Week 10 - Digital Marketing

Question 1

What are the elements that make digital marketing successful?

Answer 1

1. Content - something interesting to say
2. Networks - a forum in which to talk & listen
3. Participation - people

Question 2

How can marketers shape the digital strategy?

Answer 2

1. Environment scanning
2. Strategy formulation
3. Strategy implementation
4. Strategy evaluation

Question 3

What is environment scanning?

Answer 3

Review your internal capabilities and your external environment.

For example:

• what financial position are you in?
• do you have the skills to engage consumers in conversation?
• what opportunities and threats are there?

Question 4

What is Strategy formulation?

Answer 4

Develop a plan that reflects the campaign’s objectives.

E.g.:
Do you want to generate more sales/ more loyal customers?

Question 5

What is Strategy Implementation?

Answer 5

Once a strategy has been developed and objectives set, firms need to implement. In a B2C context, there are 4 sub-steps involved:

1. Listening - use DM for research and better understand your customers (crowdsourcing)
2. Talking - use DM to spread messages about your product/firm
3. Energising - Use DM to find enthusiasts and ambassadors (lego) that spread your message
4. Supporting - Use DM to help your customers support each other.

Question 6

What is energising?

Answer 6

The purpose of a business is to create a business who creates a customer.

Question 7

What is Support?

Answer 7

Supporting customers is a burden. In the 90s firms figured out that websites can help customers get information.

However in the late 90s people found a more reliable support - each other.

Question 8

Give an example of great support.

Answer 8

Jeff Stenski - Jeff answers questions on Dell’s community support forum for free! He has posted over 20 thousand times; his posts have been viewed over 2mill times.

Why? - gratification, status, appreciation from the community, to get a job?, intrinsic motivation, rewarding.

Question 9

What are possible threats of pursuing a DM strategy?

Answer 9

The biggest threat is for your digital efforts to fall flat because you ignore what customers really want (think core product level).

Question 10

Who here wants to interact more with companies online?

Answer 10

6/10 consumers have no interest in interacting with brands via social media.

Question 11

Today’s summary.

Answer 11

1. Digital marketing strategies work like conversations
2. Marketers can shape their digital marketing via
   strategy formulation process (which consists of 4 main steps)
3. Digital marketing can pose a number of threats to firms.