SEMESTER - 3
DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
MODULE 1
HISTORY OF DIGITAL MARKETING
The phrase "Digital Marketing" first appeared in the 1990s. The digital era truly began with
the advent of the internet and the creation of Web 1.0, which enabled users to access
information but not share it online. Before this period, marketers around the world were
uncertain about the effectiveness of digital strategies, as the internet was not yet widely used
or established.
In 1993, the first clickable banner was introduced, and Hotwired began purchasing banner
ads for advertising, marking the start of the shift toward digital marketing. This gradual
transition led to the emergence of new technologies in the online marketplace in 1994, the
same year Yahoo was launched. Originally called "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web"
after its founder Jerry Yang, Yahoo quickly gained nearly one million hits in its first year,
prompting companies to optimize their websites for better search engine rankings. By 1996,
additional search engines and tools such as Hot Bot, Look Smart, and Alexa were launched.
In 1998, Google was founded, while Microsoft introduced the MSN search engine, and
Yahoo launched Yahoo Web Search. Following the internet bubble burst in 2000, many
smaller search engines disappeared or were overshadowed, leaving major players to
dominate. The digital marketing landscape experienced its first significant growth in 2006,
with search engine traffic reaching approximately 6.4 billion visits in a month. In response,
Microsoft shifted focus from MSN to launch Live Search to compete with Google and
Yahoo.
The advent of Web 2.0 marked a shift toward more interactive internet use, enabling users to
engage with content and each other. This increased the flow of information, including
marketing channels, and by 2004, internet advertising in the US alone generated around $2.9
billion. Social networking sites emerged, starting with Myspace and later Facebook, creating
new opportunities for brands to market products and connect with consumers. This period
prompted businesses to develop new strategies to leverage these platforms. The development
of cookies was another key milestone, allowing advertisers to track browsing habits and
personalize marketing efforts.
Over time, cookies have evolved to provide detailed user data. Today, digital products are
accessible around the clock. Data from 2014 indicates that social media is the most popular
online activity in the US, with Americans spending an average of 37 minutes daily on these
platforms. Nearly all digital marketers use Facebook (99%) and Twitter (97%) for marketing,
with substantial usage on Pinterest (69%) and Instagram (59%). Facebook has been
particularly effective for B2C customer acquisition, with 70% of marketers gaining customers
through it. Twitter followers are more likely to purchase from brands they follow, and most
luxury brands (83.8%) maintain a presence on Pinterest. The leading social networks for
marketers are LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
INTERNET OR DIGITAL MARKETING: OPPORTUNITIES AND
CHALLENGES
Internet marketing, also known as Digital marketing, encompasses promoting products or
services using digital channels and technologies. It has become crucial for businesses of all
sizes, offering numerous opportunities and presenting unique challenges.
Opportunities:
Global Reach and Targeted Audiences: Internet marketing removes geographical barriers,
allowing businesses to reach a worldwide audience. It also offers advanced targeting options.
Cost-Effectiveness: Digital marketing can be more affordable than traditional methods,
allowing businesses to maximize their budget.
Measurable Results and Data-Driven Insights: Detailed analytics allow for real-time
campaign tracking and data-driven decision-making.
Increased Customer Engagement and Retention: Digital channels offer opportunities for
engagement, fostering strong customer relationships.
Adaptability and Flexibility: Strategies can be easily modified based on feedback and
market trends, allowing businesses to respond quickly to changes.
Brand Building and Reputation Management: Creating compelling content and engaging
with customers online can enhance brand image and credibility.
Leveraging Emerging Technologies: Utilizing technologies like AI-powered
personalization, voice search optimization, and social commerce can create unique customer
experiences.
Challenges:
Constant Algorithm Changes: Platform algorithm updates can affect content visibility,
requiring marketers to stay informed and adapt.
Content Saturation and Competition: The large volume of online content makes standing
out difficult, requiring high-quality and unique content.
Accurately Targeting the Right Audience: Despite tools, reaching the right audience
remains a challenge, necessitating clear buyer personas and advanced personalization.
Managing a Consistent Multichannel Strategy: Ensuring consistent branding across
multiple digital channels can be difficult and requires an integrated approach.
Measuring ROI and Attribution: Accurately measuring campaign ROI and attributing
conversions can be complex and requires implementing attribution models and KPIs.
Adapting to Data Privacy Regulations: Regulations require transparency and user consent
for data collection, emphasizing ethical data usage.
Staying Updated with Rapid Technological Advancements: The constantly evolving
digital landscape requires marketers to continuously learn and adapt.
