defining any effective strategy is to first decide what success looks like. Get the key
stakeholders together to map your mobile marketing strategy. Identify goals by asking your team
some of these questions:

• What are we currently doing for mobile? This will define your starting point, and make sure everyone is
on the same page as you begin.
• If you are already doing mobile marketing, how are those initiatives performing? This conversation will
identify what is already working, what is not, and what’s not even being measured.
• What are your main objectives for including mobile marketing in your overall strategy? Discuss why you’re
considering mobile now, what conversations have led up to this point, and what you expect from mobile
marketing.
• Who are your key audiences for mobile marketing? Talk about your customer personas in light of mobile
usage updates. How similar or different is each persona’s mobile usage?
• How are you engaging your mobile audience cross-channel? This discussion will help analyze how the
channels you’re currently using can be included in your mobile marketing strategy.

Step 3 – Establish KPIs

Just like your other marketing efforts, mobile marketing needs to be tested and optimized.
Determine which realistic, measurable KPIs define your mobile campaign’s success. For example:

• Engagement—Provide mobile-friendly content for potential customers who are searching for information
about your industry or product. Make sure your website is mobile-responsive to improve mobile SEO.
• Acquisition—Make sure lead nurturing emails are mobile-friendly with clear calls-to-action. Buttons in
emails should be near the top of the message and be big enough to easily tap in order to facilitate click-
throughs. Then make it as easy as possible for someone to fill out a form on your mobile-optimized landing
page.
• Customer Service—In a connected, social marketplace, customer service is very much a marketing
opportunity. Allow your customers to easily reach you through any platform they want, including simple
click-to-call buttons for smartphone users.

In order to identify the right KPIs for your mobile marketing campaign, ask yourself:

• Do I want to increase conversions from email messages?

• Am I trying to improve traffic to sales pages?
• How important is it that I generate more qualified prospects?
• Does our brand need to improve sales by converting more traffic on certain pages?

Step 4 – Monitor Mobile Metrics

Google Analytics can help monitor mobile usage of your site:

• Mobile behavior data reveals how well your mobile content engages your audience.
• Mobile conversion data will indicate whether or not some of your key landing pages still need to be
optimized for mobile browsing.

Adding the Device Category field to the Site Content dashboard will display the quantity and
quality of much mobile traffic to each individual page on your site.

The table on the Site Content dashboard includes metrics like pageviews and bounce rate. Add the
Device Category by clicking the “Secondary dimension” menu above the first column and
 selecting “Device Category” from the “Users”submenu. The table will then display the most-
viewed pages on your site, per device, so you can see how mobile actually affects your web traffic.

That information can hint at which search queries may be leading mobile traffic to your site, what
content your mobile audience is most interested in, and which pages to optimize for mobile
browsing first.

DM/U3 Topic 4 Video Marketing

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Video marketing can be used for everything from building customer rapport, to promoting your
brand, services or products. Additionally, video marketing can serve as a medium to present how-
to’s, promote customer testimonials, live-stream events and deliver viral (entertaining) content.

To develop your video marketing strategy, you’ll want to:

• Allocate resources. You’re going to need to designate some budget for video – at the least, decent
equipment, good editing software, and a video marketing guru (or, better, team) – as well as time to
create it.
• Tell your stories. Storytelling has never been as important as it is in video, so get brainstorming: What
stories do you want to tell? How will you tell them?
• It’s not enough to simply tell your stories; you must engage your audience while you do so. How will you
make your stories interesting? What will hook your audience?
• Keep it short. There’s no set length for marketing videos (although there are recommendations), but the
general rule is that shorter is better. Be ruthless with your editing. Cut, cut, cut out everything extraneous.
Attention spans are short, so make the best of what you get.
• Publish your videos far and wide – embedded in your website, uploaded to Google-owned YouTube, and
on all your social media channels. Then, promote, promote, promote.
• Track metrics and stats, to determine which videos do the best – and why.

Examples of Video Marketing

Video marketing is all over the Internet. Look no further than your favorite brands, your Facebook,
your YouTube homepage, and there it is: successful video marketing that has found its way to your
eyes.

Benefits of Video Marketing

The benefits of video marketing are many. Let’s begin with the easily quantifiable: statistics,
numbers, and data –

• Video helps you connect with your audience.Today, so much of a company’s marketing efforts are
designed to help build trust. Video is the bridge that links what you say to who you really are, allowing
customers to peer behind the curtain and get to know your brand.
• Video is an SEO gold mine, helping build backlinks to your site, boosting likes and shares (which can effect
search rankings), and driving traffic to your site. And let’s not forget that YouTube is owned by Google, so
be sure to post your videos to YT and tag, tag, tag with keywords/key phrases!
• Videos boost information retention. If your customers hear something only, they’re likely to retain about
10% of that information three days later; by contrast, if what they hear is accompanied by relevant
imagery, they’ll retain an average 65% of that information three days later.
• In 2017, video content will account for an estimated 74% of all online traffic. Your customers love
video. Would-be customers also love video, which means good video marketing can attract new visitors.
• Email subject lines that include the word “video” see a 19% increase in open rates, and a 65% boost in
click-throughs.
• Four times as many customers would prefer to watch a product video, than read a product description.
• Do you like money? Then consider this: after watching a video, customers are 64-85% more likely to make
a purchase.

Challenges of Video Marketing

Once upon a time, cost was a serious challenge to video marketing: The cost of equipment, editing
software and, from an end-user’s perspective, the data cost of consuming online video.

Today, those challenges are mostly in the rear-view mirror. Yes, you still need some budget – good
equipment, editing software and a delivery platform are more affordable than they once were, but
they’re not free – and you do need a marketing team with experience in video, but these are all
surmountable obstacles.

In fact, the biggest challenges of video marketing in 2017 are strategic: How to build a solid and
effective video marketing strategy, how to create content that people want to consume, and how
to create engaging videos that get shared. Additionally, video content marketers need to have a
solid understanding of metrics, and how they indicate a video’s success and areas for improvement.

DM/U3 Topic 5 Social-Media Marketing

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

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.

Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, which enable companies to
track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range
of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers,
current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic
level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign,
governance, setting the scope (e.g. more active or passive use) and the establishment of
a firm’s desired social media “culture” and “tone.”
 When using social media marketing, firms can allow customers and Internet users to post
user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as “earned
media,” rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy.

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and
sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding
goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos,
and and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media
advertising.

How Social Media Marketing Can Help You Meet Your Marketing Goals?

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

• Increasing website traffic

• Building conversions
• Raising brand awareness
• Creating a brand identity and positive brand association
• Improving communication and interaction with key audiences

Best Social Media Marketing Tips

Ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few social media marketing
tips to kick off your social media campaigns.

