Digital Marketing

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Digital marketing

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.[1][2] Its development during the 1990s and 2000s, changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing.

As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life,[3] and as people increasingly use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops,[4][5] Digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace.

Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones.[6] The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates Digital marketing from online marketing.[7] The development of Digital marketing is inseparable from technology development.

One of the key points in the start of was in 1971, where Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email and his technology set the platform to allow people to send and receive files through different machines.[8] However, the more recognisable period as being the start of Digital marketing is 1990 as this was where the Archie search engine was created as an index for FTP sites.

In the 1980s, the storage capacity of computer was already big enough to store huge volumes of customer information.

Companies started choosing online techniques, such as database marketing, rather than limited list broker.[9] These kinds of databases allowed companies to track customers' information more effectively, thus transforming the relationship between buyer and seller.

However, the manual process was not as efficient.

In the 1990s, the term Digital marketing was first coined,.[10] With the debut of server/client architecture and the popularity of personal computers, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications became a significant factor in marketing technology.[11] Fierce competition forced vendors to include more service into their software, for example, marketing, sales and service applications.

Marketers were also able to own huge online customer data by eCRM software after the Internet was born.

Companies could update the data of customer needs and obtain the priorities of their experience.

This led to the first clickable banner ad being going live in 1994, which was the "You Will" campaign by AT&T and over the first four months of it going live, 44% of all people who saw it clicked on the ad.[12][13] In the 2000s, with increasing numbers of Internet users and the birth of iPhone, customers began searching products and making decisions about their needs online first, instead of consulting a salesperson, which created a new problem for the marketing department of a company.[14] In addition, a survey in 2000 in the United Kingdom found that most retailers had not registered their own domain address.[15] These problems encouraged marketers to find new ways to integrate digital technology into market development.

In 2007, marketing automation was developed as a response to the ever evolving marketing climate.

Marketing automation is the process by which software is used to automate conventional marketing processes.[16] Marketing automation helped companies segment customers, launch multichannel marketing campaigns, and provide personalized information for customers.[16] However, the speed of its adaptability to consumer devices was not fast enough.

Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s, when[17][18] the proliferation of devices' capable of accessing digital media led to sudden growth.[19] Statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that Digital marketing was still growing.[20][21] With the development of social media in the 2000s, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, consumers became highly dependent on digital electronics in daily lives.

Therefore, they expected a seamless user experience across different channels for searching product's information.

The change of customer behavior improved the diversification of marketing technology.[22] Digital marketing is also referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'.

The term Digital marketing has grown in popularity over time.

In the USA online marketing is still a popular term.

In Italy, Digital marketing is referred to as web marketing.

Worldwide Digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.[23] Digital media growth was estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend at 48% growth in 2010.[24] An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) to tailor advertising for internet users, but OBA raises concern of consumer privacy and data protection.[19] Nonlinear marketing, a type of interactive marketing, is a long-term marketing approach which builds on businesses collecting information about an Internet user's online activities, and trying to be visible in multiple areas.[25][26] Unlike traditional marketing techniques, which involve direct, one-way messaging to consumers (via print, television and radio advertising), nonlinear Digital marketing strategies are centered on reaching prospective customers across multiple online channels.[27] Combined with higher consumer knowledge and the demand for more sophisticated consumer offerings, this change has forced many businesses to rethink their outreach strategy and adopt or incorporate omnichannel, nonlinear marketing techniques to maintain sufficient brand exposure, engagement and reach.[28] Nonlinear marketing strategies involve efforts to adapt the advertising to different platforms,[29] and to tailor the advertising to different individual buyers rather than a large coherent audience.[26] Tactics may include: Some studies indicate that consumer responses to traditional marketing approaches are becoming less predictable for businesses.[30] According to a 2018 study, nearly 90% of online consumers in the United States researched products and brands online before visiting the store or making a purchase.[31] The Global Web Index estimated that in 2018, a little more than 50% of consumers researched products on social media.[32] Businesses often rely on individuals portraying their products in a positive light on social media, and may adapt their marketing strategy to target people with large social media followings in order to generate such comments.[33] In this manner, businesses can use consumers to advertise their products or services, decreasing the cost for the company.[34] One of the key objectives of modern Digital marketing is to raise brand awareness, the extent to which customers and the general public are familiar with and recognize a particular brand.

Enhancing brand awareness is important in Digital marketing, and marketing in general, because of its impact on brand perception and consumer decision-making.

According to the 2015 essay, “Impact of Brand on Consumer Behavior”: “Brand awareness, as one of the fundamental dimensions of brand equity, is often considered to be a prerequisite of consumers’ buying decision, as it represents the main factor for including a brand in the consideration set.

Brand awareness can also influence consumers’ perceived risk assessment and their confidence in the purchase decision, due to familiarity with the brand and its characteristics.”[35] Recent trends show that businesses and digital marketers are prioritizing brand awareness, focusing more of their Digital marketing efforts on cultivating brand recognition and recall than in previous years.

This is evidenced by a 2019 Content Marketing Institute study, which found that 81% of digital marketers have worked on enhancing brand recognition over the past year.[36] Another Content Marketing Institute survey revealed 89% of B2B marketers now believe improving brand awareness to be more important than efforts directed at increasing sales.[37] Increasing brand awareness is a focus of Digital marketing strategy for a number of reasons: Digital marketing strategies may include the use of one or more online channels and techniques (omnichannel) to increase brand awareness among consumers.[45] Building brand awareness may involve such methods/tools as: Search engine optimization techniques may be used to improve the visibility of business websites and brand-related content for common industry-related search queries.[46] The importance of SEO to increasing brand awareness is said to correlate with the growing influence of search results and search features like featured snippets, knowledge panels and local SEO on customer behavior.[47] SEM, also known as PPC advertising, involves the purchase of ad space in prominent, visible positions atop search results pages and websites.

Search ads have been shown to have a positive impact on brand recognition, awareness and conversions.[48] 33% of searchers who click on paid ads do so because they directly respond to their particular search query.[49] 70% of marketers list increasing brand awareness as their number one goal for marketing on social media platforms.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are listed as the top platforms currently used by social media marketing teams.[50] 56% of marketers believe personalized content – brand-centered blogs, articles, social updates, videos, landing pages – improves brand recall and engagement.[51] According to Mentionlytics, an active and consistent content strategy that incorporates elements of interactive content creation, social posting and guest blogging can improve brand awareness and loyalty by 88%.[52] One of the major changes that occurred in traditional marketing was the "emergence of Digital marketing" (Patrutiu Baltes, Loredana, 2015), this led to the reinvention of marketing strategies in order to adapt to this major change in traditional marketing (Patrutiu Baltes, Loredana, 2015).

As Digital marketing is dependent on technology which is ever-evolving and fast-changing, the same features should be expected from Digital marketing developments and strategies.

This portion is an attempt to qualify or segregate the notable highlights existing and being used as of press time.[when?] To summarize, Pull Digital marketing is characterized by consumers actively seeking marketing content while Push Digital marketing occurs when marketers send messages without that content being actively sought by the recipients.

An important consideration today while deciding on a strategy is that the digital tools have democratized the promotional landscape.

The new digital era has enabled brands to selectively target their customers that may potentially be interested in their brand or based on previous browsing interests.

Businesses can now use social media to select the age range, location, gender and interests of whom they would like their targeted post to be seen by.

Furthermore, based on a customer's recent search history they can be ‘followed’ on the internet so they see advertisements from similar brands, products and services,[58] This allows businesses to target the specific customers that they know and feel will most benefit from their product or service, something that had limited capabilities up until the digital era.

Digital marketing activity is still growing across the world according to the headline global marketing index.

A study published in September 2018, found that global outlays on Digital marketing tactics are approaching $100 billion.[59] Digital media continues to rapidly grow; while the marketing budgets are expanding, traditional media is declining (World Economics, 2015).[60] Digital media helps brands reach consumers to engage with their product or service in a personalised way.

Five areas, which are outlined as current industry practices that are often ineffective are prioritizing clicks, balancing search and display, understanding mobiles, targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic, and cross-platform measurement (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Why these practices are ineffective and some ways around making these aspects effective are discussed surrounding the following points.

Prioritizing clicks refers to display click ads, although advantageous by being ‘simple, fast and inexpensive’ rates for display ads in 2016 is only 0.10 percent in the United States.

This means one in a thousand click ads are relevant therefore having little effect.

This displays that marketing companies should not just use click ads to evaluate the effectiveness of display advertisements (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Balancing search and display for digital display ads are important; marketers tend to look at the last search and attribute all of the effectiveness to this.

This, in turn, disregards other marketing efforts, which establish brand value within the consumers mind.

ComScore determined through drawing on data online, produced by over one hundred multichannel retailers that digital display marketing poses strengths when compared with or positioned alongside, paid search (Whiteside, 2016).[61] This is why it is advised that when someone clicks on a display ad the company opens a landing page, not its home page.

A landing page typically has something to draw the customer in to search beyond this page.

Things such as free offers that the consumer can obtain through giving the company contact information so that they can use retargeting communication strategies (Square2Marketing, 2012).[62] Commonly marketers see increased sales among people exposed to a search ad.

But the fact of how many people you can reach with a display campaign compared to a search campaign should be considered.

Multichannel retailers have an increased reach if the display is considered in synergy with search campaigns.

Overall both search and display aspects are valued as display campaigns build awareness for the brand so that more people are likely to click on these digital ads when running a search campaign (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Understanding Mobiles: Understanding mobile devices is a significant aspect of Digital marketing because smartphones and tablets are now responsible for 64% of the time US consumers are online (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Apps provide a big opportunity as well as challenge for the marketers because firstly the app needs to be downloaded and secondly the person needs to actually use it.

This may be difficult as ‘half the time spent on smartphone apps occurs on the individuals single most used app, and almost 85% of their time on the top four rated apps’ (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Mobile advertising can assist in achieving a variety of commercial objectives and it is effective due to taking over the entire screen, and voice or status is likely to be considered highly; although the message must not be seen or thought of as intrusive (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Disadvantages of digital media used on mobile devices also include limited creative capabilities, and reach.

Although there are many positive aspects including the users entitlement to select product information, digital media creating a flexible message platform and there is potential for direct selling (Belch & Belch, 2012).[63] Cross-platform measurement: The number of marketing channels continues to expand, as measurement practices are growing in complexity.

A cross-platform view must be used to unify audience measurement and media planning.

Market researchers need to understand how the Omni-channel affects consumer's behaviour, although when advertisements are on a consumer's device this does not get measured.

Significant aspects to cross-platform measurement involves deduplication and understanding that you have reached an incremental level with another platform, rather than delivering more impressions against people that have previously been reached (Whiteside, 2016).[61] An example is ‘ESPN and comScore partnered on Project Blueprint discovering the sports broadcaster achieved a 21% increase in unduplicated daily reach thanks to digital advertising’ (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Television and radio industries are the electronic media, which competes with digital and other technological advertising.

Yet television advertising is not directly competing with online digital advertising due to being able to cross platform with digital technology.

Radio also gains power through cross platforms, in online streaming content.

Television and radio continue to persuade and affect the audience, across multiple platforms (Fill, Hughes, & De Franceso, 2013).[64] Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic: Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic all are aspects used by marketers to help advocate digital advertising.

Cookies are a form of digital advertising, which are tracking tools within desktop devices; causing difficulty, with shortcomings including deletion by web browsers, the inability to sort between multiple users of a device, inaccurate estimates for unique visitors, overstating reach, understanding frequency, problems with ad servers, which cannot distinguish between when cookies have been deleted and when consumers have not previously been exposed to an ad.

Due to the inaccuracies influenced by cookies, demographics in the target market are low and vary (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Another element, which is affected within Digital marketing, is ‘viewabilty’ or whether the ad was actually seen by the consumer.

Many ads are not seen by a consumer and may never reach the right demographic segment.

Brand safety is another issue of whether or not the ad was produced in the context of being unethical or having offensive content.

Recognizing fraud when an ad is exposed is another challenge marketers face.

This relates to invalid traffic as premium sites are more effective at detecting fraudulent traffic, although non-premium sites are more so the problem (Whiteside, 2016).[61] Digital marketing Channels are systems based on the Internet that can create, accelerate, and transmit product value from producer to a consumer terminal, through digital networks.[65][66] Digital marketing is facilitated by multiple Digital marketing channels, As an advertiser one's core objective is to find channels which result in maximum two-way communication and a better overall ROI for the brand.

There are multiple Digital marketing channels available namely;[67] It is important for a firm to reach out to consumers and create a two-way communication model, as Digital marketing allows consumers to give back feed back to the firm on a community based site or straight directly to the firm via email.[80] Firms should seek this long term communication relationship by using multiple forms of channels and using promotional strategies related to their target consumer as well as word-of mouth marketing.[80] The ICC Code has integrated rules that apply to marketing communications using digital interactive media throughout the guidelines.

There is also an entirely updated section dealing with issues specific to digital interactive media techniques and platforms.

Code self-regulation on use of digital interactive media includes: Digital marketing planning is a term used in marketing management.

It describes the first stage of forming a Digital marketing strategy for the wider Digital marketing system.

The difference between digital and traditional marketing planning is that it uses digitally based communication tools and technology such as Social, Web, Mobile, Scannable Surface.[84][85] Nevertheless, both are aligned with the vision, the mission of the company and the overarching business strategy.[86] Using Dr Dave Chaffey's approach, the Digital marketing planning (DMP) has three main stages: Opportunity, Strategy and Action.

He suggests that any business looking to implement a successful Digital marketing strategy must structure their plan by looking at opportunity, strategy and action.

This generic strategic approach often has phases of situation review, goal setting, strategy formulation, resource allocation and monitoring.[86] To create an effective DMP, a business first needs to review the marketplace and set 'SMART' (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-Bound) objectives.[87] They can set SMART objectives by reviewing the current benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) of the company and competitors.

It is pertinent that the analytics used for the KPIs be customised to the type, objectives, mission and vision of the company.[88][89] Companies can scan for marketing and sales opportunities by reviewing their own outreach as well as influencer outreach.

This means they have competitive advantage because they are able to analyse their co-marketers influence and brand associations.[90] To cease opportunity, the firm should summarize their current customers' personas and purchase journey from this they are able to deduce their Digital marketing capability.

This means they need to form a clear picture of where they are currently and how many resources they can allocate for their Digital marketing strategy i.e.

labour, time etc.

By summarizing the purchase journey, they can also recognise gaps and growth for future marketing opportunities that will either meet objectives or propose new objectives and increase profit.

To create a planned digital strategy, the company must review their digital proposition (what you are offering to consumers) and communicate it using digital customer targeting techniques.

So, they must define online value proposition (OVP), this means the company must express clearly what they are offering customers online e.g.

brand positioning.

The company should also (re)select target market segments and personas and define digital targeting approaches.

After doing this effectively, it is important to review the marketing mix for online options.

The marketing mix comprises the 4Ps – Product, Price, Promotion and Place.[91][92] Some academics have added three additional elements to the traditional 4Ps of marketing Process, Place and Physical appearance making it 7Ps of marketing.[93] The third and final stage requires the firm to set a budget and management systems; these must be measurable touchpoints, such as audience reached across all digital platforms.

Furthermore, marketers must ensure the budget and management systems are integrating the paid, owned and earned media of the company.[94] The Action and final stage of planning also requires the company to set in place measurable content creation e.g.

oral, visual or written online media.[95] After confirming the Digital marketing plan, a scheduled format of digital communications (e.g.

Gantt Chart) should be encoded throughout the internal operations of the company.

This ensures that all platforms used fall in line and complement each other for the succeeding stages of Digital marketing strategy.

