Learning objective for Unit 4

Question 1

Explain common considerations in digital marketing campaigns.

Answer 1

• Customer Type:
  Customer segmentation.
• Budget:
  A digital marketing campaign budget can range anywhere from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars stretching over a long time period. Without a budget, companies will not be able to plan effectively what types of digital channels and content to use.
• Type of Content:
  Developing high-quality content is critical to a successful digital marketing campaign, because today’s consumers have easy access to a world full of information to search, explore, research and compare not only from the comfort of their own home, but right in the palm of their hands.
• Usability and User Experience:
  Usability is important in nurturing a great user experience (UX), because a critical part of that digital experience is the ease with which consumers can find, access, review or buy products and services.
• Timing and Length of Time (Duration):
  Before launching any digital marketing campaign, it is crucial to coincide the launch of the campaign with certain major events to maximise its impact. Some timing considerations can include festivals, celebrations, current affairs, fads and even trending news. The duration of a marketing campaign is correlated to the amount of money invested in it; longer campaigns typically involve large budget spends.
• Privacy:
  Companies must take into account the sensitivities of customer information and privacy, and how they might be used. Customers must be given full transparency on how their information is being used and accessed.

Question 2

Describe the process to set up digital communication campaign for target audience.

Answer 2

Step 1: Establish Objectives

Developing a digital marketing plan is not that different from a standard marketing plan. The main difference is that the environment has gone digital. The use of SMART Objectives is useful to help define a firm’s overall digital marketing objective.

Step 2: Establish a Marketing Budget

A firm’s campaign budget will dictate what projects itcan pursue and how in-depth it can go on each one. Calculating the costs involved and the projected sales returns is necessary in any budget.

Step 3: Define Marketing Strategy

The (P)RACE Digital Marketing Planning Framework allows marketers to develop an effective marketing strategy which is crucial for the success of the digital communication campaign for the target audience.

Step 4: Create Action Programmes/Plans

Creating action programmes means the kind of content a firm is going to create, and how that content is to be distributed among its target market. The kind of action programmes to create is highly influenced by the buyer persona.

Step 5: Monitor Sales and Profit Performance

Without a perfectly optimised website or a strong social media campaign, a firm risks missing out on:

a) an opportunity to market to wider audiences
b) build an authoritative brand
c)rise above its competition

Question 3

Outline the steps involved in media plan development.

Answer 3

Step 1: Market Analysis
Step 2: Establishing the Media Objective (RFCCP)
Step 3: Setting the Strategy
Step 4: Implementation
Step 5: Evaluation and Follow-up

(M,E,S,I,E)

Question 4

Describe the types of digital advertising.

Answer 4

• Landing Page:
  It is a destination: it is where a firm wants visitors to end up. Usually a stand-alone web page, specifically designed to receive and convert traffic from an online marketing campaign.
• Home Page:
  It is a hub: a jump-off point, or gateway to the rest of a site’s content. Will qualify as a landing page only if it is designed to convert traffic from a specific marketing campaign. If it does not, then a home page will not qualify as a landing page.
• Display Advertising:
  Sometimes referred to as interactive advertising, display advertising is a type of online paid advertising, typically using images and text. The most popular forms of display ads are banners, skyscrapers, rich media ads, and popups. Display ads differ from other ads because they do not show up in search results.
• Native Advertising:
  Native advertising is the use of paid ads that match the look, feel and function of the media format or platform in which they appear. They are often found in social media feeds, or as recommended content on a web page.
• Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising:
  PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to a firm’s site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.
• Remarketing:
  Remarketing (or retargeting) is a form of online advertising that does exactly what it says it does. This cookie-based technology literally followers the user around the internet, in order to remarket him/her again. It enables sites to show targeted ads to users who have already visited their site. Past visitors will see these ads while they are browsing the web, watching YouTube videos or reading news sites, for example, keeping the brand top-of-mind and enticing visitors to come back for more. Statistics show that only 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit, which means 98% of users leave without converting right away. These users are targeted once they leave the website by then seeing subtle hints (ads), reminding them about their previous interest.
• Video Advertising:
  Video advertising is promotional content that plays before, during or after streaming content. They are growing in popularity, especially with younger consumers. Factors to consider when doing a video advertisement:
   Keep the video short and engaging, yet impactful.
   Personalise the video to the intended audience.
   Consider where the audience will likely be viewing the video.
   Appeal to the customers feelings.

-Search Engine Marketing & Optimisation (SEM & SEO):
SEM and SEO are two types of online advertising that promote content and increase visibility through searches. SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the process of optimising a website to rank prominently on the organic search results. To gain a higher rank in search engine results, advertisers use various SEO tactics, such as linking, targeting keywords and meta descriptions and creating high level content that other sites will link to.

SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a subset of digital advertising, associated with targeting a website to rank on the paid search engine results pages. Instead of paying for the actual ad, advertisers pay each time users click on the ad to their website. SEM is a paid search strategy.

• Affiliate Marketing:
  filiate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing (advertising) another person’s or company’s products. It is a type of performance-based marketing by which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought in by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
• Social Media Advertising:
  Social media advertising, or social media targeting, are advertisements served to users on social media platforms. Social networks utilise user information to serve highly relevant advertisements based on interactions within a specific platform.

Question 5

Outline application of appropriate digital marketing strategy.