1. Social Media Content Planning — As discussed previously, building a social media

marketing plan is essential. Consider keyword research and competitive research to help
brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience. What are other businesses in
your industry doing to drive engagement on social media?
2. Great Social Content — Consistent with other areas of online marketing, content reigns
supreme when it comes to social media marketing. Make sure you post regularly and offer
truly valuable information that your ideal customers will find helpful and interesting. The
content that you share on your social networks can include social media images, videos,
infographics, how-to guides and more.
3. A Consistent Brand Image — Using social media for marketing enables your business to
project your brand image across a variety of different social media platforms. While each
platform has its own unique environment and voice, your business’s core identity, whether
it’s friendly, fun, or trustworthy, should stay consistent.
4. Social Media for Content Promotion —Social media marketing is a perfect channel for
sharing your best site and blog content with readers. Once you build a loyal following on
social media, you’ll be able to post all your new content and make sure your readers can find
new stuff right away. Plus, great blog content will help you build more followers. It’s a
surprising way that content marketing and social media marketing benefit each other.
5. Sharing Curated Links — While using social media for marketing is a great way to leverage
your own unique, original content to gain followers, fans, and devotees, it’s also an
opportunity to link to outside articles as well. If other sources provide great, valuable
information you think your target audience will enjoy, don’t be shy about linking to them.
 Curating and linking to outside sources improves trust and reliability, and you may even get
some links in return.
6. Tracking Competitors — It’s always important to keep an eye on competitors—they can
provide valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insight. If your
competitors are using a certain social media marketing channel or technique that seems to
be working for them

DM/U5 Topic 8 Future of Marketing Gamification and Apps

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

The future of marketing of gamification and apps marketing is about to enter a more
challenging territory. Building on the vast increase in consumer power brought on by the
digital age marketing is headed towards being on demand not just always on but also always
relevant responsive to the consumer desire for marketing that cuts through the noise with pin
point delivery.

Gamification and Game Based Marketing

Gamification is emerging as a marketing trend and it vital for marketing to address the
analysis of games used in gamification in terms of their structure and mechanism and their
subsequent transference to the area of marketing activities.

Gamification is the application of structure and mechanics of games ( points, rewards, levels,
challenges, and trophies ) to the real world in order to boost the engagement of users change
their behaviour and solve problems of various kinds.

How Can Gamification Benefit Marketing?

Companies need to understand how to add games and games mechanics to their marketing
mix how to use games to influence behaviour and reach business goals and use game based
marketing to boost revenues.

1. To play a game users ( potential consumers ) have to login first. The helps companies build
a database of potential clients by collecting the email ids of players.
2. Games allow companies to attract fans in social media by also constituting an important
element of competition.
3. Games allow education and integration of members of group or branch
4. Games can provide consumers with a positive fun filled and entertaining experience
5. Games permit companies to simulate real life situations that customers identify with easily in
such a way that target group gets more engaged.

The World Of Apps

Apps are adding a completely new dimension to marketing today. An app can be defined as
a software application typically developed by a product brand to allow a consumer to gain
information about there by forming an opinion or completing a transaction.
 Applications or apps as they are termed are optimized for the devices on which they are to
be downloaded on and accessed from. Marketing are using them for the following reasons :

1. Enhancing their reach

2. Positioning brands
3. Stimulating impulsive buying by6 increasing visual appeal
4. Stimulating consumer engagement
5. Leveraging consumer interactivity and participation

DM/U3 Topic 6 Online Campaign Management; Using

Marketing Analytic Tools To Segment, Target And Position
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

When used correctly, analytics can provide you with an immense pool of information, and can
really help you to pinpoint effective marketing strategies and target your market correctly. Today
we are going to look at how marketing analytics tools can help you segment and target new readers,
how to differentiate between customers and your target audience, and finally how to read key
metrics via conversion tracking.

Target Audience

Google Analytics can really provide you with a myriad of information, as long as you know where
to find it and how to read the data. Website metrics will help you review user traffic and define all
types of information about your visitors. This, in turn, will give you the opportunity to see exactly
where your visitors are coming from, and even why they are visiting your content. Analytics should
become a key part of your business objectives as they can be used to help you develop all types of
areas of your business: sales (ecommerce), lead generation, content publishing, online information,
and branding. Analytics can easily be used as a way to segment your traffic or your users and
define your target audience, which will then help you identify areas where you can target new
readers.

Important aspects of Google Analytics are metrics (quantitative measurements) and dimensions
(characteristics). Once you have set up your dashboard you will be able to set all kinds of metrics
and dimensions which will help you segment your users into different areas: from location and
browser usage, to age, pages viewed and time spent on your website. It’s always best to combine
dimensions and metrics so that they share the same scope or view, that way all of the information
that you collect will actually tell you a story from beginning to end. Your main goal is to get to
know where your visitors come from and, from that, you will be able to define strategies to target
new visitors and readers.

Google Analytics Dashboard Know Where Visitors Come From

As an authorpreneur, or any business owner for that matter, you must be able to differentiate
between a “customer” and your “target audience”. Your customers are actually going to help you
 learn all about your target audience, even if they aren’t aware of it! The more you know about your
target audience, the more you can connect with it, and the larger it will become. You want your
readers to feel like they have an affinity with you, and that affinity will lead to loyalty as well as
promotion within their circles. Basically, your goal will be to learn as much as possible about your
readers in order to target the right people, and consistently grow your market. You can analyze
your customers’ analytics; see where they come from and why. You can also track shares and
mentions via social media and see what posts are more popular than others, or get to know your
market by sending out questionnaires or surveys to those who have subscribed to your email list.
By analyzing all of these areas you will be able to create surefire tactics to connect with and grow
your target audience.

In addition to using all of the metrics available via Google Analytics, another way to define
successful marketing tactics is to use online advertising strategies, and to then use conversion
tracking to determine which campaigns are successful and which aren’t. AdWords’ Conversion
Tracking feature can be used to define the number of sales or leads generated from different
campaigns, which will then help you make informed decisions on where you should spend your
money and where you shouldn’t. In a first stage you will define what a conversion is for you: is it
a book sale, or a new email subscriber? Is it a social share or a new Facebook Fan? Once you have
defined this, the second stage will be to add a small piece of code to the page you will call your
“conversion page” (this can be a “thank you” page or confirmation page, depending on what your
conversion is). Then, once a visitor arrives on that page, Adwords Conversion Tracking will not
only record the conversion but will actually drill the conversion down to a set of metrics that will
show you exactly how the conversion took place, from beginning to end! This way you can easily
track successful ads and ones that don’t create any traction.

