Emerging Trends in Management

(MGT-204)
Assignment

Submitted By

AMRIT BANDHAN
(CUHP19MBA19)

of

Master of Business Administration

(4th Semester)

HPKV BUSINESS SCHOOL

DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND MANAGEMENT STUDIES

CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

(Established under Central Universities Act 2009)
Dhauladhar Parisar – II, DHARAMSHALA, DISTRICT KANGRA – 176215 (H.P.)

(FEB-JULY 2021)
Digital Marketing – Types, limitation, effectiveness and current trends:

Digital marketing is one type of marketing being widely used to promote products or services
and to reach consumers using digital channels. Digital marketing extends beyond internet
marketing including channels that do not require the use of Internet. It includes mobile
phones (both SMS and MMS), social media marketing, display advertising, search engine
marketing and many other forms of digital media. Through digital media, consumers can
access information any time and any place where they want. With the presence of digital
media, consumers do not just rely on what the company says about their brand but also they
can follow what the media, friends, associations, peers, etc., are saying as well. Digital
marketing is a broad term that refers to various promotional techniques deployed to reach
customers via digital technologies. Digital marketing embodies an extensive selection of
service, product and brand marketing tactics which mainly use Internet as a core promotional
medium in addition to mobile and traditional TV and radio.

Types of digital marketing:

 SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

 SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
 PPC (Pay-per-click)
 SMM (Social Media Marketing)
 Content Marketing
 Email Marketing
 Influencer / Affiliate Marketing
 Viral Marketing
 Radio Advertising
 Television Advertising
 Mobile Advertising

1. SEM
SEM or Search Engine Marketing is generally considered to cover both PPC and SEO work.
Bringing in traffic to your website via search engines is no easy task, that’s why SEO and PPC
work to look into bringing said traffic in through both paid and unpaid means. PPC paid
advertising, and SEO, which works on bringing in organic traffic. This doesn’t mean that SEO
work is free, but we’ll get into the details below.

Keywords

Keywords lay at the core foundations of any search engine marketing strategy. Firstly you
need to identify the keywords that are relevant to your business’s services or products. The
keywords need to be ones that your prospective customers are highly likely to use when
making a search query. One way easy way to get started with keywords is by using Google
Keyword Planner.

2. SEO

We’ll start with SEO, which stands for search engine optimisation. SEO works to make your
business optimised for search engines, like Google and Bing. It’s all about moving you up the
search engine results page rankings to have better visibility for users searching for your
website. Many people don’t bother scrolling to page 2 of search engines, so SEO is essential
to work if you want to generate more business from online searches. By no means is SEO a
quick fix, when our clients sign up for SEO, we always inform them that the process will take
time to yield results

How it Works

Through keyword research and ranking analysis, we determine how you fair against your
competitors for keyword rankings. We then work on optimising your website and the content
on it for search engines, as well as building quality links both to and from your website, in
order to allow your website to be crawled efficiently. Your content is crawled by search engine
robots, or crawlers, to collate the data and index it in search engine archives. Then, when a
relevant search term is used, Google will return your site as a result. The ranking determines
how relevant your site is to a user’s search term. The goal is to be in the coveted top 3 spots.

Strategy

SEO is an on-going strategy, and the longer you invest in it, the more results it yields. It’s not
a quick fix.

3. PPC

PPC, or Pay-per-click, is a form of advertising on search engines, like Google and Bing. It’s a
way of moving to the top of search engine results pages by paid means. It’s called PPC because
your ad account is charged every time one of your adverts is clicked. The cost of each ad, or
CPC (cost per click), depends on the quality score of your website and the selected keyword’s
competition. PPC campaigns can be a short-term solution, and many use it to shift products
or seasonal deals, as a way to boost revenue. There are around 4 spots for Ads on Google, so
getting your website in the for a selected keyword can be challenging. SEO work is about your
ranking being ‘earned’, but PPC your ranking on the first page is bought.

How it Works

By bidding on a selected keyword or search term, you can make your way into the 4 ad spaces
on offer by Google. Through tools like Google AdWords, PPC pros work on finding keywords
that your website will perform well, and dependent on the competition, CPC is determined.
Through bidding on keywords, against competitors, your ad appears in relevant search results
and will charge you if a user clicks on your ad.
Strategy

Many of our clients use both short-term and long-running PPC campaigns. Dependent on
what you’re using your PPC for, it can be either

4. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the process of working on marketing through, you guessed it, social
media. With social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (to name a few) ever
growing, businesses online need to invest in social media marketing in order to grow their
following and reach a whole new pool of potential customers. Dependent on your business
type, there’s a social network out there for you. All businesses would do well to be on
Facebook, but if you specialise in B2B, LinkedIn is the one for you. If you’re a ‘visual business’,
then Instagram is the ideal. We could go on and on, but you get the point. You should be on
social media if you aren’t, but how do you market on social media?

