Introduction to Digital Marketing (Unit 1) } Ee cceietemnatinnncamiant TRATES UNIT 1 Introduction to Digital Marketing . i Ledeeitinaaianiatmeaiamatll OU Ss ted 1.1.1. Introduction. ...2sici Digital marketing is an interactive marketing of products and services using digital technologies to reach customers on-time and fétain them. This interactive channel of distribution can be of various media forms like mobile, internet and other digital outdoor tools. Digital marketing is the most accessible, easy to use and contemporary method of promotion which is also known as ‘online marketing’. It has a great potential to replace traditional and out-dated methods of marketing and may prove inappropriate to new and potential consumers. Digital marketing is not just confined to the methods using internet, rather it is beyond this. It involves other distribution channels to reach customers, which do not require internet for promotion of goods and services. Therefore, digital marketing uses different mediums such as text messages, multimedia messages, mobile phones, digital boards, banners, television, radio, etc., for communicating with the customers. These techniques help the marketer to directly reach their customers in a cost-effective manner. Earlier, internet marketing was viewed as a separate promotional service but now it is viewed as the main domain of marketing which mostly covers all traditional methods. Presently, the method of communicating with the customer is same, but now it is made more interactive by using digital technologies. Going digital enables the companies and marketers to serve and engage their customers effectively. “Digital marketing is the promotion of brands using all forms of. digital advertising. This now includes television, radio, internet, mobile and any other form of digital media.” Digital marketing is growing steadily in the Indian market. Indian consumers need time to become familiar with the use of digital marketing technologies. However, there is a wide scope for web-based companies in India as consumers are constantly moving towards web- based marketing.1.2. DIGITAL MARKETING PROCESS 1.2.1. Introduction The process of promoting ard expanding business online throughout the world is known as digital marketing. Nevertheless, every small to large- scale company has now adopted and attempted to earn from digital marketing trends. In the industry, there are several digital marketing firms that claim to do the best online business branding and get fullIntroduction to Digital Marketing (Unit 1) 23 benefit for that. There are various steps involved in the digital marketing process. These steps are important for understanding how the online marketing strategy works well in promoting business online. Digital Marketing Process bn Fa [Bring Targeted Traffic | |. Engagement | 7 B [Conversion —*| Measurement Figure 1 1.2.2. Meaning of Visibility Increasing the online visibility is the first and the foremost step involved in ‘digital marketing process, This involves increasing visibility on various online platforms in order to remain in the eyes of potential customer. Having website, having business page on Facebook or LinkedIn, making profile on Google my business and writing a blog are some of the ways in which online visibility can be increased. Online visibility means the presence of brand to the customer on several online platforms. Having great website is common, but whether or not it is visible to the customer is most important. Though e-commerce platforms usually offer search engine optimisation tools, but when it comes to enhancing online visibility, company owners are also accountable. Online visibility is dynamic. A company must follow the aforementioned tips and try to improve its platform constantly, or the content and platform will become outdated. If this happens then the credibility of the company will drop in search engine algorithms leading to decreased overall visibility. 1.2.2.1. Increasing Visibility Following are the ways in which online visibility can be increased: 1) Owned Media: The media that company own permanently is own as owned media. It is cheaper as compare to paid media.4 BBA Fourth Semester (Digital Marketing) sppy Owned media helps the company to increase their online visibility as it provides them the power to have control over the content to be published on the website or blog of the company. The requirement of internal maintenance for all websites, blogs and social media accounts along with limited audience and reach of content are some of the drawbacks of owned media. 2) Paid Media: In paid media, marketers pay for the visibility of their brand. This gives immediate results to the company. In addition, monitoring paid media output and targeting the content at high- intent customers is simple. Just like owned media, copy editing and the content of message are still under the control of the company. 3) Earned Media: The media or content for which the company has not paid for is known as earned media. Earned media supports digital marketing teams by enhancing the reputation of the company, improving brand recognition and extending the company’s content reach. This media requires time, efforts and attention. Collecting and controlling earned media can be difficult. Being careful regarding the negative publicity appearing. in earned media is the need of the digital marketing teams. 1.2.2.2. Types of Visibility Following are some of the platform that will enable the marketers to receive paid and organic visibility needed by the business. 1) Social Media: Tools that are used to promote brands online are YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google my business. It is easier to promote brands on social media because people nowadays are quite active on it. In order to manage the online business the marketers should remain engage with social media. The monthly active users of Facebook are 2.8 billion according to the company’s fourth quarter of 2020. The online visibility can be increased with the help of social media. 2) SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): The brand visibility on website in search engine result page and the position in the search engine can be increased with the help of Search Engine Optimisation. Marketers should understand and think how search engine algorithms works and what people might search. SEO can be used to design and develop the website to increase rank in search engine. For example, if a person wants to increase the sale of their mobile phone then he/she should use the keyword mobile phone in thei web content. ———————Introduction to Digital Marketing (Unit 1) 3) 4) 5) 6) 1 8) 9) 25 It is a form of internet of websites by increasing ngine Results Pages (SERP) primarily SEM (Search Engine Marketing): marketing that involves the promotion their visibility in Search E; through “paid advertising”. Pay per Click Advertisin ig: It is one of the types of online advertising where advertis ‘er pays cost when any user clicks their ad. This type of advertising will enable the Person to have a look at the products or services they are searching for. For Example, Google Ads, Facebook Ad. Affiliate Marketing: It is the Process by which commission is earned by promoting products or services online. The affiliate marketer will receive bonus every time a customer clicks on a link and purchases the product. For Example, affiliate marketing provided by amazon will provide affiliate marketer to promote their goods and services. The job of the affiliate market will be to promote the products of amazon on various social media platform. This will ultimately increase the visibility of their brand. Email Marketing: Email marketing has gained popularity due to the fact that email is being used by everyone nowadays. It involves Promoting products and services through email. Offers and discounts can also be provided through email. Marketer should send email to the customer by anlaysing their requirements. GetResponse and MailChimp are tools that are used by the marketers to track the actions of the customer. This will help them to acknowledge whether the customer is interested or not. Content Marketing: Visibility of a product or service can be improved by creating awareness and by providing relevant and valuable content to the audience. It is difficult to create awareness without content. The understanding towards product or service becomes easier with good content. For example, everyone is aware of the fact that coca cola brand is best in the world. Video Marketing: Marketer’s visibility of a brand in the search engine can be improved by video marketing. The video content should be short, good, entertaining and interesting. Customer Reviews: Reviews provided by the customer will also help in increasing the online visibility of the product or services, Testimonials and online reviews influence the audience. Feedback generated from the client helps the company to improve their Products or services,26 BBA Fourth Semester (Digital Marketing) ‘SPPy For example, if a customer wants to buy any dress online they he/she will check the review of other customers. If the marketer, want their potential customers to identify them then they shoulq invent in online visibility. The marketers will benefit from strengthening their visibility no matter what business they are in. 1.2.2.3. Importance of Visibility Traffic will not help the company to increase their revenue but an efficient and unique website may convert visitors into buyers. Sales and profit will decline in the situation where there is absence of new visitor. Online visibility is important because of the following reasons: 1) Marketer’s site can be found by the users by their own. 2) New or unique visitors are the customers that provide support to a business. 3) Online visibility helps in improving the perception and reputation of a brand in the market. 4) Good brand reputation helps a website to compete with its competitor. 1. Example of Visibility Realising the benefits of increasing the online visibility for the business does not mean that the marketer has clear understanding regarding the concept of “online visibility". Online visibility means how easily a consumer may find marketer’s product or services at relevant online platform. The following are the example of visibility: 1) A dog toy company will be said to have a strong online visibility if it shows up in the first page of Google results when a target customer types in “quality dog toy products.” 2) The visibility of cosmetic brand is said to be strong if their websites appears on the top of the page on a Google search ‘long lasting eye liner’. ; Strategies for online visibility involve producing content and advertising that are tailored for a particular audience to appear on relevant platforms such as social media, blogs, and search engines. Online marketing aims towards creating content specific to the ideal audience and displaying it to them on various platforms. It also includes creating a generic advertisement for each and every audience. Marketers can market his/her business through blogging, video, events and social media. Marketers will receive more conversion if more people search for the company.1.2.4. Concept of Engagement The next step involved in digital marketing process is to engage visitors on LinkedIn page, blog, Facebook page, website etc. What do they do once advertisers have traffic going to their website? Selling and asking visitors why they should buy from them is the first thing that might come to mind. The aim of 95% of the visitor is to just look around the products or services. Only 5% of the visitor either seek to buy or do their research or weigh their options. At maximum, only 5% of the products or services can be sold by the advertisers. But what about the 95 percent remaining products or services? If advertisers want to sell them, the consumer tends to shut down their web browser or hit back button of their PC, laptop or mobile phone. Engaging visitor before selling them is the only option left with the marketers. Let customers travel inside the pages of the website freely. Let some things be performed by them. Let them have an e-book downloaded. Let blog be read by them. Let them subscribe, if any, to a free trial/demo. All these tasks are ‘subject to