Lecture 6: Micro and Macro
environments
Associate Professor Bruno Schivinski
The 7Ds or pillars supporting effective digital marketing
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Paid,
Owned and
Earned media
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Key features of digital marketing strategy
Digital marketing strategy is essentially a channel
marketing strategy and it needs to be integrated with
other channels as part of multichannel marketing.
An effective DMS should:
1. Be aligned with business and marketing strategy.
2. Use clear objectives
3. Be consistent with the types of customers
4. Define a compelling value proposition
5. Specify the mix of online and offline communication tools
6. Support customer journey
7. Manage the online customer lifecycle
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Customer Lifecycle
Source: Smart Insights (2017)
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Online marketplace analysis:
situation analysis
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Situation Analysis
Customers • Characteristics, needs and wants
Marketplace analysis • Partners, influencers
Competitors • Benchmarks, activities, improvements
Wider macro- • PESTLE
environment
Internal review • Effectiveness of digital marketing approaches
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Situation
analysis
for digital
marketing
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Marketplace analysis – some definitions
Helps to define the nature of the digital competitive market or click ecosystem.
Environmental • Continuously monitoring and analysing events in an organisation
environment(s), that have implications for plan (used in traditional
scanning marketing and online).
• Connect websites through data exchange, giving opportunities to enhance
Online Marketplace the customer experience and extend the firms’ reach and influence.
Examples: major online players such as Facebook, Google, Apple and
ecosystem Amazon have developed their own online market ecosystems
• Describes the customer behaviour or flow of online visitors between
Click Ecosystem search engines, media sites and other intermediaries to an
organisation and its competitors.
• facilitate digital interactions by automatically sending and receiving
APIs requests and responses electronically.
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Online Marketplace Analysis: Micro-environnement
Understanding customer in digital markets
Consumer. Choice and digital influence
Customer characteristics
Competitors
Suppliers
New channel structures
Digital business models for e-commerce
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Consumer Buying Decision Process
Need recognition Decision to Purchase
1 Awareness 3 Purchase
2 Consideration 4 Experience
Information search/ Post-purchase
evaluation of alternatives
Depicted as a linear process to facilitate theory application
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Paths-to-purchase
Want more on this?
Watch: The buyer journey on
LinkedIn (free with UQ login)
The actual process of the digital consumer is nonlinear, interacting with various digital channels as they move through
each stage of the cycle/journey, searching, differentiating alternatives, selecting, and then evaluating their choices.
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Understanding customer in digital markets
Customer Journey Map
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2 Search 3 Intermediaries, 4 Destination
1 Customer influencers and
Segments intermediaries sites
media sites
An online
marketplace
map
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The importance of search
Note: brand-related searches 16
Online marketplace analysis: micro-environment
• Consumers
• Suppliers
• Intermediaries
• Competitors
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Customer
Behaviour Analysis
1. Demand and gap
analysis (e.g., lead
generation and
sales).
2. Digital consumer
behaviour (insight)
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Demand analysis and conversion marketing
• Understand current trends and levels of use of the Internet and different
online services.
• Be aware of factors that affect how customers actively use the digital
services on offer.
• Companies can identify opportunities to influence and deliver online sales
based on actual use of digital media by the target market.
• Then, we can consider how to achieve marketing goals and objectives
through the use of digital communications.
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Ferrero Rocher: The Virtual Boutique
Shopping online is no longer just a more
convenient way to get goods delivered to your
door. It is also where shoppers discover new
products and find inspiration.
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https://www.ferrerorocher.com/me/en/xp/ae_virtualboutique/ 22
Conversion marketing tactics
Can be used to
convert as many
potential site visitors
into actual visitors
and then convert
these into leads,
customers and repeat
customers.
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Understanding consumer behaviour
Customer characteristics:
– Demographic variables
– Psychographic and behavioural
variables
Social media and emotions
Consumer Personas
The buying process
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Demographic Characteristics
Key elements of a consumer’s demographic profile
that have been found to influence online behaviour
include variables such as:
a) income, education, race, age (Hoffman et al.,
2000);
b) gender (Slyke, 2002);
c) lifestyle (Brengman et al., 2005)
d) cultural and social influences (e.g. Shiu and
Dawson, 2004).
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Psychographic and behavioural variables
Any aspect of a consumer’s perceptions,
beliefs and attitudes that might influence
online behaviour, and in particular a
consumer’s intention to shop, can be
defined as a psychographic/behavioural
variable.
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Consumer
Personas
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Understanding
personas digital
journey and
touchpoints
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Understanding your audience
Internal:
Customer-facing employees
Social media analytics (Audience insights)
Social media comments/review
Customer enquiries/feedback (e.g. email)
Search queries (e.g. Google Analytics)
Survey
Interviews/focus groups
CRM
External:
Trending search data (e.g. Google trends)
Customer review sites (e.g. Zomato)
Forums/Q&A sites (e.g. Reddit, Quora)
Comments on competitors’ social media
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Helix
Personas
6 communities and
54 segments
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A summary of how
digital media can
impact on the
buying process in
a new purchase
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Competitor analysis and benchmarking
Benchmarking of services has different perspectives that serve different purposes:
Internal capabilities
Different aspects of the
customer lifecycle
Qualitative to quantitative
In-sector and out-of-sector
From user experience to
expert evaluation
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Suppliers
» Marketing intermediaries Firms that can
help a company to promote, sell and
distribute its products or services, for
example publisher or media sites,
comparison sites, search engines, social
networks and blogs.
» Online intermediary sites Websites that
facilitate exchanges between consumer
and business suppliers.
» Disintermediation. The removal of
intermediaries such as distributors or
brokers that formerly linked a company to
its customers.