One way marketers can reach out to consumers, and understand their thought process is through what is called an empathy map.

An empathy map is a four step process.

The first step is through asking questions that the consumer would be thinking in their demographic.

The second step is to describe the feelings that the consumer may be having.

The third step is to think about what the consumer would say in their situation.

The final step is to imagine what the consumer will try to do based on the other three steps.

This map is so marketing teams can put themselves in their target demographics shoes.[96] Web Analytics are also a very important way to understand consumers.

They show the habits that people have online for each website.[97] One particular form of these analytics is predictive analytics which helps marketers figure out what route consumers are on.

This uses the information gathered from other analytics, and then creates different predictions of what people will do so that companies can strategize on what to do next, according to the peoples trends.[98] The "sharing economy" refers to an economic pattern that aims to obtain a resource that is not fully utilized.[101] Nowadays, the sharing economy has had an unimagined effect on many traditional elements including labor, industry, and distribution system.[101] This effect is not negligible that some industries are obviously under threat.[101][102] The sharing economy is influencing the traditional marketing channels by changing the nature of some specific concept including ownership, assets, and recruitment.[102] Digital marketing channels and traditional marketing channels are similar in function that the value of the product or service is passed from the original producer to the end user by a kind of supply chain.[103] Digital marketing channels, however, consist of internet systems that create, promote, and deliver products or services from producer to consumer through digital networks.[104] Increasing changes to marketing channels has been a significant contributor to the expansion and growth of the sharing economy.[104] Such changes to marketing channels has prompted unprecedented and historic growth.[104] In addition to this typical approach, the built-in control, efficiency and low cost of Digital marketing channels is an essential features in the application of sharing economy.[103] Digital marketing channels within the sharing economy are typically divided into three domains including, e-mail, social media, and search engine marketing or SEM.[104] Other emerging Digital marketing channels, particularly branded mobile apps, have excelled in the sharing economy.[104] Branded mobile apps are created specifically to initiate engagement between customers and the company.This engagement is typically facilitated through entertainment, information, or market transaction.[104]

Digital marketing system

Direct digital marketing

Marketing communications

Marketing

Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships.[1][2] It is the business process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying customers' needs and wants.

Because Marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce.[3] Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B Marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C Marketing).[4] Regardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use.

These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of Marketing.[5] This leads into the Marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold.[6][7] This can in turn be affected by the environment surrounding the product [8], the results of Marketing research and market research[9], and the characteristics of the product's target market.[10] Once these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product.[4] This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.[4] Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large".[11] The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale.

From a sales process engineering perspective, Marketing is "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction".[12] Philip Kotler defined Marketing as "Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process".[13] and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”[13] The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines Marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably".[14] A similar concept is the value-based Marketing which states the role of Marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value.[15] In this context, Marketing can be defined as "the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage".[15] In the past, Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling.

However, because the academic study of Marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science,[16] allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.[17] The process of Marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals.[18] Many parts of the Marketing process (e.g.

product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound Marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.[citation needed][19] The 'Marketing concept' proposes that to complete its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of potential consumers and satisfy them more effectively than its competitors.

This concept originated from Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations but would not become widely used until nearly 200 years later.[20] Marketing and Marketing Concepts are directly related.

Given the centrality of customer needs, and wants in Marketing, a rich understanding of these concepts is essential:[21] Marketing research, conducted for the purpose of new product development or product improvement, is often concerned with identifying the consumer's unmet needs.[22] Customer needs are central to market segmentation which is concerned with dividing markets into distinct groups of buyers on the basis of "distinct needs, characteristics, or behaviors who might require separate products or Marketing mixes."[23] Needs-based segmentation (also known as benefit segmentation) "places the customers' desires at the forefront of how a company designs and markets products or services."[24] Although needs-based segmentation is difficult to do in practice, it has been proved to be one of the most effective ways to segment a market.[25][22] In addition, a great deal of advertising and promotion is designed to show how a given product's benefits meet the customer's needs, wants or expectations in a unique way.[26] The two major segments of Marketing are business-to-business (B2B) Marketing and business-to-consumer (B2C) Marketing.

[4] B2B (business-to-business) Marketing refers to any Marketing strategy or content that is geared towards a business or organization.

Any company that sells products or services to other businesses or organizations (vs.

consumers) typically uses B2B Marketing strategies.

Examples of products sold through B2B Marketing include: The four major categories of B2B product purchasers are: Business-to-consumer Marketing, or B2C Marketing, refers to the tactics and strategies in which a company promotes its products and services to individual people.

Traditionally, this could refer to individuals shopping for personal products in a broad sense.

More recently the term B2C refers to the online selling of consumer products.[27] Consumer-to-business Marketing or C2B Marketing is a business model where the end consumers create products and services which are consumed by businesses and organizations.

It is diametrically opposed to the popular concept of B2C or Business- to- Consumer where the companies make goods and services available to the end consumers.

Customer to customer Marketing or C2C Marketing represents a market environment where one customer purchases goods from another customer using a third-party business or platform to facilitate the transaction.

C2C companies are a new type of model that has emerged with e-commerce technology and the sharing economy.[28] The different goals of B2B and B2C Marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets.

The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, number of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.[4] A Marketing orientation has been defined as a "philosophy of business management."[5] or "a corporate state of mind"[29] or as an "organisation[al] culture"[30] Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform Marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:[31] A firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product.

A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality.

The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay.

Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the Marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts Marketing.[32][33] A sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants.

This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques.[34] The sales orientation "is typically practiced with unsought goods."[35] One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies.[36] The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.

A 2011 meta analyses[37] found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).

A firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope.

A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation).

The so-called production era is thought to have dominated Marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries.

Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is "one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers...

[and] is still useful in some situations."[38] The Marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary Marketing.

It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its Marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes.

Firms adopting a Marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&D (Research & Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver.[39] Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.[40] The Marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are: A number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value.

Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal Marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities.

Companies that adopt a societal Marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports.

Sustainable Marketing or green Marketing is an extension of societal Marketing.[41] A Marketing mix is a foundational tool used to guide decision making in Marketing.

The Marketing mix represents the basic tools that marketers can use to bring their products or services to the market.

They are the foundation of managerial Marketing and the Marketing plan typically devotes a section to the Marketing mix.

The traditional Marketing mix refers to four broad levels of Marketing decision, namely: product, price, promotion, and place.[6][42] One of the limitations of the 4Ps approach is its emphasis of an inside out-view.

[45] An inside-out approach is the traditional planning approach where the organisation identifies its desired goals and objectives, which are often based around what has always been done.

Marketing's task then becomes one of "selling" the organization's products and messages to the "outside" or external stakeholders.[43] In contrast, an outside-in approach first seeks to understand the needs and wants of the consumer.[46] From a model-building perspective, the 4 Ps has attracted a number of criticisms.

Well-designed models should exhibit clearly defined categories that are mutually exclusive, with no overlap.

Yet, the 4 Ps model has extensive overlapping problems.

Several authors stress the hybrid nature of the fourth P, mentioning the presence of two important dimensions, "communication" (general and informative communications such as public relations and corporate communications) and "promotion" (persuasive communications such as advertising and direct selling).

Certain Marketing activities, such as personal selling, may be classified as either promotion or as part of the place (i.e., distribution) element.[47] Some pricing tactics, such as promotional pricing, can be classified as price variables or promotional variables and, therefore, also exhibit some overlap.

Other important criticisms include that the Marketing mix lacks a strategic framework and is, therefore, unfit to be a planning instrument, particularly when uncontrollable, external elements are an important aspect of the Marketing environment.[48] To overcome the deficiencies of the 4P model, some authors have suggested extensions or modifications to the original model.

Extensions of the four P's are often included in cases such as services Marketing where unique characteristics (i.e.

intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity and the inseparability of production and consumption) warrant additional consideration factors.

Other extensions have been found necessary for retail Marketing, industrial Marketing, and internet Marketing include "people", "process", and "physical evidence" and are often applied in the case of services Marketing[49] Other extensions have been found necessary in retail Marketing, industrial Marketing and internet Marketing.

In response to environmental and technological changes in Marketing, as well as criticisms towards the 4Ps approach, the 4Cs has emerged as a modern Marketing mix model.

Consumer (or Client) The consumer refers to the person or group that will acquire the product.

This aspect of the model focuses on fulfilling the wants or needs of the consumer.

[7] Cost Cost refers to what is exchanged in return for the product.

Cost mainly consists of the monetary value of the product.

Cost also refers to anything else the consumer must sacrifice to attain the product, such as time or money spent on transportation to acquire the product.

[7] Convenience Like "Place" in the 4Ps model, convenience refers to where the product will be sold.

This, however, not only refers to physical stores but also whether the product is available in person or online.

The convenience aspect emphasizes making it as easy as possible for the consumer to attain the product, thus making them more likely to do so.

[7] Communication Like "Promotion" in the 4Ps model, communication refers to how consumers find out about a product.

Unlike, promotion, communication not only refers to the one-way communication of advertising, but also the two-way communication available through social media.

[7] The term "Marketing environment" relates to all of the factors (whether internal, external, direct or indirect) that affect a firm's Marketing decision-making/planning.

A firm's Marketing environment consists of three main areas, which are: A firm's Marketing macro-environment consists of a variety of external factors that manifest on a large (or macro) scale.

These include factors that are: A common method of assessing a firm's macro-environment is via a PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Ecological) analysis.

Within a PESTLE analysis, a firm would analyze national political issues, culture and climate, key macroeconomic conditions, health and indicators (such as economic growth, inflation, unemployment, etc.), social trends/attitudes, and the nature of technology's impact on its society and the business processes within the society.

[8] A firm's micro-environment comprises factors pertinent to the firm itself, or stakeholders closely connected with the firm or company.

A firm's micro-environment typically spans: In contrast to the macro-environment, an organization holds a greater (though not complete) degree of control over these factors.[8] A firms internal environment consists of factors inside of the actual company.

These are factors controlled by the firm and they affect the relationship that a firm has with its customers.

These include factors such as: Marketing research is a systematic process of analyzing data that involves conducting research to support Marketing activities and the statistical interpretation of data into information.

This information is then used by managers to plan Marketing activities, gauge the nature of a firm's Marketing environment and to attain information from suppliers.

A distinction should be made between Marketing research and market research.

Market research involves gathering information about a particular target market.

As an example, a firm may conduct research in a target market, after selecting a suitable market segment.

In contrast, Marketing research relates to all research conducted within Marketing.

Market research is a subset of Marketing research.

Marketing researchers use statistical methods (such as quantitative research, qualitative research, hypothesis tests, Chi-square tests, linear regression, correlation coefficients, frequency distributions, Poisson and binomial distributions, etc.) to interpret their findings and convert data into information.[52] The stages of research include: Market segmentation consists of taking the total heterogeneous market for a product and dividing it into several sub-markets or segments, each of which tends to be homogeneous in all significant aspects.[10] The process is conducted for two main purposes: better allocation of a firm's finite resources and to better serve the more diversified tastes of contemporary consumers.

A firm only possesses a certain amount of resources.

Thus, it must make choices (and appreciate the related costs) in servicing specific groups of consumers.

Moreover, with more diversity in the tastes of modern consumers, firms are noting the benefit of servicing a multiplicity of new markets.

Market segmentation can be defined in terms of the STP acronym, meaning Segment, Target, and Position.

Segmentation involves the initial splitting up of consumers into persons of like needs/wants/tastes.

Commonly used criteria include: Once a segment has been identified to target, a firm must ascertain whether the segment is beneficial for them to service.

The DAMP acronym is used as criteria to gauge the viability of a target market.

The elements of DAMP are: The next step in the targeting process is the level of differentiation involved in a segment serving.

Three modes of differentiation exist, which are commonly applied by firms.

These are: Positioning concerns how to position a product in the minds of consumers and inform what attributes differentiate it from the competitor's products.

A firm often performs this by producing a perceptual map, which denotes similar products produced in the same industry according to how consumers perceive their price and quality.

From a product's placing on the map, a firm would tailor its Marketing communications to meld with the product's perception among consumers and its position among competitors' offering.

[54] The promotional mix outlines how a company will market its product.

It consists of five tools: personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, advertising and social media Personal selling involves an oral presentation given by a salesperson who approaches an individual or a group of potential customers.

Personal selling allows for two-way communication and relationship building that can aid both the buyer and the seller in their goals.

Personal selling is most commonly seen in business-to-business Marketing (e.g.: selling machinery to a factory, selling paper to a print shop), but it can also be found in business-to-consumer Marketing (e.g.: selling cars at a dealership).

[4]Sales promotion involves short-term incentives to encourage the buying of products.

Examples of these incentives include: Depending on the incentive, one or more of the other elements of the promotional mix may be used in conjunction with sales promotion to inform customers of the incentives.

[4] Public relations is the use of media tools to promote a positive view of a company or product in the public's eye.

Public relations monitors the public opinion of a company or product and generates publicity to either sustain a positive opinion or lessen or change a negative opinion.

Public relations can include interviews, speeches/presentations, corporate literature, social media, news releases and special events.

[4] Advertising occurs when a firm directly pays a media channel to publicize its product.

Common examples of advertising include: Social media is used to facilitate two-way communication between companies and their customers.

Social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat and YouTube allow brands to start a conversation with regular and prospective customers.

Viral Marketing can be greatly facilitated by social media and if successful, allows key Marketing messages and content in reaching a large number of target audiences within a short time frame.

Additionally, social media platforms can also house advertising and public relations content..[4] The area of Marketing planning involves forging a plan for a firm's Marketing activities.

A Marketing plan can also pertain to a specific product, as well as to an organization's overall Marketing strategy.

An organization's Marketing planning process is derived from its overall business strategy.

Thus, when top management are devising the firm's strategic direction/mission, the intended Marketing activities are incorporated into this plan.

Within the overall strategic Marketing plan, the stages of the process are listed as thus: As stated previously, the senior management of a firm would formulate a general business strategy for a firm.

However, this general business strategy would be interpreted and implemented in different contexts throughout the firm.

At the corporate level, Marketing objectives are typically broad-based in nature, and pertain to the general vision of the firm in the short, medium or long-term.

As an example, if one pictures a group of companies (or a conglomerate), top management may state that sales for the group should increase by 25% over a ten-year period.

A strategic business unit (SBU) is a subsidiary within a firm, which participates within a given market/industry.

The SBU would embrace the corporate strategy, and attune it to its own particular industry.

For instance, an SBU may partake in the sports goods industry.

It thus would ascertain how it would attain additional sales of sports goods, in order to satisfy the overall business strategy.

The functional level relates to departments within the SBUs, such as Marketing, finance, HR, production, etc.

The functional level would adopt the SBU's strategy and determine how to accomplish the SBU's own objectives in its market.

To use the example of the sports goods industry again, the Marketing department would draw up Marketing plans, strategies and communications to help the SBU achieve its Marketing aims.

The product life cycle (PLC) is a tool used by Marketing managers to gauge the progress of a product, especially relating to sales or revenue accrued over time.

The PLC is based on a few key assumptions, including: In the introduction stage, a product is launched onto the market.

To stimulate the growth of sales/revenue, use of advertising may be high, in order to heighten awareness of the product in question.

During the growth stage, the product's sales/revenue is increasing, which may stimulate more Marketing communications to sustain sales.

More entrants enter into the market, to reap the apparent high profits that the industry is producing.

When the product hits maturity, its starts to level off, and an increasing number of entrants to a market produce price falls for the product.

Firms may use sales promotions to raise sales.

During decline, demand for a good begins to taper off, and the firm may opt to discontinue the manufacture of the product.