Adwords Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics, AdWords, and other online analytics and advertising tools all contain a huge
pool of information that will help you create not only your own brand, but also develop and grow
your target audience and pinpoint advertising strategies that work for you. All of this information
can help you grow your business, and there are many extensive guides available online for free.
You can’t go wrong with using all of this available data to your advantage!

DM/U3 Topic 7 Overview of search engine optimization

(SEO)
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.SEO is all about optimizing a website for
search engines. SEO is a technique for:

• Designing and developing a website to rank well in search engine results.

• Improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines.
• Marketing by understanding how search algorithms work, and what human visitors might
search.
 SEO is a subset of search engine marketing. SEO is also referred as SEO copyrighting,
because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines, deal with
text.

If you plan to do some basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines
work.

How Search Engine Works?

Search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results.

• Crawling– Process of fetching all the web pages linked to a website. This task is performed
by a software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, in case of Google).
• Indexing– Process of creating index for all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a
giant database from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is
identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to
particular keywords.
• Processing– When a search request comes, the search engine processes it, i.e. it compares
the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database.
• Calculating Relevancy– It is likely that more than one page contains the search string, so
the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index to the
search string.
• Retrieving Results– The last step in search engine activities is retrieving the best matched
results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! often update their relevancy algorithm dozens
of times per month. When you see changes in your rankings it is due to an algorithmic shift
or something else outside of your control.

Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor
differences between their relevancy algorithms lead to major changes in results relevancy.

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO Copywriting is the technique of writing viewable text on a web page in such a way that
it reads well for the surfer, and also targets specific search terms. Its purpose is to rank highly
in the search engines for the targeted search terms.

Along with viewable text, SEO copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the
targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description, Keywords tags, headings, and
alternative text.

The idea behind SEO copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not
additional pages often called “doorway pages” that are created for the sole purpose of
achieving high rankings.
 What is Search Engine Rank?

When you search any keyword using a search engine, it displays thousands of results found
in its database. A page ranking is measured by the position of web pages displayed in the
search engine results. If a search engine is putting your web page on the first position, then
your web page rank will be number 1 and it will be assumed as the page with the highest
rank.

SEO is the process of designing and developing a website to attain a high rank in search
engine results.

What is On-Page and Off-page SEO?

Conceptually, there are two ways of optimization:

• On-Page SEO– It includes providing good content, good keywords selection, putting
keywords on correct places, giving appropriate title to every page, etc.
• Off-Page SEO– It includes link building, increasing link popularity by submitting open
directories, search engines, link exchange, etc.

DM/U4 Topic 1 Digital Transformation

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business,
fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers. It’s also a cultural
change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and
get comfortable with failure.

Because digital transformation will look different for every company, it can be hard to pinpoint
a definition that applies to all. However, in general terms, we define digital transformation as
the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in fundamental
changes to how businesses operate and how they deliver value to customers. Beyond that,
it’s a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo,
experiment often, and get comfortable with failure. This sometimes means walking away from
long-standing business processes that companies were built upon in favor of relatively new
practices that are still being defined.

Digital Transformation (DX) is not necessarily about digital technology, but about the fact that
technology, which is digital, allows people to solve their traditional problems. And they prefer
this digital solution to the old solution

The transformation stage means that digital usages inherently enable new types of innovation
and creativity in a particular domain, rather than simply enhance and support traditional
methods.
In a narrower sense, “digital transformation” may refer to the concept of “going paperless” or
reaching a “digital business maturity” affecting both individual businesses and whole
segments of society, such as government, mass communications, art, medicine, and science.

While the impact of this on businesses has been profound, many are struggling to realize the
full potential of what digitization and this is also clearly divided by Geography. According to
the McKinsey Global Institute’s Industry Digitization Index, Europe is currently operating at
12% of its digital potential, while the USA is operating at 18%. Even within the leading
economies of Europe there are also some significant differences as, according to the study,
Germany operates at 10% of its digital potential, while the UK is almost on par with the US at
17%. This clearly demonstrates that, while business processes are undergoing great change
making much progress in the adoption of digitization, even advanced economies are
struggling to exploit the full potential of digitization.

Impact

The debate surrounding digitalization has therefore gained increased practical importance for
politics, business and social issues, and is linked to political work issues for community
development, new changes in the practical business approaches, effective opportunities for
organizations in operational and business process development, with effect on internal and
external efficiency of IT to name a few. The digital transformation is slated to generate over
$370 billion in global value during the next four years.
 DM/U4 Topic 2 Digital Leadership Principles
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Seven Core Principles of Digital Leadership

The business world is in the face with such new normal of digitalization, urbanization, and
globalization, with the characteristics of VUCA-Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and
Ambiguity, so what are the core leadership principles to fit in such digital era?

1. Authenticity: At the age of digitalization, ‘being who you really are as a leader’ is more critical than ever,
as your digital footprint is omnipresent, the working life is converging with personal life. You have to be
real and true to yourself and others. This will translate and distill into believability throughout your entire
organization. You will be seen as a person / leader who can be trusted not just by your employees but also
by your customers / clients.
2. Influence: Leadership is Influence. At digital age, leaders can make and amplify influence through multiple
digital channels, you not only consume the content, as a leader, you also create content to convey the
vision and leadership. To “influence” means to be able to help shape other people’s views or opinions
towards one’s own views or perspectives. The leader’s influence is based on the courage to inspire,
 confidence to assert, wisdom to negotiate, and uniqueness to bridge via taking advantage of expanded
digital platforms.
3. Empathy: Empathy is the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person’s
feelings; or the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or
attitudes of another. Technology makes the world much smaller than ever, we are all net citizen and C
(connecting) generation now, it’s the leadership trait in developing the true understanding based upon
related interaction with others. It’s the leadership capacity to be non-judgmental; the capacity to
appreciate and communicate with respect for other people’s ways; the capacity to be flexible with
tolerance for ambiguity.
4. Agility: The most critical characteristic of the digital age is the speed of CHANGE. Effective leaders should
have the ability to adapt to changes, and adaptive leaders will inspire crowd sourcing and crowd storming,
and adaptive leadership teams comprising a diverse range of individuals with the cognitive difference will
be able to draw on a wider set of experiences in order to inform their decision making. It’s meritocracy at
its best – a highly diverse set of people collaborate seamlessly to represents nature of how successful
organizations work today.
5. Insight: Due to the complexity and ambiguity of digital normal, INSIGHT is not ‘nice to have’, but ‘must
have’ leadership trait, as insight is based on information, knowledge, and multi-dimensional intelligence,
thus, an insightful leader has better perception to be a good communicator upon thinking deeper, rather
than just speaking louder. upon knowing when to voice out, when to keep silent, think deeper before
speak louder; use fewer words to express more; master of crowd-sourcing and enjoying collective
wisdom, with practical ability to convince the value and gain support.
6. Balance: Both mankind world and nature world are so dynamic with the balance of energy. Balance is
more crucial at digital era due to the interdependence and hyper-connectivity of the business value chain
and ecosystem. Balance is the best strategy to engage, yield, redirect, and embrace the interaction of two
complementary and opposing forces-yin and yang, leaders need to cultivate the culture of balance –the
collective mindset about how they do things here and balance the diversified viewpoints, creativity, and
discipline; the team’s collective capabilities upon which strength and skills available, and balance of the
long-term strategic goals with short-term tactical tasks.
7. Maturity: Maturity is one of the essential ingredients of leadership. By using this word, it often means to
be open minded, taking personal responsibility and not blaming others. having the ability to remove
emotion from your decision making, so that you can see things from an alternate perspective. Maturity is
one part of higher Emotional Intelligence for an effective leader but is not necessarily equal to emotional
intelligence. High mature leadership takes discipline, determination, and perseverance