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New channel structures
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Digital revenue models
Revenue from Revenue from Pay Revenue from Revenue from CPC Revenue from
subscription Per View access CPM display advertising on site sponsorship (site
access to content to documents advertising on site (pay per click text ads) sections/ content)
Affiliate revenue
Subscriber data access for e-mail
marketing
Access to customers for online
research
Online e-commerce sales
transactions
Online digital service
subscriptions 40
The rate of environmental change
» In the digital world, changes in market forces are increasingly rapid. Firms should respond to
these changes, emerging opportunities and threats by developing strategic agility.
Predictive Into the
Delivery in Green E- Pickup Chat GPT Sora / GPT
Personal Metaverse
isation Minutes Commerce Perks Shop 4.0 5.0?
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PESTLE analysis
» Political
» Economic
» Sociological
» Technological
» Legal
» Environmental
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Political forces
» Political control and democracy
» Internet governance
» Taxation
» Tax Jurisdiction
» What you should consider:
• International and local laws (including GDPR)
• Preferred and, potentially, banned platforms
• Why the political climate of a country may prevent your brand’s success
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Economic Forces
» Economic growths
» Market growth and employment
• Interest and exchange rates
• Globalization
» Economic disruption
» What you should consider:
• Competitor prices and product/service offering
• Primary/secondary/tertiary target audiences and their
individual economic situations
• Historical sales success and promotional offers that can
push sales during expected downtimes
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Social forces
» Demographics
» Culture
» Social exclusion
» What you should consider:
• The beliefs, customs, and standards held by
customers who may be of a different faith, race,
gender, and socio-economic background to your
average customer
• Internet usage habits (which can differ greatly on
customer age)
• Access to the internet (which can differ between
countries and people of lower levels of income)
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Technological forces
» In the digital world, changes in market forces are
increasingly rapid. Firms should respond to these
changes, emerging opportunities and threats by
developing strategic agility.
» What you should consider:
• Internet technology
• Cyber security
• How to develop secure systems
• Mobile and SMS messaging and applications
• Mobile Apps
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless applications
• Emerging technologies
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Application programming interfaces (APIs)
» API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that
allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an
instant message, or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API.
• Amazon Web Services Facebook and Twitter
• Google APIs
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Cyber security
» From a consumer or merchant point of view, these are the main security risks involved in an e-
commerce transaction:
Confidential details or passwords accessed on user’s computer
Transaction or credit card details stolen in transit
Customer’s credit card details stolen from merchant’s server
Customer’s details accessed by company staff
Merchants or customers are not who they claim to be
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The Main website security risks
• Validation of input and output data
• Sensitive data exposure
• Authentication and session management
• Phishing
• Denial of service
• System information leakage
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Approaches to developing secure systems
• Digital certificates (keys): Consist of keys made up of large numbers that are used to uniquely
identify individuals.
▪ Secret-key or symmetric encryption
▪ Asymmetric encryption
• Digital Signatures: A method of identifying individuals or companies using public-key encryption.
▪ NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens)
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Mobile and SMS messaging and applications
Database
building/direct Location-based
services Sampling/trial
response to ads/direct
mail or on-pack
Rewarding with offers Offering paid-for
Sales promotions for brand engagement services and content
There are three main elements that you must have:
•Prior consent from the recipient (express or inferred)
•Accurate identification of the sender (your business name)
•A clear unsubscribe function
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Mobile apps
» A software application that is designed for use on a mobile phone, typically downloaded from an
App store such as Google Play or the Apple App Store.
» The key questions to ask are:
Do we build our
Are apps a strategic own app and/or
Free or paid apps?
priority for us? leverage existing
apps?
Which category of How to best How to refine apps
application to promote mobile in line with
target? apps? feedback?
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Emerging Technologies
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Assessing the marketing value of technology innovation
Environmental Forces
» What you should consider:
» Product and packing size
» Sourcing, trading, and testing ethics of your
product/service components
» Current environmental programs/partnerships
your brand can participate in.
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Legal forces
» Data protection and privacy law
» Anti-spam legislation
» Disability and discrimination law
» Brand and trademark protection
» Intellectual property rights
» Online advertising law
» What you should consider:
• Product placement and promotional content
• Copyright infringement
• Data protection
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Privacy
» The main information types used by the digital marketer that are governed by
ethics and legislation, are:
• Contact information
• Profile information
• Platform usage information
• Behavioural information (on a single site).
• Behavioural information (across multiple sites)
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Achieving Privacy and Trust
» Data Protection Law
• Personal data
• GDPR
» Anti spam Legislation
• Spam
• Permission marketing
• Cookies
» Disability and Discrimination Law
• E.g., Web Accessibility- World Wide Web Consortium
» Brand and Trademark Protection
» Intellectual Property Rights
» Online Advertising Law (e.g., When is advertising disclosure required in Australia?)
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When is advertising disclosure required in Australia?
» Advertising disclosure is required when there is a
contracted agreement. This includes verbal
recording, email documentation, digital or other I’m an influencer, what
documents. do I need to do?
» It includes: • The required minimum disclosure is to use
• Any transaction with financial payment #Ad or #Sponsored. However, the following
additional hashtags could be used in addition
• Value in kind to, and not instead of, the minimum
disclosure:
• Gifts • Client requested # such as #brandname,
#campaign
• Free products • #Ambassador
• This also applies to any affiliate marketing • #Collab
engagements • #PaidPartnership
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When is disclosure required?
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=78acc932-b392-410a-81cb-
852b245d1697 https://sabguthrie.info/tiktok-new-guidelines-virtual-influencers-must-be-tagged/
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Homework
ESSENTIAL READING: Hanlon (2020), Chapter 9: Digital Marketing Audits