This is so, if revenue for the product comes from efficiency savings in production, over actual sales of a good/service.

However, if a product services a niche market, or is complementary to another product, it may continue the manufacture of the product, despite a low level of sales/revenue being accrued.

[4]

Marketing mix

Marketing may refer to the process of value exchange that is facilitated by the 4 Ps.

The term 'Marketing mix' is a foundation model for businesses, historically centered around product, price, place, and promotion (also known as the "4 Ps").

The Marketing mix has been defined as the "set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market".[1] Thus the Marketing mix refers to four broad levels of marketing decision: product, price, place, and promotion.[2] Marketing practice has been occurring for millennia, but marketing theory emerged in the early twentieth century.

The contemporary Marketing mix, or the 4 Ps, which has become the dominant framework for marketing management decisions, was first published in 1960.[3] In services marketing, an extended Marketing mix is used, typically comprising 7 Ps, made up of the original 4 Ps extended by process, people, and physical evidence.[4] Occasionally service marketers will refer to 8 Ps, comprising these 7 Ps plus performance.[5] In the 1990s, the model of 4 Cs' was introduced as a more customer-driven replacement of the 4 Ps.[6] There are two theories based on 4 Cs: Lauterborn's 4 Cs (consumer, cost, convenience, and communication), and Shimizu's 4 Cs (commodity, cost, channel, and communication).

Given the valuation of customers towards potential product attributes (in any category, e.g.

product, promotion, etc.) and the attributes of the products sold by other companies, the problem of selecting the attributes of a product to maximize the number of customers preferring it is a computationally intractable problem.[7] The correct arrangement of Marketing mix by enterprise marketing managers plays an important role in the success of a company's marketing:[8] The origins of the 4 Ps can be traced to the late 1940s.[9][10] The first known mention of a mix has been attributed to a Professor of Marketing at Harvard University, Prof.

James Culliton.[11] In 1948, Culliton published an article entitled, The Management of Marketing Costs[12] in which Culliton describes marketers as 'mixers of ingredients'.

Some years later, Culliton's colleague, Professor Neil Borden, published a retrospective article detailing the early history of the Marketing mix in which he claims that he was inspired by Culliton's idea of 'mixers', and credits himself with popularising the concept of the 'Marketing mix'.[13] According to Borden's account, he used the term, 'Marketing mix' consistently from the late 1940s.

For instance, he is known to have used the term 'Marketing mix' in his presidential address given to the American Marketing Association in 1953.[14] Although the idea of marketers as 'mixers of ingredients' caught on, marketers could not reach any real consensus about what elements should be included in the mix until the 1960s.[15] The 4 Ps, in its modern form, was first proposed in 1960 by E.

Jerome McCarthy; who presented them within a managerial approach that covered analysis, consumer behavior, market research, market segmentation, and planning.[16] Phillip Kotler, popularised this approach and helped spread the 4 Ps model.[17][1] McCarthy's 4 Ps have been widely adopted by both marketing academics and practitioners.[18] The prospect of extending the Marketing mix first took hold at the inaugural AMA Conference dedicated to Services Marketing in the early 1980s, and built on earlier theoretical works pointing to many important limitations of the 4 Ps model.[19] Taken collectively, the papers presented at that conference indicate that service marketers were thinking about a revision to the general Marketing mix based on an understanding that services were fundamentally different from products, and therefore required different tools and strategies.

In 1981, Booms and Bitner proposed a model of 7 Ps, comprising the original 4 Ps extended by process, people and physical evidence, as being more applicable for services marketing.[20] Since then there have been a number of different proposals for a service Marketing mix (with various numbers of Ps), most notably the 8 Ps, comprising the 7 Ps above extended by 'performance'[5].

The original Marketing mix, or 4 Ps, as originally proposed by marketer and academic E.

Jerome McCarthy, provides a framework for marketing decision-making.[6] McCarthy's Marketing mix has since become one of the most enduring and widely accepted frameworks in marketing.[21] Table 1: Brief Outline of 4 Ps[6] Products may be tangible (goods) or intangible (services, ideas or experiences).

Price may also refer to the sacrifice consumers are prepared to make to acquire a product (e.g.

time or effort).

Price is the only variable that has implications for revenue.

Price also includes considerations of customer perceived value.

Considers providing convenience for consumer.

May comprise elements such as: advertising, PR, direct marketing and sales promotion.

Product refers to what the business offers for sale and may include products or services.

Product decisions include the "quality, features, benefits, style, design, branding, packaging, services, warranties, guarantees, life cycles, investments and returns".[24] Price refers to decisions surrounding "list pricing, discount pricing, special offer pricing, credit payment or credit terms".

Price refers to the total cost to customer to acquire the product, and may involve both monetary and psychological costs such as the time and effort spent in acquisition.[24] Place is defined as the "direct or indirect channels to market, geographical distribution, territorial coverage, retail outlet, market location, catalogues, inventory, logistics and order fulfilment".

Place refers either to the physical location where a business carries out business or the distribution channels used to reach markets.

Place may refer to a retail outlet, but increasingly refers to virtual stores such as "a mail order catalogue, a telephone call centre or a website".[24] Promotion refers to "the marketing communication used to make the offer known to potential customers and persuade them to investigate it further".[24] Promotion elements include "advertising, public relations, direct selling and sales promotions." By the 1980s, a number of theorists were calling for an expanded and modified framework that would be more useful to service marketers.

The prospect of expanding or modifying the Marketing mix for services was a core discussion topic at the inaugural AMA Conference dedicated to Services Marketing in the early 1980s, and built on earlier theoretical works pointing to many important problems and limitations of the 4 Ps model.[19] Taken collectively, the papers presented at that conference indicate that service marketers were thinking about a revision to the general Marketing mix based on an understanding that services were fundamentally different from products, and therefore required different tools and strategies.

In 1981, Booms and Bitner proposed a model of 7 Ps, comprising the original 4 Ps plus process, people and physical evidence, as being more applicable for services marketing.[20][25] Table 2: Outline of the Modified and Expanded Marketing mix Service personnel who represent the company's values to customers.

Interactions between customers.

Interactions between employees and customers.[27] The space where customers and service personnel interact.

Tangible commodities (e.g.

equipment, furniture) that facilitate service performance.

Artifacts that remind customers of a service performance.[29] People are essential in the marketing of any product or service.

Personnel stand for the service.

In the professional, financial or hospitality service industry, people are not producers, but rather the products themselves.[30] When people are the product, they impact public perception of an organization as much as any tangible consumer goods.

From a marketing management perspective, it is important to ensure that employees represent the company in alignment with broader messaging strategies.[31] This is easier to ensure when people feel as though they have been treated fairly and earn wages sufficient to support their daily lives.

Process refers to a "set of activities that results in delivery of the product benefits".

A process could be a sequential order of tasks that an employee undertakes as a part of their job.

It can represent sequential steps taken by a number of various employees while attempting to complete a task.

Some people are responsible for managing multiple processes at once.

For example, a restaurant manager should monitor the performance of employees, ensuring that processes are followed.

They are also expected to supervise while customers are promptly greeted, seated, fed, and led out so that the next customer can begin this process.[31] Physical evidence refers to the non-human elements of the service encounter, including equipment, furniture and facilities.

It may also refer to the more abstract components of the environment in which the service encounter occurs including interior design, colour schemes and layout.

Some aspects of physical evidence provide lasting proof that the service has occurred, such as souvenirs, mementos, invoices and other livery of artifacts.[30] According to Booms and Bitner's framework, the physical evidence is "the service delivered and any tangible goods that facilitate the performance and communication of the service".[31] Physical evidence is important to customers because the tangible goods are evidence that the seller has (or has not) provided what the customer was expecting.

Robert F.

Lauterborn proposed a 4 Cs classification in 1990.[32] His classification is a more consumer-orientated version of the 4 Ps[33] that attempts to better fit the movement from mass marketing to niche marketing:[32] After Koichi Shimizu proposed a 4 Cs classification in 1973, it was expanded to the 7Cs Compass Model to provide a more complete picture of the nature of marketing in 1979.

The 7Cs Compass Model is a framework of co-marketing (commensal marketing or Symbiotic marketing).

Also the Co-creative marketing of a company and consumers are contained in the co-marketing.

Co-marketing (collaborate marketing) is a marketing practice where two companies cooperate with separate distribution channels, sometimes including profit sharing.

It is frequently confused with co-promotion.

Also commensal (symbiotic) marketing is a marketing on which both corporation and a corporation, a corporation and a consumer, country and a country, human and nature can live.[38][39][40][41][42] (C1) Corporation – The core of 4 Cs is corporation (company and non profit organization).

C-O-S (competitor, organization, stakeholder) within the corporation.

The company has to think of compliance and accountability as important.

The competition in the areas in which the company competes with other firms in its industry.

The 4 elements in the 7Cs Compass Model are: A formal approach to this customer-focused Marketing mix is known as 4 Cs (commodity, cost, channel, communication) in the 7 Cs Compass Model.

The 4 Cs model provides a demand/customer centric version alternative to the well-known 4 Ps supply side model (product, price, place, promotion) of marketing management.[43] The compass of consumers and circumstances (environment) are: EXIBIT:7Cs Compass model(1979) in Japan(Courtesy: © Koichi Shimizu, Japan) These can also be remembered by the cardinal directions marked on a compass.

The 7 Cs Compass Model is a framework in co-marketing (symbiotic marketing).

It has been criticized for being little more than the 4 Ps with different points of emphasis.

In particular, the 7 Cs inclusion of consumers in the Marketing mix is criticized, since they are a target of marketing, while the other elements of the Marketing mix are tactics.

The 7 Cs also include numerous strategies for product development, distribution, and pricing, while assuming that consumers want two-way communications with companies.

An alternative approach has been suggested in a book called 'Service 7' by Australian Author, Peter Bowman.

Bowman suggests a values based approach to service marketing activities.

Bowman suggests implementing seven service marketing principles which include value, business development, reputation, customer service and service design.

Service 7 has been widely distributed within Australia.

Digital Marketing mix is fundamentally the same as Marketing mix, which is an adaptation of Product, Price, Place and Promotion into digital marketing aspect.[44] Digital marketing can be commonly explained as 'Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies'.[45] Product Thanks to the interaction and connection of the Internet, Product has been redefined as 'virtual product' in the digital marketing aspect, which is regarded as the combination of tangibility and intangibility.

Through the form of digital, a product can be directly sent from manufacturers to customers.[46] For example, customers could buy music in the form of an MP3 rather than buy it in the form of a physical CD.

As a result, when a company is making strategy for Internet marketing, it is necessary to understand how to vary their products in the online environment.

Here are some indications of adapt the product element on the Internet.[45] Price Price concerns about the pricing policies or pricing models from a company.

Due to the wide use of the Internet, many applications could be found in both consumer's and producer's perspective.

From consumers' side, the Internet enables people to make a comparison to real-time prices before they make a consumption decision, which is time-saving and effort-saving for the consumers.[47] As for the suppliers, they can adjust prices in the real-time and provide higher degree of price transparency with customers.

Besides, the Internet is more likely to ease the pressure on price because online-producers do not have to put budget on renting a physical store.[45] Hence, making new or adjusting pricing strategies is essential for the company that wants to enter the Internet market.

Pricing strategies and tactics see also: Pricing Place With the application of the Internet, place is playing an increasingly important role in promoting consumption since the Internet and the physical channels become virtual.[44] The major contribution from the Internet to the business is not only making it possible to selling products online, but also enabling companies to build relationships with customers.[48] Furthermore, since the convenience of navigating from one site to another, place from the digital marketing perspective is always linked with promotion, which means retailers often use third-party websites such as Google search engine to guide customers to visit their websites.[45] Promotion Promotion refers to selecting the target markets, locating and integrating various communication tools in the Marketing mix.

Unlike the traditional marketing communication tools, tools in digital marketing aim at engaging audiences by putting advertisements and content on the social media, including display ads, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimisation (SEO), influencers etc.[45] When creating online marketing campaigns, Chaffey and Smith suggested that they can be separated into six groups:[49] Automatically selecting the attributes of a product (in any category, i.e.

product, promotion, etc.) to maximize the number of customers preferring the resulting product is a computationally intractable problem.[7] Given some customer profiles (i.e., customers sharing some features such as e.g.

gender, age, income, etc.), the valuations they give to each potential product attribute (e.g.

females aged 35–45 give a 3 out of 5 valuation to "it is green"; males aged 25–35 give 4/5 to "it can be paid in installments"; etc.), the attributes of the products sold by the other producers, and the attributes each producer can give to its products, the problem of deciding the attributes of our product to maximize the number of customers who will prefer it is Poly-APX-complete.

This implies that, under the standard computational assumption, no efficient algorithm can guarantee that the ratio between the number of customers preferring the product returned by the algorithm and the number of customers that would prefer the actual optimal product will always reach some constant, for any constant.

Moreover, the problem of finding a strategy such that, for any strategy of the other producers, our product will always reach some minimum average number of customers over some period of time is an EXPTIME-complete problem, meaning that it cannot be efficiently solved.

However, heuristic (sub-optimal) solutions to these problems can be found by means of genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization methods, or minimax algorithms.

Online advertising

Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers.

Many consumers find Online advertising disruptive[1] and have increasingly turned to ad blocking for a variety of reasons.

When software is used to do the purchasing, it is known as programmatic advertising.

Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising.

Like other advertising media, Online advertising frequently involves a publisher, who integrates advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be displayed on the publisher's content.

Other potential participants include advertising agencies who help generate and place the ad copy, an ad server which technologically delivers the ad and tracks statistics, and advertising affiliates who do independent promotional work for the advertiser.

In 2016, Internet advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable television and broadcast television.[2]:14 In 2017, Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $83.0 billion, a 14% increase over the $72.50 billion in revenues in 2016.[3] Many common Online advertising practices are controversial and, as a result, have been increasingly subject to regulation.

Online ad revenues also may not adequately replace other publishers' revenue streams.

Declining ad revenue has led some publishers to place their content behind paywalls.[4] In early days of the Internet, Online advertising was mostly prohibited.

For example, two of the predecessor networks to the Internet, ARPANET and NSFNet, had "acceptable use policies" that banned network "use for commercial activities by for-profit institutions".[5][6] The NSFNet began phasing out its commercial use ban in 1991.[7][8][9][10] The first widely publicized example of Online advertising was conducted via electronic mail.

On 3 May 1978, a marketer from DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), Gary Thuerk, sent an email to most of the ARPANET's American west coast users, advertising an open house for a new model of a DEC computer.[6][11] Despite the prevailing acceptable use policies, electronic mail marketing rapidly expanded[12] and eventually became known as "spam." The first known large-scale non-commercial spam message was sent on 18 January 1994 by an Andrews University system administrator, by cross-posting a religious message to all USENET newsgroups.[13] In January 1994 Mark Eberra started the first email marketing company for opt in email list under the domain Insideconnect.com.

He also started the Direct Email Marketing Association to help stop unwanted email and prevent spam.

[14] [15] Four months later, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, partners in a law firm, broadly promoted their legal services in a USENET posting titled "Green Card Lottery – Final One?"[16] Canter and Siegel's Green Card USENET spam raised the profile of Online advertising, stimulating widespread interest in advertising via both Usenet and traditional email.[13] More recently, spam has evolved into a more industrial operation, where spammers use armies of virus-infected computers (botnets) to send spam remotely.[11] Online banner advertising began in the early 1990s as page owners sought additional revenue streams to support their content.

Commercial online service Prodigy displayed banners at the bottom of the screen to promote Sears products.