Digitalization and the latest technology trends promote self-organizing teams and creative
working environment, however, it doesn’t mean leadership is out of fashion, on the opposite, it
takes better leadership vision and stronger management discipline to thrive at today’s business
dynamic.

DM/U4 Topic 3 Online P.R. And Reputation Management

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Public relations (PR) can help raise your business’ profile and improve your reputation. If done
well, it can be a cost-effective way to get your message to a large audience. However, it can be
tricky to guarantee success.
 Online Public Relations (E-PR, Digital PR) functions the web relationship influence among the
cyber citizens and it aims to make desirable comments about an organization, its products and
services, news viewed by its target audiences and lessen its undesirable comments to a large
degree. Online PR shows differences from traditional public relations. One of these is associated
with its platforms.

Compared with traditional public relations channels (such as TV, radio and printed press), the
network systems used for online public relations vary from search to social platforms. In the era
of digital marketing, the major online PR tools for the PR professionals and marketers such as
content marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are the results of mixture of digital
technologies and public relations.Those approaches have become the mainstream digital
marketing machines and learning to take advantage of these marketing tools is an essential part of
modern PR strategies.

Differences between online PR and traditional PR

• The organizations can communicate with its audiences directly through a variety of online platforms
instead of depending on the media channels only.
• Audiences exposed to the information are linked to the network and then the flow of information is multi-
directional among people.
• Multiple sources of information provided can be accessible to audiences.
• Audiences are entitled to the right to review, comment and assess.

Benefits of public relations

The advantages of PR include:

• Influence – Audiences are more likely to trust messages coming from an objective source rather than
paid-for advertising messages. It is one of the most credible forms of promotion and can be persuasive.
• Reach – A good story can be picked up by several news outlets, exposing your message to a large
audience.
• Cost-effectiveness – PR can be an economical way to reach a large audience in comparison to paid for
advertising media placement, particularly if it is done in-house.

Challenges of public relations (P.R)

Some of the downsides of PR include:

• No direct control – Unlike advertising, you can’t exactly control how your business is portrayed by the
media, when your message will appear, and where it will be placed.
• No guaranteed results – You may spend time and money on writing a press release, getting suitable
photography and speaking with journalists, but you can never guarantee your story will be published. This
can result in a poor return-on-investment.
• Evaluation – It can be difficult to measure the effectiveness of PR activities. You can count media
mentions and published stories, but it’s harder to determine the impact this has on your audience.
Online Reputation Management (ORM)

Online reputation management (ORM) is the practice of crafting strategies that shape or influence
the public perception of an organization, individual or other entity on the Internet. It helps drive
public opinion about a business and its products and services.

By using ORM, a company may try to mitigate the effects of a negative viral video, create
proactive marketing strategies for online consumption or broaden its domain holdings to ramp up
online visibility.

One broad ORM philosophy is using positive material to counteract, balance or “push” negative
material. An example is using online content to influence Google’s search engine results pages
(SERP). Because the first SERP page can hold only a finite number of results, some successful
ORM projects include generating large amounts of positive content about a company or entity.
Other ORM campaigns involve multichannel strategies, including email, social media and website
projects.

Reputation handlers can build extensive website projects to distribute text, video or other elements,
or use social media analytics to determine a company’s status before engaging in products that
influence reputation on a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter.

Social media management has become a major ORM element because many users participate in
the most popular social media platforms and because of features that quickly help create significant
changes in a company’s online reputation.

DM/U4 Topic 4 ROI of Digital Strategies

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Digital marketing is always changing, this has been caused by Google’s algorithm changes and
higher competition from businesses using the internet for marketing promotions.

Digital marketing includes search engine optimization (SEO) and social media to promote a
business and its website, gone are the days when a campaign could be measured by the amount of
visitors the site has produced. Whilst these are fairly easy to report on and measure they do not
entirely show the marketing contribution to the bottom line.

The marketing department is increasingly being asked what the return on investment (ROI) is from
their digital marketing campaign. How do you report that the digital marketing campaign is
working, what the return on investment (ROI) is.

To understand what the ROI is, we need to understand what the goals or aims of the company are,
what they wish to get from a digital marketing campaign and then measure these goals. For this
we need to look at the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the goals for each one.
 Here are some types of key performance indicators:

• General Performance – Traffic, leads, Reach.

• Channel Based – Website, blog, social networks, search engines.
• Source based performance – Direct traffic, Organic search, referrals, email, PPC.
• Campaign based performance – Lead generation, click throughs, conversions, conversion rates.
• Setting realistic and measurable goals.

Once you are agreed on the KPIs, the next stage is to measure these, what style of report and how
these are presented. It may be necessary to change the KPIs over time and thus the goals too. The
report can simply be an excel spreadsheet with incoming enquiries that result in sales.

DM/U4 Topic 5 How Digital Marketing is Adding Value to

Business
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Technology is now an essential component of our social and business worlds. Everything appears
to be growing at a digital speed. The competition in each domain has come to be quite fierce, and
the sole means for those businesses to live would be to stay informed about the digital trends and
ever-changing marketing approaches. Digital Marketing is your most excellent tool to maintain
your own business growth chart higher.

The adoption of digital technology in modern marketing strategies is increasingly gaining

popularity in businesses. Digital marketing is being embraced through the use of social media,
SEO services, responsive websites, and email marketing. However, the major concern is how your
business can benefit from the integration of digital technology in marketing. Listed below are the
five benefits of digital marketing to your business.