engagement. Engaging visitors would boost their trust in the products/services/brand. This ensures that the visitor will return back in the future to purchase goods that they are’ not willing to buy at that time. For example, Sumit visited an advertising agency's website because he had downloaded the e-book. But as a young, fresh entrepreneur, Sumit doesn't have’ enough money to purchase advertising services. But he did tead and enjoyed the e-book a lot as he gained useful information from it.” If marketers are able“to engage Sumit or bring him back frequently to the website then this will build trust in the mind of Sumit regarding that particular website or agency. There are probability that Sumit will consider the advertising agency if he requires any sort of: professional advertising solution. ‘30 BBA Fourth Semester (Digital Marketing) SPpy 1.2.4.1. Visitors Engagement Engagement of visitors gets confirms where consumers find some vaj in marketing services or goods provided by the company or marketer, 1) User engagement helps the marketers in either reaching or Betting closer to their client. 2) Driving consumer interaction enables marketer/ advertisers inspire their customers to share and connect with the brands g; goods that they are selling. 3) Good customer engagement will enhance the growth and future performance of the company. Marketers should optimised customer engagement on the websites: otherwise lot of money or time spent on creating content will go to waste. Producing large amount of content does not attract more active visitors or turn their content to benefi 1.2.4.2. Importance of Engagement One of the most important assets of any business is customer. Keeping customer engaged is very important for the growth and progress of the business. Following are the importance of engagement: 1) Customer engagement helps in increasing the trust and loyalty of customers. i. 2) Ithelps in providing perception and feedback of the visitors. 3) It enhances the experience of customers. 4) It helps in increasing customer reach. 5) It helps in influencing the customer attitude towards their product or services. 1.2.4.3. _ Examples of Engagement Usually, engagement comes in the form of’ community and content. Following are the examples of engagement: 1) The email received by the father from his financial advisor suggesting the ways in which he can save his child tuition fees by reducing taxes. 2) Boutique wine store owner become active for wineris and other wine retailer in Facebook community. 3) Johnson & Johnson Youtube video on how to give bath to a baby is being watched by a new mother.4 ener en Digital MU Tayet UNIT 2 Planning and Structure rae ea DIGIT 2.1.1. Introduction A digital marketing plan is a document sharing the details for al] thy planning for digital marketing campaigns or actions. It detail among other things: 1) Short, medium and long term business goals. 2) The strategies to achieve the goals at the digital level. 3) The channels to use. 4) Action and development plans. 5) Investment and budget. 6) The timing and roadmap. According to Philip Kotler, considered one of the fathers of modem marketing, a traditional marketing plan serves: “to document how the organisation’s strategic objectives will be achieved through specific marketing strategies and tactics, with the customer as the starting point. I is also linked to the plans of other departments within the organisation.” A digital marketing plan can be defined as a guide-type document for one’s actions. Since one will be working with different team members, it will be necessary to coordinate his efforts and to thoroughly distribute and schedule them across the different digital channels. One thing is for sure, though; # marketing plan needs to have a roadmap, and this is where project management software can be extremely useful for the marketing departmentMARKETING 2.4.1... Introduction Inbound marketing is an entire style of marketing, based on attracting and converting online users organically, and fuelling sales decisions with persona-tailored information; it is grooming sales funnel leads using engagement and natural interest, as opposed to intrusive outbound strategies. This generates high quality, interest-driven conversions, and ultimately results in more qualified traffic to a business’s site. Inbound marketing, in simple terms, is the processes of helping potential customers find the company. This frequently happens before the customer is even ready to make a purchase, but making contact early can turn into brand preference and, ultimately, leads and revenue. Inbound marketing is a strategy that utilises many forms of pull marketing. — content marketing, blogs, events, Search EngineBBA Fourth Semester (Digital Marketing) Sppy 68 Optimisation (SEO), social media, and more — to og ed awareney, and attract new business. Whereas outbound marketing an out customers, inbound marketing focuses on visibility, so potenti uyers come to marketer. Instead of “renting attention,” companies employing inbound marketing focus on new methods geared toward building awareness, developing relationships, and generating leads. According to Joshua Gill, Inbound and SEO Marketing Consultant, Inbound Authority, “Inbound marketing is so powerful because you have the power to give the searcher/consumer exactly what answers they are looking for at the precise point that they need it. That builds trust, reputation, and authority in whatever niche you. are Practicing this form of marketing in.” These methods make marketer attractive to customers because they do not make people feel like they are being sold to. The content provided by inbound marketing is educational, entertaining, and welcomed by consumers. When done correctly, inbound marketing can return dramatically better results than traditional marketing that disrupts Prospects rather than giving them an Open invitation to engage. When consumers find marketer’s company this way, it has a stronger influence on their future marketing decisions and their feelings toward his business in general. Inbound marketing consists of entirely organic leads, so it relies on brains rather than budget. Inbound marketing has the powerful ability to put customers in the driver’s seat, connecting marketer with People who are genuinely interested in what you have to say. Aside from lead conversions and customer retention, inbound marketing can do wonders for social media shares, brand awareness, and search engine optimisation efforts. A robust inbound marketing programme 7 allows customers to engage with the brand at any time. This allows marketer to generate qualified leads for much less money than traditional marketing. 