Rising Digital Ad Costs: Increasing ad costs impact businesses, especially smaller ones,
necessitating focus on high-ROI channels and organic growth.
Creating a Seamless Mobile Experience: Optimizing for mobile is essential due to high
mobile traffic, requiring responsive design and fast load times.
Handling Negative Feedback and Online Reputation: Managing online reputation is
critical and involves proactive monitoring and responding to feedback
DRIVERS OF THE NEW MARKETING ENVIRONMENT
EMERGENCE OF DIGITAL MARKETING AS A TOOL:
Technological Advancements:
- The rise of the internet, smartphones, and high-speed connectivity has made digital
platforms accessible to billions. Tools like AI, machine learning, and big data analytics
enable precise targeting, personalization, and real-time campaign optimization.
- Example: Programmatic advertising uses AI to automate ad placements, improving
efficiency and ROI.
Consumer Behavior Shifts:
- Consumers spend significant time online, with global internet penetration at 65.7% in
2025 (over 5 billion users). Social media, streaming platforms, and e-commerce dominate
daily interactions.
- Preference for instant, personalized content drives demand for digital channels over
traditional media like print or TV.
Cost-Effectiveness and Measurability:
- Digital marketing offers lower costs compared to traditional methods (e.g., TV or
billboard ads). Platforms like Google Ads or Meta Ads allow small businesses to compete
with larger brands.
- Analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics, HubSpot) provide detailed metrics on
engagement, conversions, and ROI, enabling data-driven decisions.
Global Reach and Scalability:
- Digital platforms break geographical barriers, allowing brands to reach global audiences
instantly. Social media platforms like X, with over 500 million active users in 2025, enable
viral marketing and direct consumer engagement.
- Scalable campaigns can target niche demographics or expand broadly with minimal effort.
Rise of E-Commerce and Mobile Commerce:
- Global e-commerce sales are projected to exceed $7 trillion by 2025. Mobile commerce,
driven by apps and mobile-optimized sites, accounts for over 70% of online purchases.
- Digital marketing strategies like SEO, influencer marketing, and retargeting ads directly
support online sales growth.
Social Media and Influencer Culture:
- Social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, X) are key channels for brand
storytelling and engagement. Influencer marketing, expected to be a $24 billion industry by
2025, leverages trusted voices to build authenticity.
- User-generated content and interactive formats (e.g., polls, live streams) foster stronger
connections.
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
1. CONSUMER DECISION JOURNEY
The AIDAA framework (Awareness, Interest,
Desire, Action, Advocacy) is a customer journey
model that guides marketers in creating targeted
strategies for each stage of the funnel. It aligns
digital marketing efforts with consumer behaviour
across multiple platforms, ensuring a seamless
experience from discovery to loyalty.
Awareness: Create broad visibility to attract potential customers who are unfamiliar with
the brand.
Tactics: Use display ads (e.g., Google Display Network), social media campaigns (e.g.,
Instagram Stories, YouTube pre-roll ads), and content marketing (e.g., blogs, infographics) to
reach a wide audience.
Example: Run a video ad campaign on YouTube showcasing a brand’s unique value
proposition to capture attention.
Tools: Google Ads for display campaigns, Canva for creating visually appealing content.
Interest: Engage prospects who show curiosity by providing valuable information.
Tactics: Optimize website content with SEO (e.g., blog posts targeting informational
keywords), share educational content on social media (e.g., LinkedIn articles), and use
retargeting ads to re-engage visitors.
Example: Publish a blog post titled “Top 5 Benefits of [Product/Service]” optimized for
search engines to attract curious users.
Tools: SEMrush for keyword research, Facebook Pixel for retargeting.
Desire: Build emotional connections to make prospects want the product or service.
Tactics: Share customer testimonials, case studies, or influencer endorsements on social
media. Use email campaigns with personalized offers to nurture leads.
Example: Partner with an Instagram influencer to showcase the product in action,
highlighting its benefits.
Tools: Hootsuite for social media scheduling, Mailchimp for personalized emails.
Action: Drive conversions by making it easy for prospects to purchase or sign up.
Tactics: Use search ads targeting high-intent keywords (e.g., “buy [product] online”),
optimize landing pages for conversions, and implement clear calls-to-action (CTAs).
Example: Run a Google Ads campaign for “best [product] deals” with a landing page
offering a limited-time discount.
Tools: Google Ads for PPC, Unbouncy for landing page creation.
Advocacy: Encourage satisfied customers to promote the brand.
Tactics: Create referral programs, encourage user-generated content (UGC) on social media,
and engage with customers through loyalty programs or community-building efforts.