Improved Customer Service

Digital marketing avenues like social media are heightening clients’ expectations and experiences.
Enterprises that embrace these avenues in their marketing activities are more focused on their
clients’ happiness. In business, an enterprise should deal in products or services that have an
intimate connection to the consumers. Furthermore, it should use platforms such as social media
to enhance customer service.

Get Valuable Data and Analytics

Digital marketing business tools like search engine analytical tools help you in determining page
views of your brand’s website. These analytical tools also give you information and stats regarding
your marketing website and its effectiveness. You need this information in prioritizing your
brand’s marketing channels. You can use this information to budget for more effective ad
campaigns.
Higher Conversion Rates and Increased Revenue

Through digital marketing, your brand will achieve over 24 percent conversion rates, generate
leads, and reach out to your targeted customers. You will also save over 40 percent of the money
used for traditional marketing. As a businessperson, using the Internet to reach your clients helps
you to generate more revenue. This is because more consumers are turning to the Internet in search
of products and services that match their preferences.

Being on Par with Competitors

Despite having competitors in your field of business, your goal as a business owner is to use your
products or services to create unique customer experiences. Digital marketing business helps you
to not only achieve this goal but to also stay abreast with your competitors. It also helps you to
compete healthily with them and emerge as the leader. This type of competition is key in building
trusted brands.

Preparedness for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is an ideology about interconnected devices like smartphones, tablets, and
PCs on a global scale. According to a study done by Gartner, over 26 billion devices will be
interconnected to form a global online ecosystem by 2020. As a company owner, digital marketing
enables you to be part of this exciting opportunity. It gives you information on consumer’s
preferences and habits that you will use whenever you want to market more products and services
online.

The Internet of Things gives marketers a chance to discover more exciting analytical tools they
can use to map consumer behaviour. In the near future, marketers will have the right tools for
predicting the exact time a consumer will be in need of a particular service or product. In this case,
marketing data will be personalized for sales timing, ad campaigns, and targeted market.

In reference to the points above, digital marketing adds value to businesses in several exciting
ways. Business owners get more clients and revenue due to their online presence and reputation.
They also get to understand their target audience and how they can become part of the Internet of
Things.

DM/U4 Topic 6 Evaluating Cost Effectiveness Of Digital

Strategies
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

The cost benefit evaluation method and the cost effectiveness evaluation method are two different
tools that businesses may choose to use to help make business decisions. Both methods involve
comparing the future or impending purchase of new equipment or programs based on their cost
and their expected benefits to the company, but one may be more suitable for certain circumstances
than the other. For instance, a company may find it best to use a cost effectiveness evaluation to
narrow down a list of new equipment choices or programs, and a cost benefit method to analyze
whether to adopt the final choice or choices.

About the Cost Benefit Method

Companies use the cost benefit method to help make financial decisions, particularly those that
involve the purchase of new equipment. The cost benefit method involves placing factors in two
columns on paper. In the first column, the company lists all of the financial benefits the new
equipment or software will provide. Such benefits might include improved productivity, lower
supply costs and increased business. In the second column, the company lists the concrete and
peripheral costs of the new equipment or software. This includes the basic cost of the equipment,
any business lost during the transition to the new equipment, training costs, the cost of changing
suppliers, and the like. Administrators, managers or executives look for options whereby the
financial benefits outweigh the costs.

Cons of the Cost Benefit Method

The cost benefit method uses hard numbers to inform decisions, and some of these numbers can
be misleading at first glance. When using the cost benefit method, you must be aware of all of the
intangible benefits that may come from the business decision. For example, a switch to new
software may allow the company to attract a larger pool of qualified employees, or a particular
advertising strategy may weigh better with customers and improve customer loyalty. The large
cost of a decision may quickly overshadow many of the intangible benefits if they are not
accurately calculated.

About Cost Effectiveness Evaluation

A cost effectiveness evaluation is more complex than the cost benefit method because it involves
more components. This method may be favored before the cost benefit method to narrow down a
list of potential programs or new equipment to purchase. Rather than looking solely at the monetary
value of the change, this method looks at the broader effects of the program. For example, a
company may evaluate which employees will receive the greatest benefits from a specific training
program and whether the costs of that training program will still be beneficial if certain employees
leave the company.

Cons of Cost Effectiveness Evaluation

Because the cost effectiveness evaluation method does not always take into account all of the costs
of a new program or equipment, it may fail to consider items such as the cost of training new
employees or other additional costs that will accompany the program and equipment . Often this
method takes into account only individuals currently involved in the business or program and does
not account for newcomers who will need to be trained or what will happen if key individuals
leave the business, taking specific skills sets with them.
 DM/U5 Topic 1 The Contemporary Digital Revolution
THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

The Digital Revolution refers to the advancement of technology from analog electronic and
mechanical devices to the digital technology available today. The era started to during the 1980s
and is ongoing. The Digital Revolution also marks the beginning of the Information Era.

• The Digital Revolution is sometimes also called the Third Industrial Revolution.
• Also called the third industrial revolution, it is the era of digital electronic equipment that started around
the 1980s and is still continuing.
• The widespread diffusion of telecommunications and computer technology that is creating entirely new
ways of working and socializing as well as challenging, and even destroying, many others.
• It is the change from analog, mechanical, and electronic technology to digital technology. Learn more in:
Creation of an Instrument to Measure Website Effectiveness Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
• An expression used to denote the extraordinary transition in media, communications, devices (and
ultimately economics and society), from an analogue form (i.e., continuous, linear signals representing
information) to a form expressed in discrete digits (actually: bits). This started in the early 1980s.

The development and advancement of digital technologies started with one fundamental
idea: The Internet. Here is a brief timeline of how the Digital Revolution progressed:
• 1947-1979 – The transistor, which was introduced in 1947, paved the way for the development of
advanced digital computers. The government, military and other organizations made use of computer
systems during the 1950s and 1960s. This research eventually led to the creation of the World Wide Web.
• 1980s – The computer became a familiar machine and by the end of the decade, being able to use one
became a necessity for many jobs. The first cell phone was also introduced during this decade.
• 1990s – By 1992, the World Wide Web had been introduced, and by 1996 the Internet became a normal
part of most business operations. By the late 1990s, the Internet became a part of everyday life for almost
half of the American population.
• 2000s – By this decade, the Digital Revolution had begun to spread all over the developing world; mobile
phones were commonly seen, the number of Internet users continued to grow, and the television started
to transition from using analog to digital signals.
• 2010 and beyond – By this decade, Internet makes up more than 25 percent of the world’s population.
Mobile communication has also become very important, as nearly 70 percent of the world’s population
owns a mobile phone. The connection between Internet websites and mobile gadgets has become a
standard in communication. It is predicted that by 2015, the innovation of tablet computers will far
surpass personal computers with the use of the Internet and the promise of cloud computing services.
This will allow users to consume media and use business applications on their mobile devices, applications
that would otherwise be too much for such devices to handle.