The first clickable web ad was sold by Global Network Navigator in 1993 to a Silicon Valley law firm.[17] In 1994, web banner advertising became mainstream when HotWired, the online component of Wired Magazine, and Time Warner's Pathfinder (website)[18] sold banner ads to AT&T and other companies.

The first AT&T ad on HotWired had a 44% click-through rate, and instead of directing clickers to AT&T's website, the ad linked to an online tour of seven of the world's most acclaimed art museums.[19][20] GoTo.com (renamed Overture in 2001, and acquired by Yahoo! in 2003) created the first search advertising keyword auction in 1998.[21]:119 Google launched its "AdWords" (now renamed Google Ads) search advertising program in 2000[22] and introduced quality-based ranking allocation in 2002,[23] which sorts search advertisements by a combination of bid price and searchers' likeliness to click on the ads.[21]:123 More recently, companies have sought to merge their advertising messages into editorial content or valuable services.

Examples include Red Bull's Red Bull Media House streaming Felix Baumgartner's jump from space online, Coca-Cola's online magazines, and Nike's free applications for performance tracking.[20] Advertisers are also embracing social media[24][25] and mobile advertising; mobile ad spending has grown 90% each year from 2010 to 2013.[26]:13 According to Ad Age Datacenter analysis, in 2017 over half of agency revenue came from digital work.[27] Display advertising conveys its advertising message visually using text, logos, animations, videos, photographs, or other graphics.

Display advertisers frequently target users with particular traits to increase the ads' effect.

Online advertisers (typically through their ad servers) often use cookies, which are unique identifiers of specific computers, to decide which ads to serve to a particular consumer.

Cookies can track whether a user left a page without buying anything, so the advertiser can later retarget the user with ads from the site the user visited.[28] As advertisers collect data across multiple external websites about a user's online activity, they can create a detailed profile of the user's interests to deliver even more targeted advertising.

This aggregation of data is called behavioral targeting.[29] Advertisers can also target their audience by using contextual to deliver display ads related to the content of the web page where the ads appear.[21]:118 Retargeting, behavioral targeting, and contextual advertising all are designed to increase an advertiser's return on investment, or ROI, over untargeted ads.[30] Advertisers may also deliver ads based on a user's suspected geography through geotargeting.

A user's IP address communicates some geographic information (at minimum, the user's country or general region).

The geographic information from an IP can be supplemented and refined with other proxies or information to narrow the range of possible locations.[31] For example, with mobile devices, advertisers can sometimes use a phone's GPS receiver or the location of nearby mobile towers.[32] Cookies and other persistent data on a user's machine may provide help narrowing a user's location further.[31] Web banners or banner ads typically are graphical ads displayed within a web page.

Many banner ads are delivered by a central ad server.

Banner ads can use rich media to incorporate video, audio, animations, buttons, forms, or other interactive elements using Java applets, HTML5, Adobe Flash, and other programs.

Frame ads were the first form of web banners.[19] The colloquial usage of "banner ads" often refers to traditional frame ads.

Website publishers incorporate frame ads by setting aside a particular space on the web page.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau's Ad Unit Guidelines proposes standardized pixel dimensions for ad units.[33] A pop-up ad is displayed in a new web browser window that opens above a website visitor's initial browser window.[34] A pop-under ad opens a new browser window under a website visitor's initial browser window.[26]:22 Pop-under ads and similar technologies are now advised against by online authorities such as Google, who state that they "do not condone this practice".[35] A floating ad, or overlay ad, is a type of rich media advertisement that appears superimposed over the requested website's content.

Floating ads may disappear or become less obtrusive after a pre-set time period.

An expanding ad is a rich media frame ad that changes dimensions upon a predefined condition, such as a preset amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage, the user's click on the ad, or the user's mouse movement over the ad.[36] Expanding ads allow advertisers to fit more information into a restricted ad space.

A trick banner is a banner ad where the ad copy imitates some screen element users commonly encounter, such as an operating system message or popular application message, to induce ad clicks.[37] Trick banners typically do not mention the advertiser in the initial ad, and thus they are a form of bait-and-switch.[38][39] Trick banners commonly attract a higher-than-average click-through rate, but tricked users may resent the advertiser for deceiving them.[40] "News Feed Ads", also called "Sponsored Stories", "Boosted Posts", typically exist on social media platforms that offer a steady stream of information updates ("news feed"[41]) in regulated formats (i.e.

in similar sized small boxes with a uniform style).

Those advertisements are intertwined with non-promoted news that the users are reading through.

Those advertisements can be of any content, such as promoting a website, a fan page, an app, or a product.

Some examples are: Facebook's "Sponsored Stories",[42] LinkedIn's "Sponsored Updates",[43] and Twitter's "Promoted Tweets".[44] This display ads format falls into its own category because unlike banner ads which are quite distinguishable, News Feed Ads' format blends well into non-paid news updates.

This format of online advertisement yields much higher click-through rates than traditional display ads.[45][46] The process by which Online advertising is displayed can involve many parties.

In the simplest case, the website publisher selects and serves the ads.

Publishers which operate their own advertising departments may use this method.

The ads may be outsourced to an advertising agency under contract with the publisher, and served from the advertising agency's servers.

Alternatively, ad space may be offered for sale in a bidding market using an ad exchange and real-time bidding.

This involves many parties interacting automatically in real time.

In response to a request from the user's browser, the publisher content server sends the web page content to the user's browser over the Internet.

The page does not yet contain ads, but contains links which cause the user's browser to connect to the publisher ad server to request that the spaces left for ads be filled in with ads.

Information identifying the user, such as cookies and the page being viewed, is transmitted to the publisher ad server.

The publisher ad server then communicates with a supply-side platform server.

The publisher is offering ad space for sale, so they are considered the supplier.

The supply side platform also receives the user's identifying information, which it sends to a data management platform.

At the data management platform, the user's identifying information is used to look up demographic information, previous purchases, and other information of interest to advertisers.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of data obtained through such a data management platform: This customer information is combined and returned to the supply side platform, which can now package up the offer of ad space along with information about the user who will view it.

The supply side platform sends that offer to an ad exchange.

The ad exchange puts the offer out for bid to demand-side platforms.

Demand side platforms act on behalf of ad agencies, who sell ads which advertise brands.

Demand side platforms thus have ads ready to display, and are searching for users to view them.

Bidders get the information about the user ready to view the ad, and decide, based on that information, how much to offer to buy the ad space.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, a demand side platform has 10 milliseconds to respond to an offer.

The ad exchange picks the winning bid and informs both parties.

The ad exchange then passes the link to the ad back through the supply side platform and the publisher's ad server to the user's browser, which then requests the ad content from the agency's ad server.

The ad agency can thus confirm that the ad was delivered to the browser.[49] This is simplified, according to the IAB.

Exchanges may try to unload unsold ("remnant") space at low prices through other exchanges.

Some agencies maintain semi-permanent pre-cached bids with ad exchanges, and those may be examined before going out to additional demand side platforms for bids.

The process for mobile advertising is different and may involve mobile carriers and handset software manufacturers.[49] An interstitial ad displays before a user can access requested content, sometimes while the user is waiting for the content to load.[50] Interstitial ads are a form of interruption marketing.[51][52] A text ad displays text-based hyperlinks.

Text-based ads may display separately from a web page's primary content, or they can be embedded by hyperlinking individual words or phrases to the advertiser's websites.

Text ads may also be delivered through email marketing or text message marketing.

Text-based ads often render faster than graphical ads and can be harder for ad-blocking software to block.[53] Search engine marketing, or SEM, is designed to increase a website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Search engines provide sponsored results and organic (non-sponsored) results based on a web searcher's query.[21]:117 Search engines often employ visual cues to differentiate sponsored results from organic results.

Search engine marketing includes all of an advertiser's actions to make a website's listing more prominent for topical keywords.

The primary reason behind the rising popularity of Search Engine Marketing has been Google.

There were a few companies that had its own PPC and Analytics tools.

However, this concept was popularized by Google.

Google Ad words was convenient for advertisers to use and create campaigns.

And, they realized that the tool did a fair job, by charging only for someone's click on the ad, which reported as the cost-per-click for which a penny was charged.

This resulted in the advertisers monitoring the campaign by the number of clicks and were satisfied that the ads could be tracked.[54] Search engine optimization, or SEO, attempts to improve a website's organic search rankings in SERPs by increasing the website content's relevance to search terms.

Search engines regularly update their algorithms to penalize poor quality sites that try to game their rankings, making optimization a moving target for advertisers.[55][56] Many vendors offer SEO services.[26]:22 Sponsored search (also called sponsored links, search ads, or paid search) allows advertisers to be included in the sponsored results of a search for selected keywords.

Search ads are often sold via real-time auctions, where advertisers bid on keywords.[21]:118[57] In addition to setting a maximum price per keyword, bids may include time, language, geographical, and other constraints.[21]:118 Search engines originally sold listings in order of highest bids.[21]:119 Modern search engines rank sponsored listings based on a combination of bid price, expected click-through rate, keyword relevancy and site quality.[23] Social media marketing is commercial promotion conducted through social media websites.

Many companies promote their products by posting frequent updates and providing special offers through their social media profiles.Videos, interactive quizzes, and sponsored posts are all a part of this operation.

Usually these ads are found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.[58] Mobile advertising is ad copy delivered through wireless mobile devices such as smartphones, feature phones, or tablet computers.

Mobile advertising may take the form of static or rich media display ads, SMS (Short Message Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) ads, mobile search ads, advertising within mobile websites, or ads within mobile applications or games (such as interstitial ads, "advergaming," or application sponsorship).[26]:23 Industry groups such as the Mobile Marketing Association have attempted to standardize mobile ad unit specifications, similar to the IAB's efforts for general Online advertising.[52] Mobile advertising is growing rapidly for several reasons.

There are more mobile devices in the field, connectivity speeds have improved (which, among other things, allows for richer media ads to be served quickly), screen resolutions have advanced, mobile publishers are becoming more sophisticated about incorporating ads, and consumers are using mobile devices more extensively.[26]:14 The Interactive Advertising Bureau predicts continued growth in mobile advertising with the adoption of location-based targeting and other technological features not available or relevant on personal computers.[26]:14 In July 2014 Facebook reported advertising revenue for the June 2014 quarter of $2.68 billion, an increase of 67 percent over the second quarter of 2013.

Of that, mobile advertising revenue accounted for around 62 percent, an increase of 41 percent on the previous year.

Email advertising is ad copy comprising an entire email or a portion of an email message.[26]:22 Email marketing may be unsolicited, in which case the sender may give the recipient an option to opt out of future emails, or it may be sent with the recipient's prior consent (opt-in).

Businesses may ask for your email and send updates on new products or sales.

As opposed to static messaging, chat advertising refers to real-time messages dropped to users on certain sites.

This is done using live chat software or tracking applications installed within certain websites with the operating personnel behind the site often dropping adverts on the traffic surfing around the sites.

In reality, this is a subset of the email advertising but different because of its time window.

Online classified advertising is advertising posted online in a categorical listing of specific products or services.

Examples include online job boards, online real estate listings, automotive listings, online yellow pages, and online auction-based listings.[26]:22 Craigslist and eBay are two prominent providers of online classified listings.

Adware is software that, once installed, automatically displays advertisements on a user's computer.

The ads may appear in the software itself, integrated into web pages visited by the user, or in pop-ups/pop-unders.[59] Adware installed without the user's permission is a type of malware.[60] Affiliate marketing occurs when advertisers organize third parties to generate potential customers for them.

Third-party affiliates receive payment based on sales generated through their promotion.[26]:22 Affiliate marketers generate traffic to offers from affiliate networks, and when the desired action is taken by the visitor, the affiliate earns a commission.

These desired actions can be an email submission, a phone call, filling out an online form, or an online order being completed.

Content marketing is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers.

This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including blogs, news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, case studies, how-to guides and more.

Considering that most marketing involves some form of published media, it is almost (though not entirely) redundant to call 'content marketing' anything other than simply 'marketing'.

There are, of course, other forms of marketing (in-person marketing, telephone-based marketing, word of mouth marketing, etc.) where the label is more useful for identifying the type of marketing.

However, even these are usually merely presenting content that they are marketing as information in a way that is different from traditional print, radio, TV, film, email, or web media.

Online marketing platform (OMP) is an integrated web-based platform that combines the benefits of a business directory, local search engine, search engine optimisation (SEO) tool, customer relationship management (CRM) package and content management system (CMS).

eBay and Amazon are used as online marketing and logistics management platforms.

On Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other Social Media, retail online marketing is also used.

Online business marketing platforms such as Marketo, MarketBright and Pardot have been bought by major IT companies (Eloqua-Oracle, Neolane-Adobe and Unica-IBM).

Unlike television marketing in which Neilsen TV Ratings can be relied upon for viewing metrics, online advertisers do not have an independent party to verify viewing claims made by the big online platforms.[61] Advertisers and publishers use a wide range of payment calculation methods.

In 2012, advertisers calculated 32% of Online advertising transactions on a cost-per-impression basis, 66% on customer performance (e.g.

cost per click or cost per acquisition), and 2% on hybrids of impression and performance methods.[26]:17 Cost per mille, often abbreviated to CPM, means that advertisers pay for every thousand displays of their message to potential customers (mille is the Latin word for thousand).

In the online context, ad displays are usually called "impressions." Definitions of an "impression" vary among publishers,[62] and some impressions may not be charged because they don't represent a new exposure to an actual customer.

Advertisers can use technologies such as web bugs to verify if an impression is actually delivered.[63][64]:59 Similarly, revenue generated can be measured in Revenue per mille (RPM).[65] Publishers use a variety of techniques to increase page views, such as dividing content across multiple pages, repurposing someone else's content, using sensational titles, or publishing tabloid or sexual content.[66] CPM advertising is susceptible to "impression fraud," and advertisers who want visitors to their sites may not find per-impression payments a good proxy for the results they desire.[67]:1–4 CPC (Cost Per Click) or PPC (Pay per click) means advertisers pay each time a user clicks on the ad.

CPC advertising works well when advertisers want visitors to their sites, but it's a less accurate measurement for advertisers looking to build brand awareness.[68] CPC's market share has grown each year since its introduction, eclipsing CPM to dominate two-thirds of all Online advertising compensation methods.[26]:18[67]:1 Like impressions, not all recorded clicks are valuable to advertisers.

GoldSpot Media reported that up to 50% of clicks on static mobile banner ads are accidental and resulted in redirected visitors leaving the new site immediately.[69] Cost per engagement aims to track not just that an ad unit loaded on the page (i.e., an impression was served), but also that the viewer actually saw and/or interacted with the ad.[70][71] Cost per view video advertising.

Both Google and TubeMogul endorsed this standardized CPV metric to the IAB's (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Digital Video Committee, and it's garnering a notable amount of industry support.[72] CPV is the primary benchmark used in YouTube Advertising Campaigns, as part of Google's AdWords platform.

The CPI compensation method is specific to mobile applications and mobile advertising.

In CPI ad campaigns brands are charged a fixed of bid rate only when the application was installed.

In marketing, "attribution" is the measurement of effectiveness of particular ads in a consumer's ultimate decision to purchase.

Multiple ad impressions may lead to a consumer "click" or other action.

A single action may lead to revenue being paid to multiple ad space sellers.[73] CPA (Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition) or PPP (Pay Per Performance) advertising means the advertiser pays for the number of users who perform a desired activity, such as completing a purchase or filling out a registration form.

Performance-based compensation can also incorporate revenue sharing, where publishers earn a percentage of the advertiser's profits made as a result of the ad.

Performance-based compensation shifts the risk of failed advertising onto publishers.[67]:4, 16 Fixed cost compensation means advertisers pay a fixed cost for delivery of ads online, usually over a specified time period, irrespective of the ad's visibility or users' response to it.