How it Works

Through like campaigns and targeted ads, the goal is to grow your following on social media
in the hopes of gaining more business through these platforms. Sites like Facebook collect
data about your likes and interests, as well as personal factors like age, location etc. All of this
information is available to Facebook business users to create targeted ads to appear on a
select demographic’s news feed. These ads can be used to promote products, services or
entice users to ‘like’ your page, keeping them up to date with your posts.

Strategy

SMM can be both a long-term or short-term investment. Whilst maintaining social media is
key, using targeted ads via the service doesn’t have to continue forever – otherwise, it could
cost a lot.

5. Content Marketing

This style of marketing is a little different than the previous ones we’ve mentioned. It’s not so
much about directly marketing products and services to customers, but rather creating
enriching and valuable content that enhances customer experience. Some of the biggest
brands in the world will actively post blogs, images and videos relating to their business that
are entertaining and informative too. It’s what establishes your business as a brand and
essentially what makes your customers like you more. It’s like promoting your brand without
the aim to an incentive to sell anything behind your posts – simply providing information that
is both enriching and engaging.

How it Works

Through posting blogs, videos and images, you build up a loyal consumer base, that visit your
site for content that serves a purpose. Whether that be informative content about your
business or industry knowledge you share, your customers will appreciate the effort behind
every blog or video you post. It’s about listening to your customer needs and producing what
they want. If your content is share-worthy enough, it can help drive in traffic and potentially
more business.

Strategy

Content marketing should be a long-term investment, and like SEO needs to be worked on
constantly in order to yield results.

6. Email Marketing

Another form of marketing is email marketing, and you’ve guessed it, it involves email. It’s a
form of direct marketing which sends information, offers, blogs etc. directly to your mailing
list’s inboxes. Through a sea of emails, your marketing email will appear, but the trick is
getting it read. Yes, it may emerge alongside 100s emails, and if you can’t create an email
that’s eye-catching, then it will be lost. Luckily there are email marketing tools and agencies
(like us), that can assist you. Email marketing is a great way of reaching your customers,
interacting with them after purchases or even sending them a newsletter. Be warned, sending
unsolicited emails will land you a place in the spam box. So, make sure you’ve gathered your
mailing list by your own means and not from a third-party company. They need to be your
customers or have opted into receiving your mail.

How it Works

By using your existing mailing list, you can create a prospective list of recipients for your mail.
Whether it be for remarketing or to update them on a new blog post, you need to send the
right email to the right people. Once you’ve decided on the mail you’re going to send,
using email marketing tools or a digital marketing agency *cough*, us, *cough* you can
design an on-brand email to send out to your mailing list. This can bring in traffic to your site,
or even help you sell some products with unique discount codes. With the analytic tools, you
can monitor things like opening rate and even how many clicked through on a link.

Strategy

Email marketing is usually considered short term but can be used as long-term. If you’re
sending out unique discount codes for a brief time, it can be a short-term fix to boost sales.
Or if you choose to send blogs or newsletters, to boost your website traffic, it can be used
long term. Just don’t send email after email every day – people don’t like that.

7. Influencer / Affiliate Marketing

Both influencer and affiliate marketing utilise those in a position of ‘power’, usually social
media influencers or industry experts etc. This is to assist you in marketing a product or
service to their audience. It’s become more and more popular in recent years, through sites
like Instagram and YouTube, where companies will enlist a well-known influencer, to promote
their products or services on their social pages or affiliate websites. These collaborations can
involve giving away unique discount codes, sponsored blog posts or prize draws etc. for the
influencer’s audience, to build some buzz around your brand and business.

How it Works

This investment cycle entails finding someone with a large following. This can be on social or
in an industry and then approaching them with a collaboration. Most will require payment or
a cut of the sales that come from their audience purchasing their products or services. Then,
they’ll create posts, blogs or videos, to ‘show off’ your collaboration and hopefully bring in
more sales for your business. It’s about finding the right influencer for your business.

Strategy

Influencer or Affiliate marketing can be a short-term campaign, to help bring in more sales or
increase website traffic. Influencers won’t usually continuously promote for longer than a
week or less. This is because of their following disengages (they get bored of seeing your
product on their ‘idols’ feed).

8. Viral Marketing

You know those viral videos you see online? Well, some companies use those as a smart form
of marketing. Whether it’s teaming up with a popular viral content creator, popular social
media influencer or promoting it themselves, the idea of viral marketing is to create
something shareworthy – by making it funny, on trend and topical.

