Campaign Critique

BUS302

Digital and Social Media Marketing

Learning objectives

• Understand the key differentiating features of digital marketing in comparison to traditional media.

• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of social media.

The role of digital marketing communications in IMC

• Australians are spending an increasing amount of time online (24 hours per month).

• A quarter of the time is spent on social media.

• Online behaviour has become a source of entertainment and a place for information-gathering.

• The Australian online advertising market has increased by $2 billion to reach A$7.4 billion (2016), a 29.7% increase over the prior financial year.

• Digital marketing offers one of the most dynamic areas of modern marketing.

Advantages of digital advertising

• The communications model for advertising changes in the context of digital media.

• In the traditional model, receivers are ‘passive’ participants.

• In digital media, it is the participants who control the information they receive.

• More optimal targeting of consumers who visit web pages

• Accessibility across locations and time of day

• Better behavioural tracking of participants

• Improved cost-effectiveness

• Enhanced follow-up from enquiries and sales

• More customised advertising

Promotional mix Role of digital marketing

Traditional advertising Traditional advertising can point viewers to the company, for more rational purchase information

Sales promotion Social media can offer various promotions, such as contests, that allow for the collection of consumer data

Public relations Inform about public relations activities, such as news items or recent events

Personal selling Social media allows consumers to voice positive or negative comments and provide feedback to the company

The objectives and role of digital marketing

Digital marketing platforms

Social media

• Benefits of social media for marketers include:

• learning about and engaging with customers

• reaching customers with enhanced

advertisements that may have otherwise been

missed

• achieving brand equity

• utilising viral marketing, increasing exposure and

word-of-mouth.

Viral marketing

• Viral marketing is a technique for creating interest in a marketing message.

• The process includes seeding the message and influencing a small group of people to create a positive word-of-mouth experience.

• This experience is often referred to as ‘buzz’.

• The seeding may include something as simple as emailing a promotional message to a number of recipients, who then forward the message on.

Online communities

• Online communities are places where groups of people with similar interests gather together in a virtual community to share ideas and opinions.

• Procter and Gamble (P&G) have created two social networking sites where participants can share ideas; e.g. ‘tips and tricks on washing clothes’.

• One such site targets women who wish to interact on matters of health, weight loss and pregnancy.

• The company can monitor the interactions to gain a better insight into marketing messages that will resonate with their consumers.

• Nike sponsors an online community, which has six million members who use it on average three times a week.

Other social media strategies

• Contributing to blogs

Comments that are not perceived as spin can enhance the company’s image and provide useful information to consumers.

• Social bookmarking

Unlike search engines that provide suggestions, which may or may not be relevant to the user’s interest, social bookmarking utilities provide highly relevant resource links to the topics.

• RSS feeds

These feeds provide a standard (and automated) approach to disseminating digital material to recipients.

Social media advantages and disadvantages

Advantages:

• flexibility

• reach options

• consumer engagement

• two-way dialogue

• integration and ability to drive traffic

• improved metrics and research

• cost-effectiveness.

Disadvantages:

• hackers and fraud

• dealing with negative (viral) comments

• clutter

• privacy.

Owned media

• ‘Owned media’ means companies do not have to pay for advertising on other websites.

• The aim of owned media is to connect sales to further brand-building interaction.

• Some current owned media assets include:

corporate websites

corporate blogs

podcasts

emails

SMSs

apps.

Corporate websites, blogs and podcasts

• Corporate websites, blogs and podcasts can act as advertising for the company.

• Owned websites allow companies to interact with consumers; blogs represent comments; and podcasts are usually a downloadable audio file, such as those offered to radio listeners.

• Interaction with the company may include:

• positive and negative feedback

• sign-up areas that gives the company ‘permission’ to keep in contact with the consumer

• offers of specials.

Email

• A modern-day postal service that offers inexpensive, speedy and customised communication.

• Usually a customer needs to agree to receive this type of communication.

• Customised emails can include:

• newsletters

• promotions

• recommendations (Qantas suggesting places to visit because of a warmer/cooler climate).

Access on the go

• More than one billion smartphones are in use.

• Tablet growth is outpacing PCs.

• ‘Access on the go’ is driving a new age of electronic media, through:

SMS, MMS, apps and direct access to the web wherever you are.

• Mobile connection at any time of the day offers:

new value to companies and customers

altered cost structures of advertising budgets.

Search engines • Search engines have become a common way of attaining

information; e.g. reviews of products.

• Search engines provide information based upon:

algorithms (unsponsored results)

paid results (ads).

• ‘On-page’ strategies adopted by marketers include:

• relevant keywords for higher page rankings

• relevant page content

• trusted external links that may be useful to visitors

• creating relevant page titles and pages that facilitate the

spiders’ search process.

Paid media

• Goals of paid media include:

• driving traffic to places where sales can be made

• building brand equity

• generating sales.

• Types of paid media include:

• search engines

• display or banner ads

• social media

• sponsored blogs.

Inside games and virtual worlds

• Companies such as Coca-Cola and Sony offer interactive games that revolve around their brands.

• Advertising to people involved in gaming and virtual reality can build:

• brand familiarity

• brand preference.

• This occurs because of an active interaction between the person and the brand, rather than a viewer who passively views a banner ad.

Advertising via behavioural targeting

• Higher levels of segmentation can be attained by tracking and using a person’s online behaviour.

• Companies can be employed to provide advertisers with a person’s search behaviour.

• For example: a person searching holidays at a certain destination could be targeted with banner ads that offer just such a location.

Measuring digital media effectiveness

• Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing can be more easily measured and in real time.

• The aim is to choose key effective measures.

• The measure chosen depends upon the objectives.

• For example, a visitor to a car website clicks on which areas: pictures, options, prices? How do they short list? How do they make a purchase? Did they book a test drive?

Measuring corporate websites

• Diagnostic tools exist to measure ‘visits’ to a website.

• Google Analytics is one tool that offers information to different layers of the company.

Executives Which segments are most valuable? Which initiatives are working?

Marketers Where users come from, important keywords, which ad is most effective.

Content developers Who stayed the longest and what did they look for?

Measuring social media

• Social media metrics is currently an under- utilised tool.

• A survey found only 8% of companies had an ROI measure for social media expenditure.

• Social media metrics include:

word-of-mouth buzz, media mentions, brand likes, reach, engagement, share of voice, and others.