One examples is CPD (cost per day) where advertisers pay a fixed cost for publishing an ad for a day irrespective of impressions served or clicks.

The low costs of electronic communication reduce the cost of displaying online advertisements compared to offline ads.

Online advertising, and in particular social media, provides a low-cost means for advertisers to engage with large established communities.[58] Advertising online offers better returns than in other media.[67]:1 Online advertisers can collect data on their ads' effectiveness, such as the size of the potential audience or actual audience response,[21]:119 how a visitor reached their advertisement, whether the advertisement resulted in a sale, and whether an ad actually loaded within a visitor's view.[63][64]:59 This helps online advertisers improve their ad campaigns over time.

Advertisers have a wide variety of ways of presenting their promotional messages, including the ability to convey images, video, audio, and links.

Unlike many offline ads, online ads also can be interactive.[20] For example, some ads let users input queries[74] or let users follow the advertiser on social media.[75] Online ads can even incorporate games.[76] Publishers can offer advertisers the ability to reach customizable and narrow market segments for targeted advertising.

Online advertising may use geo-targeting to display relevant advertisements to the user's geography.

Advertisers can customize each individual ad to a particular user based on the user's previous preferences.[30] Advertisers can also track whether a visitor has already seen a particular ad in order to reduce unwanted repetitious exposures and provide adequate time gaps between exposures.[77] Online advertising can reach nearly every global market, and Online advertising influences offline sales.[78][79][80] Once ad design is complete, online ads can be deployed immediately.

The delivery of online ads does not need to be linked to the publisher's publication schedule.

Furthermore, online advertisers can modify or replace ad copy more rapidly than their offline counterparts.[81] According to a US Senate investigation, the current state of Online advertising endangers the security and privacy of users.[82] Eye-tracking studies have shown that Internet users often ignore web page zones likely to contain display ads (sometimes called "banner blindness"), and this problem is worse online than in offline media.[83] On the other hand, studies suggest that even those ads "ignored" by the users may influence the user subconsciously.[84] There are numerous ways that advertisers can be overcharged for their advertising.

For example, click fraud occurs when a publisher or third parties click (manually or through automated means) on a CPC ad with no legitimate buying intent.[85] For example, click fraud can occur when a competitor clicks on ads to deplete its rival's advertising budget, or when publishers attempt to manufacture revenue.[85] Click fraud is especially associated with pornography sites.

In 2011, certain scamming porn websites launched dozens of hidden pages on each visitor's computer, forcing the visitor's computer to click on hundreds of paid links without the visitor's knowledge.[86] As with offline publications, online impression fraud can occur when publishers overstate the number of ad impressions they have delivered to their advertisers.

To combat impression fraud, several publishing and advertising industry associations are developing ways to count online impressions credibly.[87][88] Because users have different operating systems, web browsers[89] and computer hardware (including mobile devices and different screen sizes), online ads may appear to users differently from how the advertiser intended, or the ads may not display properly at all.

A 2012 comScore study revealed that, on average, 31% of ads were not "in-view" when rendered, meaning they never had an opportunity to be seen.[90] Rich media ads create even greater compatibility problems, as some developers may use competing (and exclusive) software to render the ads (see e.g.

Comparison of HTML 5 and Flash).

Furthermore, advertisers may encounter legal problems if legally required information doesn't actually display to users, even if that failure is due to technological heterogeneity.[91]:i In the United States, the FTC has released a set of guidelines indicating that it's the advertisers' responsibility to ensure the ads display any required disclosures or disclaimers, irrespective of the users' technology.[91]:4–8 Ad blocking, or ad filtering, means the ads do not appear to the user because the user uses technology to screen out ads.

Many browsers block unsolicited pop-up ads by default.[92] Other software programs or browser add-ons may also block the loading of ads, or block elements on a page with behaviors characteristic of ads (e.g.

HTML autoplay of both audio and video).

Approximately 9% of all online page views come from browsers with ad-blocking software installed,[93] and some publishers have 40%+ of their visitors using ad-blockers.[4] Some web browsers offer privacy modes where users can hide information about themselves from publishers and advertisers.

Among other consequences, advertisers can't use cookies to serve targeted ads to private browsers.

Most major browsers have incorporated Do Not Track options into their browser headers, but the regulations currently are only enforced by the honor system.[94][95][96] The collection of user information by publishers and advertisers has raised consumer concerns about their privacy.[31][64] Sixty percent of Internet users would use Do Not Track technology to block all collection of information if given an opportunity.[97][98] Over half of all Google and Facebook users are concerned about their privacy when using Google and Facebook, according to Gallup.[99] Many consumers have reservations about online behavioral targeting.

By tracking users' online activities, advertisers are able to understand consumers quite well.

Advertisers often use technology, such as web bugs and respawning cookies, to maximize their abilities to track consumers.[64]:60[100] According to a 2011 survey conducted by Harris Interactive, over half of Internet users had a negative impression of online behavioral advertising, and forty percent feared that their personally-identifiable information had been shared with advertisers without their consent.[101][102] Consumers can be especially troubled by advertisers targeting them based on sensitive information, such as financial or health status.[100] Furthermore, some advertisers attach the MAC address of users' devices to their 'demographic profiles' so they can be retargeted (regardless of the accuracy of the profile) even if the user clears their cookies and browsing history.[citation needed] Scammers can take advantage of consumers' difficulties verifying an online persona's identity,[103]:1 leading to artifices like phishing (where scam emails look identical to those from a well-known brand owner)[104] and confidence schemes like the Nigerian "419" scam.[105][106][107] The Internet Crime Complaint Center received 289,874 complaints in 2012, totaling over half a billion dollars in losses, most of which originated with scam ads.[108][109] Consumers also face malware risks, i.e.

malvertising, when interacting with Online advertising.

Cisco's 2013 Annual Security Report revealed that clicking on ads was 182 times more likely to install a virus on a user's computer than surfing the Internet for porn.[110][111] For example, in August 2014 Yahoo's advertising network reportedly saw cases of infection of a variant of Cryptolocker ransomware.[112] The Internet's low cost of disseminating advertising contributes to spam, especially by large-scale spammers.

Numerous efforts have been undertaken to combat spam, ranging from blacklists to regulatorily-required labeling to content filters, but most of those efforts have adverse collateral effects, such as mistaken filtering.[6] In general, consumer protection laws apply equally to online and offline activities.[91]:i However, there are questions over which jurisdiction's laws apply and which regulatory agencies have enforcement authority over transborder activity.[113] As with offline advertising, industry participants have undertaken numerous efforts to self-regulate and develop industry standards or codes of conduct.

Several United States advertising industry organizations jointly published Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising based on standards proposed by the FTC in 2009.[114] European ad associations published a similar document in 2011.[115] Primary tenets of both documents include consumer control of data transfer to third parties, data security, and consent for collection of certain health and financial data.[114]:2–4 Neither framework, however, penalizes violators of the codes of conduct.[116] Privacy regulation can require users' consent before an advertiser can track the user or communicate with the user.

However, affirmative consent ("opt in") can be difficult and expensive to obtain.[64]:60 Industry participants often prefer other regulatory schemes.

Different jurisdictions have taken different approaches to privacy issues with advertising.

The United States has specific restrictions on online tracking of children in the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA),[114]:16–17 and the FTC has recently expanded its interpretation of COPPA to include requiring ad networks to obtain parental consent before knowingly tracking kids.[117] Otherwise, the U.S.

Federal Trade Commission frequently supports industry self-regulation, although increasingly it has been undertaking enforcement actions related to online privacy and security.[118] The FTC has also been pushing for industry consensus about possible Do Not Track legislation.

In contrast, the European Union's "Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive" restricts websites' ability to use consumer data much more comprehensively.

The EU limitations restrict targeting by online advertisers; researchers have estimated Online advertising effectiveness decreases on average by around 65% in Europe relative to the rest of the world.[64]:58 Many laws specifically regulate the ways online ads are delivered.

For example, Online advertising delivered via email is more regulated than the same ad content delivered via banner ads.

Among other restrictions, the U.S.

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires that any commercial email provide an opt-out mechanism.[113] Similarly, mobile advertising is governed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), which (among other restrictions) requires user opt-in before sending advertising via text messaging.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service.[1] Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, Social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.[2] Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, enabling companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns.

Companies address a range of stakeholders through Social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public.

On a strategic level, Social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope (e.g.

more active or passive use) and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone." When using Social media marketing, firms can allow customers and Internet users to post user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as "earned media," rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy.

Social networking websites allow individuals, businesses and other organizations to interact with one another and build relationships and communities online.

When companies join these social channels, consumers can interact with them directly.[3] That interaction can be more personal to users than traditional methods of outbound marketing and advertising.[4] Social networking sites act as word of mouth or more precisely, e-word of mouth.

The Internet's ability to reach billions across the globe has given online word of mouth a powerful voice and far reach.

The ability to rapidly change buying patterns and product or service acquisition and activity to a growing number of consumers is defined as an influence network.[5] Social networking sites and blogs allow followers to "retweet" or "repost" comments made by others about a product being promoted, which occurs quite frequently on some social media sites.[6] By repeating the message, the user's connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people.

Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.[4] Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants and values, online.

Social media marketing then connects these consumers and audiences to businesses that share the same needs, wants, and values.

Through social networking sites, companies can keep in touch with individual followers.

This personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers.

Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target audience.[4] Social networking sites also include much information about what products and services prospective clients might be interested in.

Through the use of new semantic analysis technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as content shared by people and questions posted online.

An understanding of buying signals can help sales people target relevant prospects and marketers run micro-targeted campaigns.

In 2014, over 80% of business executives identified social media as an integral part of their business.[7] Business retailers have seen 133% increases in their revenues from Social media marketing.[8] Some examples of popular social networking websites over the years are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, MySpace, LinkedIn, and SnapChat.

More than three billion people in the world are active on the Internet.

Over the years, the Internet has continually gained more and more users, jumping from 738 million in 2000 all the way to 3.2 billion in 2015.[9] Roughly 81% of the current population in the United States has some type of social media profile that they engage with frequently.[10] Mobile phone usage is beneficial for Social media marketing because of their web browsing capabilities which allow individuals immediate access to social networking sites.

Mobile phones have altered the path-to-purchase process by allowing consumers to easily obtain pricing and product information in real time.[11] They have also allowed companies to constantly remind and update their followers.

Many companies are now putting QR (Quick Response) codes along with products for individuals to access the company website or online services with their smart phones.

Retailers use QR codes to facilitate consumer interaction with brands by linking the code to brand websites, promotions, product information, and any other mobile-enabled content.

In addition, Real-time bidding use in the mobile advertising industry is high and rising due to its value for on-the-go web browsing.

In 2012, Nexage, a provider of real time bidding in mobile advertising reported a 37% increase in revenue each month.

Adfonic, another mobile advertisement publishing platform, reported an increase of 22 billion ad requests that same year.[12] Mobile devices have become increasingly popular, where 5.7 billion people are using them worldwide.[13] This has played a role in the way consumers interact with media and has many further implications for TV ratings, advertising, mobile commerce, and more.

Mobile media consumption such as mobile audio streaming or mobile video are on the rise – In the United States, more than 100 million users are projected to access online video content via mobile device.

Mobile video revenue consists of pay-per-view downloads, advertising and subscriptions.

As of 2013, worldwide mobile phone Internet user penetration was 73.4%.

In 2017, figures suggest that more than 90% of Internet users will access online content through their phones.[14] There are two basic strategies for using social media as a marketing tool: Social media can be a useful source of market information and a way to hear customer perspectives.

Blogs, content communities, and forums are platforms where individuals share their reviews and recommendations of brands, products, and services.

Businesses are able to tap and analyze the customer voices and feedback generated in social media for marketing purposes;[15] in this sense the social media is a relatively inexpensive source of market intelligence which can be used by marketers and managers to track and respond to consumer-identified problems and detect market opportunities.

For example, the Internet erupted with videos and pictures of iPhone 6 "bend test" which showed that the coveted phone could be bent by hand pressure.

The so-called "bend gate" controversy[16] created confusion amongst customers who had waited months for the launch of the latest rendition of the iPhone.

However, Apple promptly issued a statement saying that the problem was extremely rare and that the company had taken several steps to make the mobile device's case stronger and robust.

Unlike traditional market research methods such as surveys, focus groups, and data mining which are time-consuming and costly, and which take weeks or even months to analyze, marketers can use social media to obtain 'live' or "real time" information about consumer behavior and viewpoints on a company's brand or products.

This can be useful in the highly dynamic, competitive, fast-paced and global marketplace of the 2010s.

Social media can be used not only as public relations and direct marketing tools, but also as communication channels targeting very specific audiences with social media influencers and social media personalities as effective customer engagement tools.[15] This tactic is widely known as influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing allows brands the opportunity to reach their target audience in a more genuine, authentic way via a special group of selected influencers advertising their product or service.

In fact, brands are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, per Business Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data.[17] Technologies predating social media, such as broadcast TV and newspapers can also provide advertisers with a fairly targeted audience, given that an ad placed during a sports game broadcast or in the sports section of a newspaper is likely to be read by sports fans.

However, social media websites can target niche markets even more precisely.

Using digital tools such as Google Adsense, advertisers can target their ads to very specific demographics, such as people who are interested in social entrepreneurship, political activism associated with a particular political party, or video gaming.

Google Adsense does this by looking for keywords in social media user's online posts and comments.

It would be hard for a TV station or paper-based newspaper to provide ads that are this targeted (though not impossible, as can be seen with "special issue" sections on niche issues, which newspapers can use to sell targeted ads).

Social networks are, in many cases, viewed as a great tool for avoiding costly market research.

They are known for providing a short, fast, and direct way to reach an audience through a person who is widely known.

For example, an athlete who gets endorsed by a sporting goods company also brings their support base of millions of people who are interested in what they do or how they play and now they want to be a part of this athlete through their endorsements with that particular company.

At one point consumers would visit stores to view their products with famous athletes, but now you can view a famous athlete's, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, latest apparel online with the click of a button.

He advertises them to you directly through his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

Facebook and LinkedIn are leading social media platforms where users can hyper-target their ads.

Hypertargeting not only uses public profile information but also information users submit but hide from others.[18] There are several examples of firms initiating some form of online dialog with the public to foster relations with customers.

According to Constantinides, Lorenzo and Gómez Borja (2008) "Business executives like Jonathan Swartz, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple Computers, and McDonald's Vice President Bob Langert post regularly in their CEO blogs, encouraging customers to interact and freely express their feelings, ideas, suggestions, or remarks about their postings, the company or its products".[15] Using customer influencers (for example popular bloggers) can be a very efficient and cost-effective method to launch new products or services[19] Among the political leaders in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the highest number of followers at 40 million, and President Donald Trump ranks second with 25 million followers.[20] Modi employed social media platforms to circumvent traditional media channels to reach out to the young and urban population of India which is estimated to be 200 million.

Engagement with the social web means that customers and stakeholders are active participants rather than passive viewers.

An example of these are consumer advocacy groups and groups that criticize companies (e.g., lobby groups or advocacy organizations).

Social media use in a business or political context allows all consumers/citizens to express and share an opinion about a company's products, services, business practices, or a government's actions.

Each participating customer, non-customer, or citizen who is participating online via social media becomes a part of the marketing department (or a challenge to the marketing effort) as other customers read their positive or negative comments or reviews.

Getting consumers, potential consumers or citizens to be engaged online is fundamental to successful Social media marketing.[21] With the advent of Social media marketing, it has become increasingly important to gain customer interest in products and services.