How it Works

Viral videos or images will indirectly promote a product or service (be it the product being
included or the service being used or simply featured), then the hopes are that this is shared
around social media. The basics of viral marketing are very simple. You create a piece of
content that is so compelling that those who engage with it will want to share it with their
friends and family instantly.

Strategy

This is a great option for b2c businesses, and there’s a lot of influencers and content creators
out there who can mix influencer marketing with viral marketing in order to maximise the
reach of your viral content. However, do be aware that viral marketing is one of the most
difficult types of digital marketing, but it isn’t impossible to achieve. A good first step to make
is by researching what has worked in the past and what has failed.

If you create a piece of content that goes viral then not only will you see an increase in ROI,
but you will also generate an increase in brand awareness. Together with consumers
associating positive values and viral content with your business.

9. Radio Advertising
Whilst radio used to be solely based on radio waves, it’s now all digital. Which means, radio
advertising now falls into the realm of digital marketing (welcome to the club radio!). Radio
ads are a great way to get your business or brand heard, and it’s never been easier to do with
digital advertising.

How it Works

You can now use targeted radio ads for different locations. So, whether you’re targeting a
local or national consumer base, your radio advertising can be heard by the right people.
There’s also the option to advertise through Spotify, for non-premium users. The ads they will
hear can be targeted towards them based on their age, location, gender and more – because
of the account information they provide to Spotify.

Strategy

Look into targeted location ads if you’re a local business, and if you’re a national one, look
into Spotify advertising to directly target a select demographic. Setting up Spotify ads was
once quite a long-winded task, but now the leading audio streaming platform has an
incredibly user-friendly self-service ad platform. Spotify Ad Studio also includes a handy voice-
over option where you type in what you want the ad to sound like, and they use their own in-
house voice actors to create your ad.

10. Television Advertising

Radio isn’t the only thing to move over to digital. There are loads of options for those that
want to advertise on television without paying expensive ad slot costs on prime time TV.
However, even with the digital shift and social fragmentation of Television Advertising, some
still consider the 30-second ad as being a vital advertising tool in the next few years.

How it Works

Marketers are navigating this marketing channel by combining personal data about
consumers, together with utilising new delivery methods for Television Advertising, like
addressable ads. They are also placing Television Advertising at the very center of cross-
channel marketing campaigns. So, if a consumer sees an ad on TV, they will also see it on their
digital devices reinforcing the ad’s message.

Additionally, television ads can now be targeted directly to locations or demographics

through things like Virgin or Sky TV. But, it’s not just on your TV. If you use on demand or
catch up TV, adverts can also appear midway through your stream (like on All 4). It allows you
to have targeted ads for selected audiences.

Strategy

While Television Advertising remains as a major component of the overall marketing mix, it is
essential to adapt and pivot your strategy based on your audience’s demographic and where
they consume video content. Not only does Television Advertising reach a rapidly growing
generation of consumers who are choosing to cut the cord from traditional TV. But, the
disruptive evolution of data-targeting capabilities now means that you can personalise your
TV ads for audiences on the big screen.

By taking advantage of this video intelligence means that you are able to target your defined
target audience with more TV ads that are specifically catered to their personal interests and
at times that will make the most impact.

11. Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is something that spans across all forms of digital marketing we’ve
mentioned above. Whether it’s mobile social ads, mobile search ads or even mobile TV and
radio ads, every form of digital marketing we’ve mentioned can be transferred to
mobile. Businesses all over the world are shifting more of their advertising budget into mobile
because consumers spend more time on their mobile devices more than any other device.

How it Works

You can target mobile ads by audience segments or by using geofencing. Geofencing is one of
the most popular tactics as it is based on a consumer’s physical location. This is a lazor-focused
strategy as you are able to target mobiles ads to a clearly defined and relevant audience.

Strategy

You need to carefully think about how to adapt your broader advertiser strategy and optimise
it for the mobile device environment. You need to consider that you have a much smaller
screen size to work with and that intrusive interruptions tend to be less appreciated on mobile
than any other device.

Once you have prepared everything, you are ready to launch your ad to the mobile device
spectrum and begin testing conversions. You can collect data by using key metrics when
running your mobile ad campaign and then invest even more time in perfecting your strategy
once you know that it is working.

Knowing the fine details will help you pivot and generate a mobile ad campaign that has a
high conversion rate. You can collect and analyse this data through sources such as Google
Analytics.

Limitations of digital marketing:

1. High competition

The digital marketing campaign should be well thought of, should stand out, grab attention
and create impact on the target audience since the competition has grown many folds in the
recent past. Any monotonous approach or repeated method will drive the brand out of the
competition in no time. Digital marketing campaigns have become very competitive, thus
brands have to be relevant to the needs of the customers and be quick in responding.
 2. Dependability on Technology

Digital marketing is purely based on technology and the internet is prone to errors. There are
times when the links may not work, landing pages may not load, and page buttons just don’t
simply do its job. This leads the prospective customers to switch to other brands. Therefore,
to avoid this, a test of the website is necessary, also proofreading the contents and making
sure that the campaigns will work on its targeted niche becomes important.