DM/U5 Topic 2 Digital Transformation Framework

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

The world is undergoing a digital transformation. For example, there will soon be over a billion
smartphones, impacting all aspects of organizations’ value chains, commerce, and customer and
supplier engagement processes. This transformation will result in an explosion in digital data and
more importantly, usable insight.

And the smartphone isn’t the only digital technology driving business transformation. Other
technologies like sensors, beacons, scanners, RFID (radio frequency identification), NFC (near
field communications), GPS (global positioning systems), Bluetooth, web clicks, social media
postings, digital newsfeeds, smart watches, fitness bands, video surveillance, drones, robotics, etc.
are all contributing to the digitalization of our physical world.

Framing The Digital Business Transformation Discuss

Digital business transformation accelerates, communications, and improves coordination across

an organization’s value chain (design, procurement, inventory, manufacturing, shipping,
marketing, sales, support) yielding massive amounts of detailed data about individual customer,
product, and operational, usage, performance and current state data, that can be converted into new
digital intellectual assets (curated data, analytic models, real-time scores, behavioral profiles, edge
analytics).

However, the more important digital business transformation opportunities lie in the “make
money” aspects of the business transformation. Here is where organizations can have a game-
changing impact on their value creation processes through the superior insights gleaned about the
 organization’s customers, products, operations, partners, channels and markets. These game-
changing impacts manifest themselves in three ways:

1. Optimize key value chain processes. Exploit superior customer, product and operational insights to not
just improve existing business processes but to actually change or re-tool the entire process.
2. Uncover new monetization opportunities.Leverage superior customer, product and operational insights
to identify “white spaces” or under-served, un-served or un-met market that yield new monetization
opportunities (e.g., new products, new services, new partners, new channels).
3. Create a more compelling, more prescriptive customer experience. Leverage an understanding of an
individual customer’s tendencies, preferences, behaviors, propensities, trends, interests, passions,
associations and affiliations to provide a more rewarding customer and partner experience.

DM/U5 Topic 3 Security Issue with Digital Marketing

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Digital marketing required an investment of time and also effort. To make the digital marketing
success, various things have to be done such as conducting marketing research, identifying the
target audience, etc. A good strategy is required for the success of digital marketing. How to reach
the success strategy of Digital Marketing through Cyber Security Challenges?

Content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing extra are included in the
comprehensive strategy. Apart from this, there is one more thing which is very important, and this
is the cybersecurity. Neglecting cybersecuritycan harm both for the business and the customers.

The digital world is ever growing, and there are many challenges that digital marketers have to
face. To remain competitive businesses are entering the digital world.

There are numerous types of cybersecurity challenges they have suffered such as phishing attacks,
malware, and identity theft. These can affect the growth of the business and the profits.

Businesses must understand the risks and security challenges of digital marketing because there is
sensitive information such as customer data is involved in this.

Content marketing

• Content marketing is the most popular method of digital marketing for many businesses. This type of
marketing helps in attracting and retaining the audiences. It delivers valuable information to the
customers.
• This type of marketing is also vulnerable to cybers security challenges. Content Management Systems
such as WordPress make managing the content marketing more comfortable, but hackers are familiar
with the functions of the WordPress and easily hack the site to distribute malware.
• Integrating security features is thus crucial. A strong password must be used, and void is accessing the
CMS from public networks.
• Whatever CMS platforms are used, integrate the security features and install plug-ins and another
important thing required is to update them regularly to keep off vulnerabilities.
 Email marketing

• Email marketing is one of the powerful and traditional methods of digital marketing. There is a risk of
phishing attacks in email marketing.
• Phishing scams nowadays are more sophisticated, and small businesses are the main target as there are
unaware of the web security challenges.
• Hackers can use the email accounts of the companies to send spam. These can be virus infected emails. If
this continues to happen servers can black-list and bloc the site which will affect the email campaign.
• Customers might abandon the business to avoid any risks which will affect the reputation of the business.
• To avoid email security challenges, businesses must make sure that the ISPs are up to date.
• Use software to monitor the email marketing campaigns. This help ensures that the emails are encrypted,
and there is no risk of attacks.
• Set up outbound filters to prevent emails with hidden malware. Train the employees to spot and deal with
email issues.
• Include the email systems in network security audit.

E-commerce

• The risk of security challenges is high in e-commerce for digital marketers. This can limit the conversions
and affect the digital growth. Consumers fear the financial frauds and security flaws when using online
shopping sites.
• For any marketing strategy, customer acquisition and retention are essential. Thus security strategy
approaches to handle the fears of customers regarding the transactional process are very important for
the businesses online.
• Online businesses must use security Sockets Layer protocols and two-factor authentication process. Take
all the precautions to provide a safe and secure payment method for the customers.
• Make sure that hackers cannot steal the bank and card details of the customers. A single instance of fraud
on the site can affect the brand reputation of the brand.

Social Media Marketing

• Social Media is another area that requires vigilance. Most data breaches occur here due to poor
passwords, unauthorized downloads, etc. Businesses should not share information carelessly on social
media as this can invite hackers.
• The hackers can spread malicious posts or spam messages if they hijack the social media accounts of the
businesses. This can spoil the reputation of the business.
• Marketing teams must ensure that very strong passwords are used, and strict privacy settings are
implemented. It is essential to monitor the social media activity continuously.
• They must understand the security risks with the usage of social platforms and take the necessary steps
to lower the security challenges. Cybersecurity issues can be prevented if strong passwords with at least
12 characters that include symbols, numbers and capital letter are used.
• Be aware of brandjacking, which means accessing the media accounts of brands and post content that
harms the brand images. Use social media monitor tools to track brand mentions and spot suspicious
behavior.
• Apart from these, a customer also can cheat the businesses. Detection should be the first step to prevent
fraud.
• Have first validation script in the site to check whether the phone number, zip code and other information
provided by the customers are matching or not.
• Review the login activity of the customers. Check from where leads are coming. If they are from the same
IP address, it could be fraud.

Conclusion

Sophisticated software to crawl internet is available with the hackers which they use for stealing
information and create problems for the business as well as the customers. Businesses must take
care that their payment systems, platforms, and their social media pages are safeguarded.
Continuous monitoring of the sites is a must. Security measures need to be integrated for all the
digital marketing campaigns. Not just monitoring the activity, the security systems must not ensure
data protection.