This can eventually be translated into buying behavior, or voting and donating behavior in a political context.

New online marketing concepts of engagement and loyalty have emerged which aim to build customer participation and brand reputation.[22] Engagement in social media for the purpose of a social media strategy is divided into two parts.

The first is proactive, regular posting of new online content.

This can be seen through digital photos, digital videos, text, and conversations.

It is also represented through sharing of content and information from others via weblinks.

The second part is reactive conversations with social media users responding to those who reach out to your social media profiles through commenting or messaging.[23] Traditional media such as TV news shows are limited to one-way interaction with customers or 'push and tell' where only specific information is given to the customer with few or limited mechanisms to obtain customer feedback.

Traditional media such as physical newspapers, do give readers the option of sending a letter to the editor.

Though, this is a relatively slow process, as the editorial board has to review the letter and decide if it is appropriate for publication.

On the other hand, social media is participative and open; Participants are able to instantly share their views on brands, products, and services.

Traditional media gave control of message to the marketer, whereas social media shifts the balance to the consumer or citizen.

Small businesses also use social networking sites as a promotional technique.

Businesses can follow individuals social networking site uses in the local area and advertise specials and deals.

These can be exclusive and in the form of "get a free drink with a copy of this tweet".

This type of message encourages other locals to follow the business on the sites in order to obtain the promotional deal.

In the process, the business is getting seen and promoting itself (brand visibility).

Small businesses also use social networking sites to develop their own market research on new products and services.

By encouraging their customers to give feedback on new product ideas, businesses can gain valuable insights on whether a product may be accepted by their target market enough to merit full production, or not.

In addition, customers will feel the company has engaged them in the process of co-creation—the process in which the business uses customer feedback to create or modify a product or service the filling a need of the target market.

Such feedback can present in various forms, such as surveys, contests, polls, etc.

Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, also provide an opportunity for small businesses to find candidates to fill staff positions.[24] Of course, review sites, such as Yelp, also help small businesses to build their reputation beyond just brand visibility.

Positive customer peer reviews help to influence new prospects to purchase goods and services more than company advertising.[25] In early 2012, Nike introduced its Make It Count social media campaign.

The campaign kickoff began YouTubers Casey Neistat and Max Joseph launching a YouTube video, where they traveled 34,000 miles to visit 16 cities in 13 countries.

They promoted the #makeitcount hashtag, which millions of consumers shared via Twitter and Instagram by uploading photos and sending tweets.[26] The #MakeItCount YouTube video went viral and Nike saw an 18% increase in profit in 2012, the year this product was released.

One of the main purposes of employing social media in marketing is as a communications tool that makes the companies accessible to those interested in their product and makes them visible to those who have no knowledge of their products.[27] These companies use social media to create buzz, and learn from and target customers.

It's the only form of marketing that can finger consumers at each and every stage of the consumer decision journey.[28] Marketing through social media has other benefits as well.

Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google organic search, seven are social media dependent.

This means that if brands are less or non-active on social media, they tend to show up less on Google searches.[29] While platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ have a larger number of monthly users, the visual media sharing based mobile platforms, however, garner a higher interaction rate in comparison and have registered the fastest growth and have changed the ways in which consumers engage with brand content.

Instagram has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users monthly as opposed to Twitter which has a .03% interaction rate with an average of 210 million monthly users.[29] Unlike traditional media that are often cost-prohibitive to many companies, a social media strategy does not require astronomical budgeting.[30] To this end, companies make use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to reach audiences much wider than through the use of traditional print/TV/radio advertisements alone at a fraction of the cost, as most social networking sites can be used at little or no cost (however, some websites charge companies for premium services).

This has changed the ways that companies approach to interact with customers, as a substantial percentage of consumer interactions are now being carried out over online platforms with much higher visibility.

Customers can now post reviews of products and services, rate customer service, and ask questions or voice concerns directly to companies through social media platforms.

According to Measuring Success, over 80% of consumers use the web to research products and services.[31] Thus Social media marketing is also used by businesses in order to build relationships of trust with consumers.[32] To this aim, companies may also hire personnel to specifically handle these social media interactions, who usually report under the title of Online community managers.

Handling these interactions in a satisfactory manner can result in an increase of consumer trust.

To both this aim and to fix the public's perception of a company, 3 steps are taken in order to address consumer concerns, identifying the extent of the social chatter, engaging the influencers to help, and developing a proportional response.[33] Twitter allows companies to promote their products in short messages known as tweets limited to 140 characters which appear on followers' Home timelines.[34] Tweets can contain text, Hashtag, photo, video, Animated GIF, Emoji, or links to the product's website and other social media profiles, etc.[35] Twitter is also used by companies to provide customer service.[36] Some companies make support available 24/7 and answer promptly, thus improving brand loyalty and appreciation.

Facebook pages are far more detailed than Twitter accounts.

They allow a product to provide videos, photos, longer descriptions, and testimonials where followers can comment on the product pages for others to see.

Facebook can link back to the product's Twitter page, as well as send out event reminders.

As of May 2015, 93% of businesses marketers use Facebook to promote their brand.[37] A study from 2011 attributed 84% of "engagement" or clicks and likes that link back to Facebook advertising.[38] By 2014, Facebook had restricted the content published from business and brand pages.

Adjustments in Facebook algorithms have reduced the audience for non-paying business pages (that have at least 500,000 "Likes") from 16% in 2012 down to 2% in February 2014.[39][40][41] LinkedIn, a professional business-related networking site, allows companies to create professional profiles for themselves as well as their business to network and meet others.[42] Through the use of widgets, members can promote their various social networking activities, such as Twitter stream or blog entries of their product pages, onto their LinkedIn profile page.[43] LinkedIn provides its members the opportunity to generate sales leads and business partners.[44] Members can use "Company Pages" similar to Facebook pages to create an area that will allow business owners to promote their products or services and be able to interact with their customers.[45] Due to spread of spam mail sent to job seeker, leading companies prefer to use LinkedIn for employee's recruitment instead of using a different job portal.

Additionally, companies have voiced a preference for the amount of information that can be gleaned from a LinkedIn profile, versus a limited email.[46] WhatsApp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.

Joining Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp continues to operate as a separate app with a laser focus on building a messaging service that works fast and reliably anywhere in the world.

Started as an alternative to SMS, Whatsapp now supports sending and receiving a variety of media including text, photos, videos, documents, and location, as well as voice calls.

WhatsApp messages and calls are secured with end-to-end encryption, meaning that no third party including WhatsApp can read or listen to them.

WhatsApp has a customer base of 1 billion people in over 180 countries.[47][48] It is used to send personalised promotional messages to individual customers.

It has plenty of advantages over SMS that includes ability to track how Message Broadcast Performs using blue tick option in Whatsapp.

It allows sending messages to Do Not Disturb (DND) customers.

WhatsApp is also used to send a series of bulk messages to their targeted customers using broadcast option.

Companies started using this to a large extent because it is a cost-effective promotional option and quick to spread a message.

As of 2019, WhatsApp still not allow businesses to place ads in their app.[49] Yelp consists of a comprehensive online index of business profiles.

Businesses are searchable by location, similar to Yellow Pages.

The website is operational in seven different countries, including the United States and Canada.

Business account holders are allowed to create, share, and edit business profiles.

They may post information such as the business location, contact information, pictures, and service information.

The website further allows individuals to write, post reviews about businesses, and rate them on a five-point scale.

Messaging and talk features are further made available for general members of the website, serving to guide thoughts and opinions.[50] In May 2014, Instagram had over 200 million users.

The user engagement rate of Instagram was 15 times higher than of Facebook and 25 times higher than that of Twitter.[51] According to Scott Galloway, the founder of L2 and a professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business, latest studies estimate that 93% of prestige brands have an active presence on Instagram and include it in their marketing mix.[52] When it comes to brands and businesses, Instagram's goal is to help companies to reach their respective audiences through captivating imagery in a rich, visual environment.[53] Moreover, Instagram provides a platform where user and company can communicate publicly and directly, making itself an ideal platform for companies to connect with their current and potential customers.[54] Many brands are now heavily using this mobile app to boost their marketing strategy.

Instagram can be used to gain the necessary momentum needed to capture the attention of the market segment that has an interest in the product offering or services.[55] As Instagram is supported by Apple and android system, it can be easily accessed by smartphone users.

Moreover, it can be accessed by the Internet as well.

Thus, the marketers see it as a potential platform to expand their brands exposure to the public, especially the younger target group.

On top of this, marketers do not only use social media for traditional Internet advertising, but they also encourage users to create attention for a certain brand.

This generally creates an opportunity for greater brand exposure.[56] Furthermore, marketers are also using the platform to drive social shopping and inspire people to collect and share pictures of their favorite products.

Many big names have already jumped on board: Starbucks, MTV, Nike, Marc Jacobs, and Red Bull are a few examples of multinationals that adopted the mobile photo app early.

Fashion blogger Danielle Bernstein, who goes by @weworewhat on Instagram, collaborated with Harper's Bazaar to do a piece on how brands are using Instagram to market their products, and how bloggers make money from it.

Bernstein, who currently has one and a half million followers on Instagram, and whose "outfit of the day" photos on Snapchat get tens of thousands of screenshots, explained that for a lot of her sponsored posts, she must feature the brand in a certain number of posts, and often cannot wear a competitor's product in the same picture.

According to Harper's Bazaar, industry estimates say that brands are spending more than $1 billion per year on consumer-generated advertising.[57] Founder of Instagram Kevin Systrom even went to Paris Fashion week, going to couture shows and meeting with designers to learn more about how style bloggers, editors, and designers are currently dominating much of the content on his application.[58] Instagram has proven itself a powerful platform for marketers to reach their customers and prospects through sharing pictures and brief messages.

According to a study by Simply Measured, 71% of the world's largest brands are now using Instagram as a marketing channel.[59] For companies, Instagram can be used as a tool to connect and communicate with current and potential customers.

The company can present a more personal picture of their brand, and by doing so the company conveys a better and true picture of itself.

The idea of Instagram pictures lies on on-the-go, a sense that the event is happening right now, and that adds another layer to the personal and accurate picture of the company.

In fact, Thomas Rankin, co-founder and CEO of the program Dash Hudson, stated that when he approves a blogger's Instagram post before it is posted on the behalf of a brand his company represents, his only negative feedback is if it looks too posed.

"It's not an editorial photo," he explained, "We're not trying to be a magazine.

We're trying to create a moment."[58] Another option Instagram provides the opportunity for companies to reflect a true picture of the brand from the perspective of the customers, for instance, using the user-generated contents thought the hashtags encouragement.[60] Other than the filters and hashtags functions, the Instagram's 15-second videos and the recently added ability to send private messages between users have opened new opportunities for brands to connect with customers in a new extent, further promoting effective marketing on Instagram.

Snapchat is a popular messaging and picture exchanging application that was created in 2011 by three students at Stanford University named Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown.

The application was first developed to allow users to message back and forth and to also send photographs that are only available from 1–10 seconds until they are no longer available.

The app was an instant hit with social media members and today there are up to 158 million people using snapchat every single day.[61] It is also estimated that Snapchat users are opening the application approximately 18 times per day, which means users are on the app for about 25–30 minutes per day.[61] YouTube is another popular avenue; advertisements are done in a way to suit the target audience.

The type of language used in the commercials and the ideas used to promote the product reflect the audience's style and taste.

Also, the ads on this platform are usually in sync with the content of the video requested, this is another advantage YouTube brings for advertisers.

Certain ads are presented with certain videos since the content is relevant.

Promotional opportunities such as sponsoring a video is also possible on YouTube, "for example, a user who searches for a YouTube video on dog training may be presented with a sponsored video from a dog toy company in results along with other videos."[62] YouTube also enable publishers to earn money through its YouTube Partner Program.

Companies can pay YouTube for a special "channel" which promotes the companies products or services.

Websites such as Delicious, Digg, Slashdot, Diigo, Stumbleupon, and Reddit are popular social bookmarking sites used in social media promotion.

Each of these sites is dedicated to the collection, curation, and organization of links to other websites that users deem to be of good quality.

This process is "crowdsourced", allowing amateur social media network members to sort and prioritize links by relevance and general category.

Due to the large user bases of these websites, any link from one of them to another, the smaller website may in a flash crowd, a sudden surge of interest in the target website.

In addition to user-generated promotion, these sites also offer advertisements within individual user communities and categories.[63] Because ads can be placed in designated communities with a very specific target audience and demographic, they have far greater potential for traffic generation than ads selected simply through cookie and browser history.[64] Additionally, some of these websites have also implemented measures to make ads more relevant to users by allowing users to vote on which ones will be shown on pages they frequent.[65] The ability to redirect large volumes of web traffic and target specific, relevant audiences makes social bookmarking sites a valuable asset for social media marketers.

Platforms like LinkedIn create an environment for companies and clients to connect online.[66] Companies that recognize the need for information, originality/ and accessibility employ blogs to make their products popular and unique/ and ultimately reach out to consumers who are privy to social media.[67] Studies from 2009 show that consumers view coverage in the media or from bloggers as being more neutral and credible than print advertisements, which are not thought of as free or independent.[68] Blogs allow a product or company to provide longer descriptions of products or services, can include testimonials and can link to and from other social network and blog pages.

Blogs can be updated frequently and are promotional techniques for keeping customers, and also for acquiring followers and subscribers who can then be directed to social network pages.

Online communities can enable a business to reach the clients of other businesses using the platform.

To allow firms to measure their standing in the corporate world, sites enable employees to place evaluations of their companies.[66] Some businesses opt out of integrating social media platforms into their traditional marketing regimen.

There are also specific corporate standards that apply when interacting online.[66] To maintain an advantage in a business-consumer relationship, businesses have to be aware of four key assets that consumers maintain: information, involvement, community, and control.[69] Blogging website Tumblr first launched ad products on May 29, 2012.[70] Rather than relying on simple banner ads, Tumblr requires advertisers to create a Tumblr blog so the content of those blogs can be featured on the site.[71] In one year, four native ad formats were created on web and mobile, and had more than 100 brands advertising on Tumblr with 500 cumulative sponsored posts.

These posts can be one or more of the following: images, photo sets, animated GIFs, video, audio, and text posts.

For the users to differentiate the promoted posts to the regular users' posts, the promoted posts have a dollar symbol on the corner.

On May 6, 2014, Tumblr announced customization and theming on mobile apps for brands to advertise.[73] Social media marketing involves the use of social networks, consumer's online brand-related activities (COBRA) and electronic word of mouth (eWOM)[76][77] to successfully advertise online.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter provide advertisers with information about the likes and dislikes of their consumers.[62] This technique is crucial, as it provides the businesses with a "target audience".[62] With social networks, information relevant to the user's likes is available to businesses; who then advertise accordingly.

Activities such as uploading a picture of your "new Converse sneakers to Facebook[76]" is an example of a COBRA.[76][77] Electronic recommendations and appraisals are a convenient manner to have a product promoted via "consumer-to-consumer interactions.[76] An example of eWOM would be an online hotel review;[78] the hotel company can have two possible outcomes based on their service.

A good service would result in a positive review which gets the hotel free advertising via social media.

However, a poor service will result in a negative consumer review which can potentially harm the company's reputation.[79] Social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, MySpace etc.

have all influenced the buzz of word of mouth marketing.

In 1999, Misner said that word-of mouth marketing is, "the world's most effective, yet least understood marketing strategy" (Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009, p. 3).[80] Through the influence of opinion leaders, the increased online "buzz" of "word-of-mouth" marketing that a product, service or companies are experiencing is due to the rise in use of social media and smartphones.

Businesses and marketers have noticed that, "a persons behaviour is influenced by many small groups" (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).