1h ouey. to. successful in this evolving landscape, Visibility through inbound marketing is key.| 2.5. OUTBOUND MARKETING | 25.1. Introduction Outbound marketing refers to any kind of marketing where a company jnitiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience. Outbound marketing examples include more traditional forms of marketing and advertising such as TV commercials, radio ads, print advertisements (newspaper ads, magazine ads, flyers, brochures, catalogues, etc.), tradeshows, outbound sales calls (AKA “cold calls”), and email spam. Outbound marketing is the opposite of inbound marketing, where the customers find marketer when they need him. Outbound marketing is generally harder to track and less profitable than inbound marketing, yet ironically, organisations still spend'as much as 90% of their marketing budgets on outbound marketing. Organisations looking to improve their sales and return on marketing spend would be well advised to re-allocate an increasing percentage of their marketing budget on inbound marketing techniques. Outbound marketing also referred to as “interruption” or “push” marketing, uses tactics that get a message to a large number of people in an effort to make a sale. Print/TV/radio advertising, cold calling, direct mail, mass emails, and other methods are aimed at large audiences of People (most of whom may not even be looking for the marketer’s Product), It is a one-way conversation that typically focuses on the Product and-reasons why the audience should buy it.2.6. CONTENT MARKETING 2.6.1. Introduction Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract ani retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Content marketing grants businesses in every industry the opportunity to own high-value media sources. Websites, social medi! feeds, email newsletters and branded digital campaigns are platformsDigital Marketing Planning and Structure (Unit 2) 83 which to tell the story, control the narrative and generate interest in the products and services. Content marketing is a hot buzzword in digital marketing, and for good reason. A big reason for its popularity has to do with its effectiveness in driving traffic and its ability to establish a person or company’s industry expertise through education. It allows publishers to establish trust through the act of giving information away for free, which can lead them down a sales funnel to a purchase even if your content does not explicitly promote anything. 2.6.2. Key Terms and Concepts The various key terms in content marketing is as follows: 1) Algorithm: A pre-determined mathematical, computational or statistical method used to take the different variables and results in a single output which is quantifiable is a function of all the variables is defined as the algorithm. For example, a commonly used algorithm used by Google to determine the highest ranked page on SERPs. Content Audit: Content audit can be defined as the publishing of a brand an examination and evaluation of the existing content. 3) Editor: The ultimate content of a text, previously understood by in the newspaper, magazines or publishing industry context is determined by a person known as editor. 4) Information Architecture: A systematic way by which data and contents are organised, structured and labelled to support the usability is known as the information architecture. 5) Persona: Persona can be defined as a character developed to describe a community of readers and talk to them as if they were a special reader. To represent and personify the set of qualities, generally an imaginary character is created. Usability: Usability can be defined as a measure of how easy a System is to use. Websites which have excellent usability are better than the sites which are difficult to use. i 2 6 26.3, Forms of Content Marketing fament marketing comes in three basic forms — long-form, and short- "mn and conversations. It is important to understand that content fontting is still a new form of marketing, and no one knows the recipe iccess,84 BBA Fourth Semester (Digital Marketing) SPPY Only few rules and some loose guidelines are available for businesse, and marketers to follow: 1) 2) 3) Long-Form Content Marketing: It includes all published conten that is longer than a few sentences and that offers deep value, such as blog posts, articles, e-books, press releases, white papers, presentations, videos, podcasts, webinars, and so on. Short-Form Content Marketing: It includes all published content with no more than a few sentences and that communicates useful information such as Twitter updates, Facebook updates, Linkedh updates, images and so on. Conversations and Sharing Content Marketing: It can happea through conversations about published content and through th sharing of published content, such as blog comments, forum comments, Twitter updates, link sharing via social bookmarking comments on videos and images, and so on.1) 4) 5) 2.6.7. Content Strategies The goal is to develop content that is valuable to the audiences and deliver it where and when they need it. The different content strategies in content marketing are given below: Channel Strategy: Channels are any platform marketers communicate through, including websites, apps, videos, emails, games, IVAS, and social media: Twitter, Facebook, and so on. The goal here is to figure out what channels will help the marketers best tell their story to a targeted audience. Channels that are most relevant to the audience will obviously bring the most measurable success. In other words, a Twitter account should not be created just because “everyone else does.” Messaging Strategy: Messaging strategy is the practice of creating custom messages geared at different target audiences. Promotion Strategy: Creating useful content is just half the battle - developing a Strategy to promote the content tailored to each audience and channel will help ensure that the content reaches the target audience. Governance Strategy: Governance and maintenance guides provide a structure to assess the content and resources, establish ownership and approval process, and ensure quality. Community Building Strategy: Targeting potential customers. oftentimes on social networks, who need what is offered and focus on maintaining regular, meaningful connections with them.