DM/U5 Topic 5 Trends in Digital Marketing – Indian Context

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

Digital Marketing is a part of a Digital Economy. India is a fast moving nation towards digital
economy and this movement has been accelerated with the demonetization of the Indian Currency
in the last quarter of year 2016.With it various government digital payment promotion schemes
has been launched.

Digital market requires digital promotion and marketing strategies. The telecom sector is also
playing an important role in the digitalization movement. Recent launch of reliance telecom Jio
with the free & unlimited internet facilities has played a revolutionary roll. The other prominent
companies like Airtel, Idea, Vodaphone & BSNL are also offering attractive internet plans. Indian
banks are also providing more customers friendly & secure money transaction services.

Now Indian consumer is spending more time on social media and internet surfing. Thus the
visibility of any product is more through digital medium than traditional marketing techniques.
Digital marketing techniques includes Content Marketing, Marketing Automation, AdWords,
SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing and Website Design. The key players role players and
infrastructure providers in Digitization of an Economy are government, banking system, Shopping
Portal in India, Internet Service Providers and Software Service Providers.

Digital Marketing is the term most frequently used today, so that is the term we focus on. In simple
words we define digital marketing is “Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital
technologies and media”. So, digital marketing is about utilising digital technology to achieve
marketing objectives. There is no essential need for digital marketing to always be separate from
the marketing department as a whole, as the objectives of both are the same. However for now it
remains a useful term because digital marketing requires a certain skill set to utilise the digital
technology effectively. As the recent Developing Digital Skills 2015 report showed, many
marketers are now spending > 50% of their time on digital marketing activities and two of the
three top job roles in marketing are digital, so clearly digital skills are needed for the marketers &
managers.
Effective Ways of Digital Marketing In order to achieve success one suppose to move in the
following manner • Plan – Create a structured plan and roadmap by reviewing your current
weaknesses and the opportunities to boost online leads and sales. • Manage – Review your
marketing activities, so that you know where to focus to get the Quick Wins which will make the
biggest difference • Optimise – Learn the best practices and success factors to help you compete
to get better results

It is no exaggeration that you live in a digital world and from that perspective it is imperative that
your business has an impressive presence in the digital space.In essence, digital marketing is the
future of marketing in the world with the added advantages that it is cheaper than traditional
marketing and is measurable. Let‟s list the different ways you can use the digital medium to
popularize and drive conversions for any startup or business.

EMERGING TRENDS IN DIGITAL MARKETING IN INDIA

(a) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In layman‟s terms, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is essentially tweaking your website so
that it comes up naturally or organically for search results in Google, Yahoo Bing or any other
search engine. Google updates its algorithms regularly so that only the relevant results come up.
From that perspective, many experts say that SEO is dead and the effort is futile.

(b) Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the comprehensive strategy to drive traffic to your business,
primarily through paid efforts. Hence it is also called Paid Search Marketing. The universe of SEM
is diverse and complicated. Based on your business structure, you may choose PPC (pay-per-click)
or CPC (cost-per-click) model, or CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) model. There are different
platforms for SEM. By far, Google AdWords (on Google Network) and Bing Ads (on Yahoo Bing
Network) are the most popular.

(c) Content Creation

Content can be presented in different formats, including blogs, white papers, e-books, case studies,
how-to guides, question and answer articles, forums, news and updates, images, banners,
infographics, podcasts, webinars, videos, or content for microblogging and social media sites. All
recent changes to Google‟s algorithm – be it Panda, Penguin or Hummingbird – point to the fact
that content is the most important metric while filtering search results.

(d) Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing or SMM is an offshoot of your SEM efforts. It involves driving traffic to
your sites or business through social sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+,
Linkedin, etc. As we mentioned above, good content is shared and liked.So create and customize
content for different social media platforms. Remember to be prolific and original; you need to
engage with users on a daily basis, at least four to five times a day. Your SMM efforts can be
especially helpful for branding and driving sales.

(e) Digital Display Advertising

This again is a subset of your SEM efforts. You may use a variety of display advertising formats
to target potential audience – be it text, image, banner, rich-media, interactive or video ads. You
can customize your message based on interests, content topics, or the position of the customer in
the buying cycle.

(f) Retargeting and Remarketing

Essentially, Retargeting or Remarketing is a strategy to target customers who have already visited
your website. It is based on cookie technology. Retargeting has emerged as a preferred strategy as
you target customers who have already shown interest in your business; and hence the conversion
rate is high.

(g) Mobile Marketing

The website, apps and content is being customized for mobile devices. The mobile users are
growing day by day and it is the most effective way of marketing.

(h) Interactive Marketing

Make sure your advertising strategy engages the potential customer in a conversation. According
to a survey by ExpoTV.com, 55 percent respondents preferred to have ongoing communications
with the companies they buy from; and 89 percent felt more loyal to the companies if they were
invited to provide feedback.

(i) Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is a strategy where a unique content spreads exponentially online, because the
content is appreciated, shared and liked immensely. This is a great way to brand and drive traffic
to your website. The content can take any format; all you need is to be creative.

(j) Email Marketing

When you send a commercial message through email to a list of potential customers, the strategy
is called Email Marketing. With an effective email marketing software, you can maintain email
lists that are segregated based on several factors, including customers‟ likes and dislikes, and
spending habits. Remember to send personalized emails; this helps to develop trust.

(k) Digital Media Planning and Buying

 When a media agency researches and makes a comprehensive strategy framework, we call it
Digital Media Planning. Be it in driving sales or conversions, launching a new brand or promoting
an established brand, or changing customer behaviour, the media agency plans different platforms
and formats to reach the desired audience. It studies reach and frequency of different web-based
and mobile applications. The agency works with different partners and buys relevant space and
ideas. This is called Media Buying. In essence, Media Buying and Planning entails all the strategies
that we have discussed above.

DM/U5 Topic 6 Trends in Digital Marketing – Global Context

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

2018 may be the year your company finally goes global—or takes your activities to new markets.
While global expansion has the potential to dramatically boost your profits, it also puts pressure
on your marketing team to perform. Luckily, a host of products, services, and best practices are
making it easier to win market share in new markets everywhere.

1. Data privacy is here to stay

It is clear consumers are well aware of their rights when it comes to proper data collection and
usage. What’s also clear is the arrival of GDPR in Europe in May 2018, as well as other data
privacy acts being implemented and overhauled around the world, are just the beginning of further
consumer data crackdown.

In fact, in its recent report, the ACCC flagged changed to the Privacy Act, which could end up
looking like a local GDPR.