These small groups rotate around social networking accounts that are run by influential people (opinion leaders or "thought leaders") who have followers of groups.

The types of groups (followers) are called:[81] reference groups (people who know each other either face-to-face or have an indirect influence on a persons attitude or behaviour); membership groups (a person has a direct influence on a person's attitude or behaviour); and aspirational groups (groups which an individual wishes to belong to).

Marketers target influential people, referred to as influencers, on social media who are recognized as being opinion leaders and opinion-formers to send messages to their target audiences and amplify the impact of their message.

A social media post by an opinion leader can have a much greater impact (via the forwarding of the post or "liking" of the post) than a social media post by a regular user.

Marketers have come to the understanding that "consumers are more prone to believe in other individuals" who they trust (Sepp, Liljander, & Gummerus, 2011).

OL's and OF's can also send their own messages about products and services they choose (Fill, Hughes, & De Francesco, 2013, p. 216).

The reason the opinion leader or formers have such a strong following base is because their opinion is valued or trusted (Clement, Proppe, & Rott, 2007).

They can review products and services for their followings, which can be positive or negative towards the brand.

OL's and OF's are people who have a social status and because of their personality, beliefs, values etc.

have the potential to influence other people (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).

They usually have a large number of followers otherwise known as their reference, membership or aspirational group (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189.

By having an OL or OF support a brands product by posting a photo, video or written recommendation on a blog, the following may be influenced and because they trust the OL/OF a high chance of the brand selling more products or creating a following base.

Having an OL/OF helps spread word of mouth talk amongst reference groups and/or memberships groups e.g.

family, friends, work-friends etc.

(Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).[82][83][84][85][85][85] The adjusted communication model shows the use of using opinion leaders and opinion formers.

The sender/source gives the message to many, many OL's/OF's who pass the message on along with their personal opinion, the receiver (followers/groups) form their own opinion and send their personal message to their group (friends, family etc.) (Dahlen, Lange, & Smith, 2010, p. 39).[86] Owned social media channels are an essential extension of business' and brands in today's world.

Brand must seek to create their brand image on each platform, and cater to the type of consumer demographics on each respective platform.

In contrast with pre-Internet marketing, such as TV ads and newspaper ads, in which the marketer controlled all aspects of the ad, with social media, users are free to post comments right below an online ad or an online post by a company about its product.

Companies are increasing using their social media strategy as part of their traditional marketing effort using magazines, newspapers, radio advertisements, television advertisements.

Since in the 2010s, media consumers are often using multiple platforms at the same time (e.g., surfing the Internet on a tablet while watching a streaming TV show), marketing content needs to be consistent across all platforms, whether traditional or new media.

Heath (2006) wrote about the extent of attention businesses should give to their social media sites.

It is about finding a balance between frequently posting but not over posting.

There is a lot more attention to be paid towards social media sites because people need updates to gain brand recognition.

Therefore, a lot more content is need and this can often be unplanned content.[87] Planned content begins with the creative/marketing team generating their ideas, once they have completed their ideas they send them off for approval.

There is two general ways of doing so.

The first is where each sector approves the plan one after another, editor, brand, followed by the legal team (Brito, 2013).

Sectors may differ depending on the size and philosophy of the business.

The second is where each sector is given 24 hours (or such designated time) to sign off or disapprove.

If no action is given within the 24-hour period the original plan is implemented.

Planned content is often noticeable to customers and is un-original or lacks excitement but is also a safer option to avoid unnecessary backlash from the public.[88] Both routes for planned content are time consuming as in the above; the first way to approval takes 72 hours to be approved.

Although the second route can be significantly shorter it also holds more risk particularly in the legal department.

Unplanned content is an 'in the moment' idea, "a spontaneous, tactical reaction." (Cramer, 2014, p. 6).

The content could be trending and not have the time to take the planned content route.

The unplanned content is posted sporadically and is not calendar/date/time arranged (Deshpande, 2014).[89][90] Issues with unplanned content revolve around legal issues and whether the message being sent out represents the business/brand accordingly.

If a company sends out a Tweet or Facebook message too hurriedly, the company may unintentionally use insensitive language or messaging that could alienate some consumers.

For example, celebrity chef Paula Deen was criticized after she made a social media post commenting about HIV-AIDS and South Africa; her message was deemed to be offensive by many observers.

The main difference between planned and unplanned is the time to approve the content.

Unplanned content must still be approved by marketing managers, but in a much more rapid manner e.g.

1–2 hours or less.

Sectors may miss errors because of being hurried.

When using unplanned content Brito (2013) says, "be prepared to be reactive and respond to issues when they arise."[88] Brito (2013) writes about having a, "crisis escalation plan", because, "It will happen".

The plan involves breaking down the issue into topics and classifying the issue into groups.

Colour coding the potential risk "identify and flag potential risks" also helps to organise an issue.

The problem can then be handled by the correct team and dissolved more effectively rather than any person at hand trying to solve the situation.[88] Traditional advertising techniques include print and television advertising.

The Internet has already overtaken television as the largest advertising market.[91] Web sites often include the banner or pop-up ads.

Social networking sites don't always have ads.

In exchange, products have entire pages and are able to interact with users.

Television commercials often end with a spokesperson asking viewers to check out the product website for more information.

While briefly popular, print ads included QR codes on them.

These QR codes can be scanned by cell phones and computers, sending viewers to the product website.

Advertising is beginning to move viewers from the traditional outlets to the electronic ones.[92] While traditional media, like newspapers and television advertising, are largely overshadowed by the rise of Social media marketing, there is still a place for traditional marketing.

For example, with newspapers, readership over the years has shown a decline.

However, readership with newspapers is still fiercely loyal to print-only media.

51% of newspaper readers only read the newspaper in its print form,[93] making well-placed ads valuable.

The Internet and social networking leaks are one of the issues facing traditional advertising.

Video and print ads are often leaked to the world via the Internet earlier than they are scheduled to premiere.

Social networking sites allow those leaks to go viral, and be seen by many users more quickly.

The time difference is also a problem facing traditional advertisers.

When social events occur and are broadcast on television, there is often a time delay between airings on the east coast and west coast of the United States.

Social networking sites have become a hub of comment and interaction concerning the event.

This allows individuals watching the event on the west coast (time-delayed) to know the outcome before it airs.

The 2011 Grammy Awards highlighted this problem.

Viewers on the west coast learned who won different awards based on comments made on social networking sites by individuals watching live on the east coast.[94] Since viewers knew who won already, many tuned out and ratings were lower.

All the advertisement and promotion put into the event was lost because viewers didn't have a reason to watch.[according to whom?] Social media marketing provides organizations with a way to connect with their customers.

However, organizations must protect their information as well as closely watch comments and concerns on the social media they use.

A flash poll done on 1225 IT executives from 33 countries revealed that social media mishaps caused organizations a combined $4.3 million in damages in 2010.[95] The top three social media incidents an organization faced during the previous year included employees sharing too much information in public forums, loss or exposure of confidential information, and increased exposure to litigation.[95] Due to the viral nature of the Internet, a mistake by a single employee has in some cases shown to result in devastating consequences for organizations.

An example of a social media mishap includes designer Kenneth Cole's Twitter mishap in 2011.

When Kenneth Cole tweeted, "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo.

Rumor has they heard our new spring collection is now available online at [Kenneth Cole's website]".[96] This reference to the 2011 Egyptian revolution drew an objection from the public; it was widely objected to on the Internet.[96] Kenneth Cole realized his mistake shortly after and responded with a statement apologizing for the tweet.[97] In 2012 during Hurricane Sandy, Gap sent out a tweet to its followers telling them to stay safe but encouraged them to shop online and offered free shipping.

The tweet was deemed insensitive, and Gap eventually took it down and apologized.[98] Numerous additional online marketing mishap examples exist.

Examples include a YouTube video of a Domino's Pizza employee violating health code standards, which went viral on the Internet and later resulted in felony charges against two employees.[95][99] A Twitter hashtag posted by McDonald's in 2012 attracting attention due to numerous complaints and negative events customers experienced at the chain store; and a 2011 tweet posted by a Chrysler Group employee that no one in Detroit knows how to drive.[100] When the Link REIT opened a Facebook page to recommend old-style restaurants, the page was flooded by furious comments criticizing the REIT for having forced a lot of restaurants and stores to shut down; it had to terminate its campaign early amid further deterioration of its corporate image.[101] In 2018, Max Factor, MAC and other beauty brands were forced to rush to disassociate themselves from Kuwaiti beauty blogger and Instagram 'influencer' Sondos Alqattan after she criticised government moves to improve conditions for domestic workers.[102] The code of ethics that is affiliated with traditional marketing can also be applied to social media.

However, with social media being so personal and international, there is another list of complications and challenges that come along with being ethical online.

With the invention of social media, the marketer no longer has to focus solely on the basic demographics and psychographics given from television and magazines, but now they can see what consumers like to hear from advertisers, how they engage online, and what their needs and wants are.[103] The general concept of being ethical while marking on social network sites is to be honest with the intentions of the campaign, avoid false advertising, be aware of user privacy conditions (which means not using consumers' private information for gain), respect the dignity of persons in the shared online community, and claim responsibility for any mistakes or mishaps that are results of your marketing campaign.[104] Most social network marketers use websites like Facebook and MySpace to try to drive traffic to another website.[105] While it is ethical to use social networking websites to spread a message to people who are genuinely interested, many people game the system with auto-friend adding programs and spam messages and bulletins.

Social networking websites are becoming wise to these practices, however, and are effectively weeding out and banning offenders.

In addition, social media platforms have become extremely aware of their users and collect information about their viewers to connect with them in various ways.

Social-networking website Facebook Inc.

is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves.[106] This may be an unethical or ethical feature to some individuals.

Some people may react negatively because they believe it is an invasion of privacy.

On the other hand, some individuals may enjoy this feature because their social network recognizes their interests and sends them particular advertisements pertaining to those interests.

Consumers like to network with people who share their interests and desires.[107] Individuals who agree to have their social media profile public, should be aware that advertisers have the ability to take information that interests them to be able to send them information and advertisements to boost their sales.

Managers invest in social media to foster relationships and int

Content marketing

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online.[1] It is often used by businesses in order to: Content marketing attracts prospects and transforms prospects into customers by creating and sharing valuable free content.

Content marketing helps companies create sustainable brand loyalty, provides valuable information to consumers, and creates a willingness to purchase products from the company in the future.

This relatively new form of marketing does not involve direct sales.

Instead, it builds trust and rapport with the audience.[2] Unlike other forms of online marketing, Content marketing relies on anticipating and meeting an existing customer need for information, as opposed to creating demand for a new need.

As James O'Brien of Contently wrote on Mashable, "The idea central to Content marketing is that a brand must give something valuable to get something valuable in return.

Instead of the commercial, be the show.

Instead of the banner ad, be the feature story."[3] Content marketing requires continuous delivery of large amounts of content, preferably within a Content marketing strategy.[4] When businesses pursue Content marketing, the main focus should be the needs of the prospect or customer.

Once a business has identified the customer's need, information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs, etc.[5] Most of these formats belong to the digital channel.

Digital Content marketing is a management process that uses electronic channels to identify, forecast, and satisfy the content requirements of a particular audience.

It must be consistently updated and added to in order to influence the behavior of customers.

Traditional marketers have long used content to disseminate information about a brand and build a brand's reputation.

Taking advantage of technological advances in transportation and communication, business owners started to apply Content marketing techniques in the late 19th century.

They also attempted to build connections with their customers.

For example: During the golden age of TV, between the 1940s and 1950s, advertising took over the media.

Companies focused on sales rather than connecting with the public.

There were few ventures into Content marketing and not many prominent campaigns.

During the baby boom era, Kellogg’s began selling sugary cereal to children.

With this change in business model came sociable animal mascots, lively animated commercials and the back of the cereal box as a form of targeted Content marketing.

Infographics were born in this era.

This represented a new approach to make a brand memorable with the audience.

In the 1990s, everything changed for marketers.

The arrival of computers and the Internet made websites and blogs flourish, and corporations found Content marketing opportunities through email.

E-commerce adaptations and digital distribution became the foundation of marketing strategy.

Internet also helped Content marketing become a mainstream form of marketing.

Traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio and TV started to lose their power in the marketplace.

Companies started to promote and sell their products digitally.[10] The phrase "Content marketing" was used as early as 1996,[11] when John F.

Oppedahl led a roundtable for journalists at the American Society for Newspaper Editors.

By the late 2000s, when social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube were born, online Content marketing was accessible, shareable and on-demand anytime worldwide.

By 2014, Forbes Magazine's website had written about the seven most popular ways companies use Content marketing.[14] In it, the columnist points out that by 2013, use of Content marketing had jumped across corporations from 60% a year or so before, to 93%[15] as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Despite the fact that 70% of organizations are creating more content, only 21% of marketers think they are successful at tracking return on investment.

Today, Content marketing has become a powerful model for marketers.

Storytelling is part of it, and they must convey the companies’ messages or goal to their desired audience without pushing them to just buy the product or service.

The rise of Content marketing has turned many traditional businesses into media publishing companies.[16] For example: The rise of Content marketing has also accelerated the growth of online platforms, such as YouTube, Yelp, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, and more.

For example: Businesses actively curate their content on these platforms with hopes to expand their reach to new audiences.

Part of transitioning to a media publishing mindset requires a change in structure and process to create content at the speed of culture.

The old model you see on shows like Mad Men is too slow and cumbersome.

By the time an idea becomes an ad, it is out of date.

Marketers are increasingly co-locating insights, creative, production, legal approval, and placement to increase interaction and speed in producing and distributing content.

Marketing content production is transforming from an advertising agency model to a newsroom model.[23] Metrics to determine the success of Content marketing are often tied to the original goals of the campaign.

For example, for each of these goals, a content marketer may measure the different engagement and conversion metrics: Businesses focused on expanding their reach to more customers will want to pay attention to the increase in the volume of visitors, as well as the quality of those interactions.

Traditional measures of volume include the number of visitors to a page and number of emails collected, while time spent on page and click-through to other pages/ photos are good indicators for engagement.

Businesses want to measure the impact that their messages have on consumers.

Brand health refers to the positive or negative feedback that a company gets.

It also measures how important a brand is for consumers.

With this companies want to find out if brand reputation influences their customers to make a purchase.[24] Measures in this part comprise For businesses hoping to reach not only more - but also new - types of customers online, they should pay attention to the demographics of new visitors, as evidenced by cookies that can be installed, different sources of traffic, different online behaviors, and/or different buying habits of online visitors.

Businesses focused on increasing sales through Content marketing should look at traditional e-commerce metrics including click-through-rate from a product-page to check-out and completion rates at the check-out.

Altogether, these form a conversion funnel.

Moreover, to better understand customers' buying habits, they should look at other engagement metrics like time spent per page, number of product-page visits per user, and re-engagement.

Refers to companies that want to analyze whether their social media campaigns are generating commentary among consumers.

This helps them to come up with ways to improve their product and service.

This involves "high level of brand engagement and builds brand loyalty".[26] Examples: Digital Content marketing, which is a management process, uses digital products through different electronic channels to identify, forecast and satisfy the necessity of the customers.[27] It must be consistently maintained to preserve or change the behavior of customers.[citation needed] Examples: The supply chain of digital Content marketing mainly consists of commercial stakeholders and end-user stakeholders which represent content providers and distributors and customers separately.[34] In this process, distributors manage the interface between the publisher and the consumer, then distributors could identify the content that consumers need through external channels and implement marketing strategies.

For instance, Library and document supply agencies as intermediaries can deliver the digital content of e-books, and e-journal articles to the users according to their search results through the electronic channels.