| RPA) eats PLANNING AND WEB 2.12.1. Introduction The website structure is the actual display of the navigation plan on the site. Each element of the website structure implies a real page. By forming the structure of the website marketer develop the navigation and lay the foundation on which the design of his future site will be built. In a broad sense, the website structure is a treasure map in which the treasure is a product that marketer want to sell to a potential customer. Optimising a simple user route to make a purchase from his website is a priority for him and his business. Planning the website structure is a very time-consuming process. For the most intuitive display of the structure, the ‘Visual Sitemap’ tool is used. A Visual Sitemap is a hierarchical diagram reflecting the actual structure of your website. The main reason of this tool’s popularity is the complete comprehension of the structure that it gives to the UX designer. At the beginning of development the site map diagram allows marketer to look ‘down upon’ his project, to estimate its scale and to work out errors. At the moment, the Visual Sitemap is the most Convenient way to develop a website structure. It should be remembered that the benefits of the logical site structure affect not only the UX, but also the identification of the site by search engine algorithms, which directly affects the ranking of the site in a Search engine. Unfortunately, high ranking in a search engine is not a| ae BBA Fourh Semester (Digital Maki spp panacea for the business, and if marketer wants to create a succes, Internet project, he should start with the most fundamental Uestiong The business is not just a ‘relevant query’ in a search engine, but fing and foremost a product that a potential customer is looking fi Marketer should start by defining the fundamental purpose of hie business. This knowledge will further help marketer to define the Boal in planning the development of the website." °°” Saag 2.12.2. Domains ‘A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Intemes, Domain names are used in various networking contexts and fo, application-specific naming and addressing purposes. Ih general, g domain name identifies a network domain, or it represents-an Interne, Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, a server computer hosting a website, or the web site itself o any other service communicated via the Internet. In 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). Any name registered in the DNS is a domain name, Domain names are organised in subordinate levels (subdomains) of the DNS root domain, which is nameless. The first-level set of domain names are the Top-Level Domains (TLDs), including the generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), such as the prominent domains com, info, net, edu, and org, and the country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs). Below these top- level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the second-level and third-level domain names that are typically open for reservation by end-users who wish to connect local area networks to the Internet, create other publicly accessible Internet resources or run websites. 2.12.2.1. Format of Domain Names Following figure shows a basic format of the domain name: Figure 2.15: Basic Format of Domain Namevigil Marketing Planning and Structure (Unit 2) us The exact layout may vary because sometimes an address may have some more parts. Domain is divided into many sub-domains. Sometimes a domain name has the second and top-level domain such as ‘www.tppl.co.in’ where ‘.co’ is the second level domain and ‘.in’ is the - top-level domain.2.13. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATio, (SEO) 2.13.1. Introduction The process of increasing the visibility of a webpage or a website j search engine results is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), This type of search results is natural or unpaid. However, how frequently a site appears in the list of search results, will define the number of visitors it will receive on the website. It may include different types of search such as, video search, academic search, industry specific vertical search, news search, local search and image search. It is a technique which helps search engine to find and tank the site which is higher than any other site. Thus, it can be said that SEO helps in getting the traffic from search engines. SEO is one of the internet marketing strategies that examines what actually people search for, how it works, what are the basic keywords that people type while searching and which search engine they used | while searching. The optimisation of a website can be both to edit its content and HTML and related coding to increase its relevance to definite keywords and to overcome the constraints of the indexing activities of search engines. 00 the other hand, SEO can also increase the inbound links or raise the number of back links. The abbreviation “SEO” is a term adopted by an industry of consultants (Search Engine Optimisers) who conduct optimisation projects on behalf of customers, and by employees. who perform in house SEO services. Therefore, this technique is. used for getting higher ranking. When an organisation has higher ranking then the searching engine presents its website on top of the search results. A customer may identify its website in a large number of website: Organisation should identify which type of website they- can build before implementing SEO techniques.