3. Time Consuming

One of the biggest disadvantages of digital marketing campaigns is its time consuming nature.
Unorganized tactics and strategies may consume a lot of time and often it becomes difficult
to devote the desirable time to the campaign. This will eventually lead to negative results.
Therefore, it has been suggested to focus on a strategy that the company needs the most
then accordingly plan and curate the content. Digital marketing tools like HubSpot, Ahrefs
and social media posting, and scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck should be used
to overcome the potential barriers.

4. Security and Privacy Issues

Security is the primary requirement for any brand, hence website protection is something to
be executed seriously as a digital marketer. Securing the network and safeguarding the
network connections by using firewalls and encryption tools like VPN is always suggested. The
basic approach of having a good antivirus is most desirable. The legal considerations in
obtaining customer data for using in digital marketing strategies must be done with all
required formalities. Protecting the customer data should be the top priority as it may be
compromised during data breaches.

The main advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing will work out only if market
research is not compromised by finding the best platform, creating the right content, taking
note of its pros and cons, learning the perfect timing, and pushing up the brand. Marketing,
be it traditional or digital, is all about connecting to people at the right time in the right place.

Effectiveness of digital marketing:

Digital marketing is the most widely used marketing aid in the current era as it is considered
to be more effective than any other tool. This is true to the core as there is a considerable
shift in the preferences of the common man. Here are a few facts that clearly state the
effectiveness of digital marketing.

 The comparative analysis: Customers want to have a comparative analysis of the prices and
benefits of all the products available in the market. The digital market offers them a platform
to review all the aspects associated with a product.
 The acceptability: In this tech savvy era the information available online is widely accepted
by the customers in comparison to the physically available information.
 Wider audience: The coverage of digital marketing is much more than that of the physical
media as the internet is now the new tool of every type of communication. It is a lot much
easier to sit back and communicate over a technology driven device.
 Impact: How many times did you let your favourite show forgot to watch an advertisement
of a company selling some random product? But while surfing the internet it is always very
easy to restart what you left from the same point. Any advertisement pop up window attracts
you as soon as it flashes on the screen.
Apart from all these things the rising technology regime has given birth to many career
opportunities to the aspiring youth. Digital marketing has made our lives simpler and offered
us everything right in front of us virtually. Companies have got a very effective tool to market
their product and services directly to the customers and track the change in the consumer
behaviour.

It has enabled the companies to assess all the attributes of the customers and let them make
their best strategic move. Digital marketing holds a significant role for both customers as well
as for the companies selling their products and services.

Current trends:

 WhatsApp, Viber, and Apple’s iMessage already represent more than 80 percent of all
messaging traffic, and Skype alone accounts for more than a third of all international
voice traffic minutes. Big Data applications facilitate personalized products and
services and mining them opens up new opportunities for process optimization, the
identification of interdependencies, and decision support.
 IBM's Watson computer and Apple's Siri understands human’s, and Siri use Google
Maps to lead you on the place where you want.
 The rise in social media advertising also marks a continued trend by marketers to
establish more intimate relationships with their customers.
 Research conducted by some have corporate Facebook pages in focus in order to
better understand the effectiveness of social media content in leading to consumer
responses.
 A quantitative research that provide empirical insights on their social media activity
on three different social media platforms, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The
research results indicate the importance of the adoption rate of the most diffused SM
tools, the size of the digital networks of stakeholders (number of followers), the
intensity of the communication activity (number of posts, shares, photos, videos), and
the level of customer engagement (number of likes and shares).
 Other study reveals a positive relationship between "liked" brands on Facebook fan-
page and brand love . That means that liking a fan page can significantly influence
brand love and word of mouth is found to be an outcome of fan page liking.
 Modern customers, especially members of Millennial generation and generation Z,
usually look for information about products and services on social media before
making a decision to purchase and that is the main reason why social media has
become very important for communicating with customers.
 Members of Millennial Generation in the are better connected, they have more
friends online (social networks) as well as offline, and they feel their life is fulfilled
when they are connected with people through social media.
 Facebook’s core platform still dominates the global social landscape, with total users
up 15 percent year-on year to reach almost 2.17 billion at the start of 2018, followed
by Youtube with 1.5 billion active user accounts.
 WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (with 1.3 billion users each) both grew twice as
fast as the core Facebook platform though, with the number of people using each
messenger app up by 30 percent year on year.