Example: Launch a hashtag campaign (e.g., #MyBrandStory) on Instagram to collect and
share customer stories.
Tools: Yapto for reviews and UGC, HubSpot for loyalty program management.
2. MARKETING FUNNEL
According to Elias St. Elmo Lewis, an American advertising and sales pioneer, every
prospective buyer goes through various purchase stages before becoming a customer. In
1899, he put across his idea about the marketing funnel that maps a customer's journey with
the company and highlights the gradually developing relationship between them. The
evaluation of the marketing funnel can help companies to achieve higher sales, greater
customer loyalty and stronger brand awareness.
AIDA MODEL:
Today, Elias St. Elmo Lewis' idea is often addressed as the AIDA model. The "AIDA" model
indicates that every purchase involves some stages.
Awareness - Marketing strategies capture customers' attention and they become aware of the
brand.
Interest - Customers express an interest in a group of services or products.
Desire - Customers begin to evaluate the brand and reflect the desire to acquire its products.
Action - Buyers decide whether to purchase or not.
Despite certain variations, the marketing funnel has basically stayed the same since the
1900s. However, none of the models is universally accepted by all companies. Some prefer to
simplify it,
As a “TOFU-MOFU-BOFU” strategy which refers to the top, Middle and bottom of the
funnel.
Awareness constitutes the top of the funnel.
Interest and Desire are often clubbed into one stage called 'Consideration', which is
positioned at the middle of the funnel.
Action, also known as Purchase, is placed at the bottom of the funnel.
3. BEST PRACTICES AT EACH STAGE
1. Hook, Story, Offer
It is a framework for selling products/services. It outlines three major steps that a marketer
can take to capture a prospect's attention and turn them into a customer.
Awareness:
Market attention grabbing ads that would hook the customers on to the USPs of your
product/service. Zomato's personalized push notification such as "the nation wants to know...
if the delivery boy has reached" is a wordplay on a famous news anchor's catchphrase. A
notification designed like this can surely grab the prospect's attention to open the app and
explore its landing page.
Consideration:
The next step is to build the customer's interest in the brand through storytelling strategies.
The story you create for brand marketing should be relatable, emotional and touching.
Purchase:
Once the potential customer is hooked to your product and feels connected to your brand, it is
time to make an offer. In this stage you can offer free trials, limited period discounts, etc. to
lure them into sealing the deal quickly.
2. Problem, Agitation, Solution (PAS)
PAS is a copywriting formula that is simple, effective, and applicable for marketing all kinds
of products. Here’s how it works with reference to the AIDA model.
Awareness:
Identify your reader’s pain points and raise awareness about the fact that you have a product
that can solve their problem
Consideration:
In this stage, the pain points should be addressed in such a way that it affects them to the
point of discomfort. This would make them interested in your brand and stir up their desire to
explore your products.
Action:
This is the final stage wherein a solution should be delivered to the customer that would drive
them to purchase your product/service.
3. Targeting
Awareness: Broad Targeting:
In the awareness stage, marketers must ideally adopt broad targeting strategies which involve
launching marketing campaigns towards a wide range of audience. The marketers opt for
demographic variables which incorporate large target categories like cities, specific age
groups, gender, occupation, social status, etc.
Consideration: Lookalike Targeting:
With the help of algorithms, marketers can find people who have interests similar to their best
paid customers. This is called lookalike targeting. For example, Amazon uses advanced
algorithms to curate recommendations for its customers based on their purchase history, and
products viewed by buyers of the same interests. This level of personalization makes
shopping more convenient for customers. Recent surveys have shown that 35 percent of
Amazon's total sales is gained through personalized recommendations promoted on its
website and 56 percent of shoppers potentially return to the site because of it.
Purchase: Retargeting:
Industry experts suggest that a minimum five exposures are needed for customers to convert
and remain loyal to the brand. For instance, buyers come across a brand's ad at least 5 times
on different platforms before they finally decide to make a decision. Marketers must know
how and when to retarget these people in order to nudge them for maximum conversions and
retention.
4. Offers
Awareness:
Brands can give away something for free to lure more people to the top of the funnel.
Example: free e-books and samples are offered by Amazon to make customers sign up for the
Kindle app.
Consideration:
Once people start engaging with your brand, marketers can start promoting low price
products.
Purchase:
Once the customers spend enough money and/or have engaged with the brand for some time,
the marketer can start persuading the customers to buy more products that may also be higher
in price as compared to previously purchased products.