As a result, Australian businesses are going to have to get a lot more agile and transparent in the
way they collect, store and use customer data. Even if data is used for consumer benefit, a privacy
breach will see consumers move elsewhere. As Facebook and Cambridge Analytical demonstrated
this year, a company is only one data breach away from disaster, and no company, no matter how
big, can afford this in a consumer-driven environment.

2. Customer capital is the new currency

Marketers have known for a while now that the customer must be central to every decision made
within a business, meaning brands have been working for consumers. In, 2019, industry pundits
expect to see the consumer working for brands as well.

For Calvert, customer capital is the new currency. “2019 will be the year brands leverage their
social capital with consumers to help drive sales, answer questions, and act on the brand’s behalf
in times of crisis,” she said.
 “Digital social capital is a way for a brand to understand the value of its online social networks.
Just as greater amounts of economic capital can lead to more opportunities, higher amounts of
social capital can lead to a more significant impact on a brand’s audience.

3. Inclusive creative and design

Rising concerns around inequality, unconscious bias, and stereotyping in society, and the
perpetuation of all three via marketing and creative, has never been more apparent. According to
J. Walter Thompson Intelligence, inclusive design is the resulting trend, and an essential step to
ensuring creative is designed without insidious bias against groups of consumers.

4. The rise of voice

Recent reports show the local adoption of voice activated devices and smart speakers, like Google
Home and Amazon Alexa, is outstripping the US and the UK. In fact, four million local consumers
are predicted to use their smart speakers for shopping in 2019, according to Versa’s The Voice
Report 2019.

Brands not incorporating voice into their digital strategies will find themselves behind the pack in
2019.

“In light of launches such as Google Home and the Amazon Echo, which continue to grow over
the festive season I’m sure, it’s only a matter of time before voice will disrupt the digital marketing
ecosystem as we know it,” Quantcast head of marketing for Asia-Pacific, Rachael Townsley, said.

“With voice search on the up, I expect 2019 will see brands build this in to their media mix and
address voice as part of their user experience. And for those in ecommerce, especially with
Amazon entering the market, I expect voice ordering will push brands to focus on owning the
customer in their homes.”.

5. Marketing teams shift from specialism to consumerism

From content to creative, to customer experience, care, service and data analysis, the role of the
CMO has undergone significant change in the last five years.

“The modern CMO understands the fundamental goal of marketing is to establish and grow
authentic connections with your respective audiences,” Infogroup CMO, Tony Marlow, said.
“Data is a critical first step to understanding your audience and this has already given rise to the
data-literate marketer.

6. Creative content is king

The consumer is demanding more bespoke content, when they want it, and on the channel of their
choice. Gone are the days when the same content could be served across multiple channels without
thought.
 When it comes to the types of creative in-demand in 2019, video is a must-have.

“We live in a world of user generated content, there’s more video content that ever before,”
Townsley said.

“Consumer attention has to be fought for and brands that use video that encourages engagement
and excites their audience will win. With this in mind I expect we’ll see higher emergence of short-
form video. Video is a powerful medium that works. Hubspot reported adding video to an email
can boost click-throughs by 200-300 per cent and increase conversion rates by 80 per cent.

DM/U5 Topic 7 Online communities and co-creation

THEINTACTFRONT14/12/2018 2 COMMENTS

An online community, also called an internet community, is a virtual community whose members
interact with each other primarily via the Internet. For many, online communities may feel like
home, consisting of a “family of invisible friends“. Those who wish to be a part of an online
community usually have to become a member via a specific site and necessarily need an internet
connection.

An online community can act as an information system where members can post, comment on
discussions, give advice or collaborate. Commonly, people communicate through social
networking sites, chat rooms, forums, e-mail lists and discussion boards. People may also join
online communities through video games, blogs and virtual worlds.

4 types of online communities and the top benefits of each

In The Enterprise Guide to Online Communities, Tyler Douglas, chief sales and marketing officer
at Vision Critical, identifies four different types of communities:

1. Social communities include public social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Brands use social
communities mostly for marketing purposes, broadcasting information, building brand awareness and
reaching greater audiences for campaigns and messaging. Social communities are useful for tracking what
your competitors are up to and identifying broad consumer trends. Ninety-three percent of large
companies use Facebook, according to a 2015 Social Media Examiner report.
2. Support communities enable members to offer product tips to other customers, helping companies
reduce customer support costs. Compared to social communities, this category provides a more
structured way of gathering innovative ideas because support communities allow brands to track product-
and service-related conversations. According to a 2015 Forrester Research report, 81 percent of
companies have a support community of some kind.
3. Advocate communities allow brands to mobilize their most passionate, loyal customers. Also known as
advocate marketing software, this community type often rewards members for writing a testimonial,
posting about the company on social media and doing other similar activities. According to Laura Ramos,
principal analyst at Forrester Research, branded customer communities of this type can help boost
positive word of mouth.
4. Insight communities are made up of carefully selected groups of customers who maintain a long-term
relationship with brands. These communities allow companies to gather continuous, high-quality
feedback from engaged stakeholders like customers, partners or employees. Already a mainstream
market research tool, this category is quickly finding its way in marketing, customer experience and
innovation.

CO-CREATION

Co-creation is a management initiative, or form of economic strategy, that brings different parties
together (for instance, a company and a group of customers), in order to jointly produce a mutually
valued outcome. Co-creation brings a blend of ideas from direct customers or viewers (who are
not the direct users of the product) which in turn creates new ideas to the organization.

Co-created value arises in the form of personalized, unique experiences for the customer (value-
in-use) and ongoing revenue, learning and enhanced market performance drivers for the firm
(loyalty, relationships, customer word of mouth). Value is co-created with customers if and when
a customer is able to personalize his or her experience using a firm’s product-service proposition
– in the lifetime of its use – to a level that is best suited to get his or her job(s) or tasks done and
which allows the firm to derive greater value from its product-service investment in the form of
new knowledge, higher revenues/profitability and/or superior brand value/loyalty.

The process of Co-creation

The process of co-creation essentially involves 2 core steps:

• Contribution: Submission of contributions by the public to the firm

• Selection: Selection of the most promising and appealing contributions/submissions

Types of Co-creation

Depending on the degree of control exercised by the firm/public over the contribution and selection
activities, co-creation may be broadly classified into 4 categories:

• Tinkering: Public exercises control over the contribution activity while the firm exercises control over the
selection activity
• Submitting: Firm exercises complete control over both the activities
• Co-designing: Firm exercises control over the contribution activity while the public exercises control over
the selection activity
• Collaborating: Public exercises complete control over both the activities