Answer 5

• Affliate Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)

(A,C,E,S)

Question 6

Describe mobile marketing methods to drive e-commerce and branding.

Answer 6

• Short Message Services (SMS):
  The traditional method within mobile marketing: this method include sending out promotional messages through the telecom networks using the short messaging system. The early rise of mobile marketing through this method gave rise to users receiving many unsolicited advertising messages and prompted the Singapore Government to create the Do Not Call Registry to allow users exert greater control over the types of messages they receive.
• Mobile Applications (Apps):
  Mobile advertising involving mobile apps is known as app-based marketing. Increasingly, companies are inclined to create their own mobile applications and entice consumers to download them, so as to retain a constant presence in consumers’ phones at all times. This allows the companies to have a greater interaction with consumers directly on their mobile phones.
• QR Code Technology:
  QR is short for Quick Response (they can be read quickly by a cell phone). The reason why they are more useful than a standard barcode is that they can store (and digitally present) much more data, including url links, geo coordinates, and text. The other key feature of QR Codes is that instead of requiring a chunky hand-held scanner to scan them, all modern cell phones can scan them.
  QR Code Technology allow companies to direct consumers to their desired websites. QR codes can be seen in physical posters, street advertisements, storefronts and even advertisement panels. This allows companies to reach out to consumers using omni-channel marketing where users are directing from offline to online to view products and services and potentially purchasing them.
• Responsive Web Design (for mobile devices):
  Responsive Web design(RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience -easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling-across a wide range of devices such as mobile devices and tablets.
• Social Media Marketing Optimisation:
  Social media optimisation (SMO) is the process of increasing the awareness of a product, brand or event by using a number of social media outlets and communities to generate viral publicity.
• Mobile Display Advertising (Mobile Ads):
  A type of ad that can appear on web pages and apps that are viewed on a mobile device like a cell phone or tablet. These ads can also be set up to appear on the users’ mobile devices based on their location and in relation to a specific area or business.
• Tailor Content for Micro-Moments/Micro Moments Marketing;
  Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device–increasingly a smartphone –to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.

Question 7

Describe social media platforms and marketing campaigns.

Answer 7

In what has become the most popular platform for Digital Marketing, it is imperative that companies have a social media presence. Common platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest and Weibo (within China). If a firm needs to set up and maintain a social media platform for marketing campaigns, it must consider many factors, and perform many following tasks. These can include:

• Social media accounts means any and all accounts, profiles, pages, feeds, registrations and other presences on or in connection with any social media or social networking website or online service
• Social media profile types
• Create and edit social media business profile
• Create and update social media posts
• Social media management services
• Social media URL shorteners
• Influencers, reviews and referrals on social media
• Creation of engaging content
• Comments and notifications for lead generation

Question 8

Explain technologies and trends that impact business activties.

Answer 8

• Mobification:
  Marketers therefore need to put a mobile marketing strategy in place to engage with their prospects and customers. This could involve creating a mobile website but, depending on the business, mobile elements will include the ability to send text messages to customers.
• Video Marketing:
  A video helps tell more compelling stories, gets the point across faster and can improve sales. Video on a landing page or sales page, for example, can help increase conversions by as much as 80%, according to research.
  Marketers today need to produce quality video content for their prospects and customers to increase the chances of their products and services to get noticed, and to remain competitive.
• Use of Chatbots:
  Chatbots are programmes built to automatically engage with received messages. Chatbots can be programmed to:
  1. respond the same way each time,
  2. respond differently to messages containing certain keywords,
  3. use machine learning to adapt their responses to fit the situation.
  Chatbots leverage chat mediums like SMS text, website chat windows and social messaging services across platforms like Facebook and Twitter to receive and respond to messages.
• Internet of Things:
  It is the concept of basically connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other).
• Autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI):
  AI is basically smart software that enables machines to mimic human behaviour. For many people, it is already a part of daily life.
• Big Data:
  Big Data is a phrase used to mean a massive volume of both structured and unstructured data that is so large it is difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques.

Question 9

Describe challenges in digital marketing.

Answer 9

• Technology Disruptors:
  A disruptive technology is one that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry, or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry. Disruptive technologies are not something new.
• Privacy and Security:
  With so much personal data stored on government and company databases, data breach risks are a real concern for today’s consumers. Criminal hackers around the world are looking to steal consumer data to sell or use them for illegal purposes.
• Data Manipulation:
  Hackers don’t always steal data. Sometimes the goal is to manipulate the data to intentionally trigger external events that can be capitalised on.
• Fake Reviews:
  Negative fake reviews are written to persuade a consumer not to take action on the product being reviewed.
  They are reviews which are designed specifically to give a false impression to consumers on the point of purchasing. They do not accurately reflect the product or service they’re talking about because they are designed to go after consumers’ wallets in the same way as “fake news” aims to dupe peoples’ thought processes.
• Monopolisation of Media:
  Media monopolisation, also variously known as concentration of media ownership, media consolidation or media convergence is a process whereby progressively fewer powerful or influential individuals or very large organisations control increasing shares of the mass media.
• Cybercrime and Cyber Security:
  The rise in the widespread use of technology has brought with it a rise in cybercrime. Some examples of cybercrime include:
   Personal data, passwords and identity theft
   Data phishing
   Hacking of websites and systems
   Online scams
   Misuse of bots
   Virus, spyware, malware and adware