Paid, Owned, Earned Media (P-O-E-M) Framework
A good framework that can help you organize your
digital marketing strategy is the Paid, Owned, Earned
Media. Paid media includes sponsored advertisements
in different channels of digital marketing such as
search engines, websites, Facebook, LinkedIn and
Twitter. They include campaigns run through different
platforms such as Google Ads and Campaign Manager
of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It also includes
campaigns run through ad networks or Demand Side
Platforms.
Owned media is like an asset of the company, i.e. the company has the ownership of
these media. It includes company's official website, microsite, social media pages such
as Facebook page, LinkedIn page, YouTube channel and Twitter handle. It includes
mobile apps or blogs. It also includes original content created by the company such as
videos, images, infographics and posts.
Earned media is organic and unpaid. It includes publicity that is generated through
recommendations and word of mouth. It also includes social media engagement such as
likes, shares, comments, replies, retweets, favourites. etc. Earned media is generated by
users and hence is more credible and has the power to give exponential reach to the
marketer. Earned media succeeds only when users like the content and engage with it.
The combination of 'paid, owned, earned media' is regarded as one of the best practices
in digital marketing. There should be a balance among all media; it should not be
lopsided towards one. It means as a brand you should not focus only on one media and
ignore others. For instance, it is not a good strategy to depend largely on paid ads and not
focus on earned media. Focus is related to budget allocation. A simple thumb rule is to
divide the budget equally between paid and owned/earned media.
DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN
OBJECTIVES
The starting point is to identify the objectives of digital marketing. This can be split into
Branding and Performance objectives. Both goals can coexist. Some campaigns and activities
may have the objective of increasing brand awareness and brand recall, whereas others may
have the objective of increasing sales or leads or conversions. It is advisable to identify the
metrics for measurement of performance alongside objective setting. If the goal is branding,
then the metric would be recall. This could be carried out by hiring a market research agency,
which may do an online or offline research for top-of-the-mind recall, attitude and brand
associations. If the objective is to measure performance, then measurement can be done using
metrics such as CTR, leads, conversions and cost per acquisition.
BUYER PERSONAS
The next step is to identify buyer personas. This should be based on an analysis of past data
and profile of your best customers and not based on hunch or assumptions. The more
scientific it is, the more accurate it will be. Another important aspect is that you should
develop multiple personas and not one. Rarely customers would be so homogenous that they
can be categorized for one persona. The information that you need about your best customers
can be categorized into three areas:
Who
You should identify the age, gender, location, job title, responsibility, education of your
customers and make a pen profile.
What
You must consider the goals of your consumers and their pain points that they want to be
resolved. what are their areas of interest, what are their passion points, what media do they
consume, what are their media touch points?
Why
Ultimately you must ask if they will buy your product, your unique selling proposition, your
elevator pitch and how compelling it is to convince the customers to buy.
To till your buyer personas, you can obtain information from the social media profiles Of
your customers. You can also get useful information from audience reports in Google
Analytics, a system that explains the geographic, demographic, device data of your audience.
If you place Website Demographic Tags from LinkedIn, your website, you will get detailed
information about demographics such as job title, function, seniority and function of your
website visitors.
CONTENT
You must prepare a content strategy by analysing what worked in the past and what didn't.
You must analyse the performance of each of the content types such as video, image,
infographics, e-books, webinars, games, how to, trends and create more of the variety that
performed better.
CHANNEL
As a part of the channel strategy, how much would you invest in creating paid, owned, earned
content'? In owned, will you have website or a microsite? Which social media pages or
handles will you have and how will you prioritize? For earned media, will you participate in
blogs or forum or question—answer sites? What is your content strategy for getting
engagement? Will you use contests, promotions, controversy or emotional appeal? For paid
media, which platforms will you run campaigns on? Will you run campaigns on search
engines or banner ads on websites, or on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn?
TIMELINES
You must prepare a month-wise calendar to document which activities are for which month.
You must further break down content strategy, channel strategy, target audience week-wise
so that there is a starting point to refer to.
BUDGET
How much budget will you allocate to digital marketing? It depends upon what percentage of
the marketing objectives will be met through digital. It also depends upon the industry and
the role of marketing communications in marketing mix and the role of digital in marketing
communications mix. For certain industries such as e-commerce, financial services,
automobile and education, digital is very important and hence a higher percentage may be
allocated to digital. How much budget will you allocate for paid campaigns across different
media? Hence how much budget will you allocate as media cost? How much budget will you
assign for content creation? How much budget will you allot for technology development
cost such as developing a website or a game?
MEASUREMENT
The measurement metrics will be dependent upon the objective. If the objective is branding,
then measurement will involve recall, attitude and association studies. You may wish to hire a
market research agency to do it either online or offline. If the campaign objective is
performance, then measurement is through CTR, leads and conversions.