Another example is when consumers pay for the acquisition of some MP3 downloads, search engines can be used to identify different music providers and smart agents can be used by consumers to search for multiple music provider sites.

In a word, the digital Content marketing process needs to be conducted at the business level and service experience level because when consumers are accessing digital content, their own experience depends on the complex network of relationships in the Content marketing channels such as websites and videos.

The consumers interact directly with distributors in the big supply chain through various digital products which have an important role in meeting the requirements of the consumers.

The design and user experience of these channels directly decides the success of digital Content marketing.[27] Electronic services refer to interactive network services.[35] In the electronic service, the interaction between the customer and the organizations mainly through the network technology, such as using E-mail, telephone, online chat windows for communication.

Electronic services are different from traditional services and they are not affected by distance restrictions and opening hours.

Digital Content marketing through electronic service is usually served together with other channels to achieve marketing purposes including face-to-face, postal, and other remote services.

Information companies provide different messages and documents to customers who use multiple search engines on different sites and set up access rights for business groups.

These are some channels of digital Content marketing.[27]

Call to action (marketing)

Call to action (CTA) is a marketing term for any device designed to prompt an immediate response or encourage an immediate sale.

A CTA most often refers to the use of words or phrases that can be incorporated into sales scripts, advertising messages, or web pages, which compel an audience to act in a specific way.

In marketing, a call to action (CTA) is an instruction to the audience designed to provoke an immediate response, usually using an imperative verb such as "call now", "find out more" or "visit a store today".[1] Other types of calls to action might provide consumers with strong reasons for purchasing immediately such an offer that is only available for a limited time (e.g.

'Offer must expire soon'; 'Limited stocks available') or a special deal usually accompanied by a time constraint (e.g.

'Order before midnight to receive a free gift with your order'; 'Two for the price of one for first 50 callers only').

The key to a powerful call to action is to provide consumers with compelling reasons to purchase promptly rather than defer purchase decisions.

A CTA can be a simple non-demanding request like "choose a colour" or "watch this video", or a much more demanding request.

An obvious CTA would be a request for the consumer to purchase a product or provide personal details and contact information.

Many marketing materials such as brochures, flyers, catalogs, email campaigns, also make use of a call to action.

Such instructions are designed to show consumers how to take the next step and create a sense of urgency around the offer.[2] Successful sales representatives have long recognised that specific words and phrases elicit desirable responses from prospects and soon learn to incorporate the best lines into effective sales scripts.

Clever sales pitches often incorporate a series of small CTAs that lead to a final CTA.

These smaller CTAs create a pattern of behaviour that makes it easier for the audience to follow-through with just one last CTA, completing a more demanding request, than had it been asked without context.

An example could be the purchase of a designer timepiece.

The sales person might ask the consumer to choose a style, then a colour, a size and even a personalised engraving.[3] When the client views the personalised design, they are more likely to be predisposed to complete the purchase.

The sales representative can close the sale by asking, "Will that be cash or credit, today?" Advertising messages, especially direct-response advertising messages, often make extensive use of calls to action.

The key to a powerful call to action is to provide consumers with compelling reasons to purchase promptly rather than defer purchase decisions.

An article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the incidence of calls to action in television advertisements is increasing due to marketers' desire for instant and measurable results.[4] In web design, a CTA may be a banner, button, or some graphic or text on a website meant to prompt a user to click it, and continue down a conversion funnel.

It is an essential part of inbound marketing as well as permission marketing in that it actively strives to convert a user into a lead and later into a customer.

The main goal of a CTA is a click, or a scan in the case of a QR code, and its success can be measured with a click-through rate, a conversion rate formula that calculates the number of clicks over the times the CTA was seen.[5] Another way to test the effectiveness of a CTA is using A/B testing where several graphics are presented to users and the graphic with highest success rate becomes the default.[6]

Digital strategy

Digital strategy is a plan that uses digital resources to achieve one or more objectives.

With Technologytechnology changing at a very fast pace, Institutions have many digital resources to choose from based on what their overall goal is.

Typically a plan that helps businesses, institutions, and brands, etc transform its course of action, operations, and activities, etc into digital nature to market their products, Analyse their consumer transactions or reduce operating cost, etc will be the Digital strategy for that business, institution or brand.

For e.g.

brands at one point of time used print media advertisements for promoting its offers but now with the help of technology, Social social media is being used aggressively by brands to communicate their offerings to their respective consumers consumers.

2019 was the first year in the history of humankind that witnessed brands.[1] total advertising spent on social media crossed over the brand's total advertising spent on print media.

The Digital strategy is part of the business strategy and experts maintain that it cannot be effective or successful if built independently.[2] It is argued that it represents how the business strategy is influenced by leveraging digital resources to create differential value.[3] In the process, it reshapes traditional organizational strategies into modular, distributed, cross-functional, and global business processes.[3] There, are numerous approaches to conducting Digital strategy, but at their core, all go through four steps:[4] Within each of those stages, a number of techniques and analyses may be employed.

Includes one-on-one interviews, group interviews and workshops with a company's senior management, marketing and sales, operations and service stakeholders with a goal of understanding the business strategy, challenges and opportunities, products, organization, processes, supply chain and vendors, distributors, customers, and competitive landscape, as well as the potential role of their online assets.

Includes evaluations of a company's main competitors and potential substitutes with the goal of understanding a company's strengths and weaknesses relative to their competitors and potential substitutes.

While this often includes steps found in traditional marketing competitor analysis, such as products, prices, etc.

Competitor analysis includes two unique items: An analysis of a company's financial data (which may include everything from public financial statements to private ERP data) with the goal of understanding the financial impact (positive and negative) that certain changes would have on a company.

ASSIMPLER Blueprinting - The Business Blueprinting of the organization is designed based on the ASSIMPLER framework.

ASSIMPLER stands for Availability, Scalability, Security, Interoperability, Maintainability, Performance, Low cost of ownership, Extendability and Reliability - applied to business services and processes.

The framework helps model the business expectations and challenges to be addressed through the Digital strategy.

The digital positioning model stands as one of the first visual frameworks for assessing an organization's digital positioning strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities.

The model focused on four key positions: Customer Experience, Operational Excellence, Industry Transformation, and Market Transformation.

Includes one-on-one interviews and focus groups with a company's external stakeholders, with a goal of understanding external stakeholders behaviours, needs, goals and perceptions of the company and their industry both in the broadest business context as well as specifically online.

In addition to standard marketing strategy methodologies and questions (quantitative and qualitative), external stakeholder interviews for Digital strategy may include usability testing, an analysis of how effectively external stakeholders can use the online assets developed by a company for their intended purposes.

In Digital strategy this is used to uncover usability barriers that may prevent the online vision being achieved.

An analysis of external stakeholder behaviors in their environment, for example: field observations of shoppers in a store.

In addition to standard ethnographic research, Digital strategy research may include video recording of an external stakeholder using their computers or specific computer applications or web sites.[10] An analysis of the usage patterns of a company's online assets with the goal of better understanding external stakeholder behavior as well as identifying strengths and weakness of the company's current online offerings.

This may include understanding how many people are visiting a web site, what are the most popular pages, what are the most popular paths, where are people coming from, where do they drop off, how long do they stay, etc.

A specific methodology for web analytics where the company's online assets are modeled as a sales funnel, with a visit or impression representing a new lead, a certain page or action in the web site considered a conversion (such as a user hitting the purchase confirmation page) and specific pages in the web site representing specific stages of the sales funnel.

The goal of the analysis is to provide insight into the overall conversion rate as well as the key weak points of the funnel (the stages in which the largest percentages of users drop out of the funnel).[11] This may also involve analysis of a company's search engine optimization situation and changes in online traffic pathways.[12] An analysis of a company's customer databases and information repositories with the goal of segmenting customers into homogeneous groups across one or more dimensions of behavior, demographics, value, product or marketing message affinity, etc.

In Digital strategy, this often includes the online customer registration database which companies use to provide access to their customer specific, protected areas.

An analysis of a customer's behavior (such as their purchase or service behavior) that looks across all of the different channels, in which customers interact with a company's products or information.

There are lots of different ways to do this; a representative example would be, a company focuses on the customer purchase process (how a customer becomes aware of a product, how a customer develops the intent to purchase a product, and how a customer actually purchases the product).

The analysis would look at which channels (for example: phone, catalog, retail store, web site, 3rd party search engine, etc.) a customer uses at which stage of the purchase process, attempting to understand why each channel is used, each channel's relative attribution and evaluating the company's strengths or weaknesses in that particular channel for the particular stage of the process.[13] An approach to the collection of external stakeholder feedback in a quantitative manner from a large population.

In Digital strategy, surveys may be used to validate or invalidate key questions raised in more qualitative exercises such as external stakeholder interviews and focus groups.

Depending on the breadth of the survey population and the degree of variation within the population, survey results may be segmented to form homogeneous groups across one or more dimensions of behavior, demographics, value, product or marketing message affinity, etc.

Surveys are often conducted online using web surveys, e-mail lists, or 3rd party panels, although phone surveys or other offline methods may sometimes be used when there are questions as to the online savviness of a particular target population.

A spreadsheet with supporting documentation that quantifies the investments and returns over time, resulting from the execution of the online strategy.

The Business plan also defines the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure and evaluate the success of the online strategy.

Design of a technical architecture that will meet the needs of the business vision and conform to the business plan and roadmap.

This is often done as a gap analysis where the current technical architecture is assessed.

A future technical architecture, which meets the needs of the online vision, is designed.

The gaps between the current state and future state are identified, and a series of initiatives or projects to fill those gaps are developed and sequenced.

Similar to a technical assessment, organizational and process assessments look at the changes that need to be made to an organization and its processes in order to achieve the online vision.

They may involve a series of business process reengineering projects focused on the areas of an organization most affected by the online initiatives.

A way of prioritizing various initiatives by comparing their cost of implementation with their expected business benefits.

This is often done by creating a two by two matrix where the cost of implementation runs along the x-axis (from high cost to low cost) and expected business benefit runs along the y-axis, from low benefit to high benefit.

Individual initiatives or projects are then plotted on the matrix in terms of their calculated costs and benefits.

Priorities are then determined according to which projects will provide the greatest benefit for the lowest cost.

A plan detailing the allocation of media spending across online media (such as search engine marketing, banner advertising, and affiliate marketing) usually as part of the customer acquisition or retention elements of the Digital strategy.

Since the late 2000s, social media has become increasingly important in engaging with customers both for marketing and customer support purposes, especially benefiting smaller businesses.[14] Graphical representations or an outline of key ideas or processes of the Digital strategy.

These are often created in order to better communicate a key concept or to build excitement among stakeholders when building consensus or socializing a Digital strategy.

A high-level project plan which details the durations and dependencies of all the initiatives in the Digital strategy.

The roadmap will often include checkpoints to assess the progress and success of the Digital strategy, over time.

A description of the key performance indicators used to measure the effectiveness of the Digital strategy as well as the process for collecting and sharing this information.

The measurement plan usually covers the financial, operational, and e-business metrics and their relationships.[15][16] The organizational structure, roles, and process description of the operational entity that will manage the initiatives in a Digital strategy.

The governance model describes who is responsible for what, how decisions are made, how issues are escalated, and how information on the performance of the projects is communicated within the organization.

Marketing has changed rapidly.

Some marketers believe that marketing has changed over the past two years, rather than the last 50 years.

The complete guide to digital marketing strategies and digital marketing tactics/channels for small business.

These are the some digital marketing channels.

1.

Email Marketing 2.

Social Media Marketing 3.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing 4.

Search Engine Optimization 5.

Influencer Marketing 6.

Content Marketing 7.

Retargeting Ads 8.

Viral Marketing 9.

Affiliate Marketing 10.

Referral Marketing 11.

Mobile Marketing 12.

Native Advertising 13.

Inbound Marketing 14.

Growth Hacking As of 2007, a trend in Digital strategy is the use of personas as a framework for using customer information to prioritize online initiatives.

Personas are character sketches that represent a typical member of one customer segment and highlight their needs, goals, and behaviors.

Because it is representative of a customer segment, it allows decision makers to prioritize various features based on the needs of the segment.

Because it is a character sketch, it is sometimes easier for decision makers to internalize the key needs of the segment than it would be by reading large quantities of information.

A typical approach is to create the segment based on customer analysis such as customer interviews, ethnographic research, and statistical surveys.

Then assemble key decision makers or stakeholders, present the findings of the personas, and use them to kick start a brainstorming session around different online initiatives that can meet the persona's needs and goals.

Historically, execution of a business or Digital strategy is done as a big bang, with large initiatives such as site redesigns and transactional systems taking 6–12 months to develop and often an additional 6–12 months before they deliver any results.

As of 2007, a trend has emerged where companies adopt a more iterative approach to rolling out their strategies, one which leverages a series of smaller tests, which are carefully measured and analyzed and used to modify or optimize the Digital strategy.

An example of this test-measure-optimize-scale approach is that a company might take some key pages on their site and test a number of versions of those pages with different marketing messages, design approaches, user experience optimizations, navigation optimizations, and even new features and functions using a multivariate or A/B test.

The company would then identify the page which had the best combination of changes in terms of some key business metric (such as conversion), analyzing the results to understand which changes were most instrumental in affecting the high conversion rate, and applying those learnings to future pages and future tests (conversion optimization).

The advantage of this approach is that in the long run, it tends to be more successful in delivering business results, because each step is measured and adjusted for.

In addition, it tends to favor smaller (less risky, less expensive) steps rather than larger (more risky, more expensive) initiatives before getting the payback.[17] The disadvantage is that over time this approach tends to converge on a solution (local optimum), not necessarily the best solution (global optimum) that might have been reached if a company starts from scratch instead of building each step on the previous one.

Another disadvantage is that although this solution tends to favor smaller, more incremental changes, there is often a larger up front cost to setting up all the measurement systems and staffing a company with the right analysts and change processes to react to these tests in a timely and effective manner.

As a result, companies often adopt a mix of big bang efforts augmented by some smaller, more iterative efforts as part of their overall strategy.

A person who is primarily focused on Digital strategy may be referred to as a digital architect or digital strategist and a person who executes a Digital strategy may be referred to as a digital marketing engineer.

There are also several challenges when developing and implementing a Digital strategy.

This include human factors, particularly knowledge, skills, and attitudes, which impede full engagement.[18]

Attribution (marketing)

Femi Falodun

Marketing automation

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.[1] Marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then interpreted, stored and executed by software, which increases efficiency and reduces human error.

Originally focused on email Marketing automation, Marketing automation refers to a broad range of automation and analytic tools for marketing[2] especially inbound marketing.

Marketing automation platforms are used as a hosted or web-based solution, and no software installation is required by a customer.

The use of a Marketing automation platform is to streamline sales and marketing organizations by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions.[3] Marketing automation is a platform that marketers use to plan, coordinate, manage and measure all of their marketing campaigns, both online and offline.

It is often used along with lifecycle marketing strategy to closely manage and nurture generated leads, aiming to convert leads into customers.[citation needed] Marketing automation is a subset of customer relationship management (CRM) or customer experience management (CXM) that focuses on the definition, segmentation, scheduling and tracking of marketing campaigns.

The use of Marketing automation makes processes that would otherwise have been performed manually much more efficient and makes new processes possible.

Marketing automation can be defined as a process where technology is used to automate several repetitive tasks that are undertaken on a regular basis in a marketing campaign.

A tool that allows an individual to design, execute and automate a time-bound marketing workflow can be called a Marketing automation platform.[citation needed] Marketing automation platforms allow marketers to automate and simplify client communication by managing complex omni-channel marketing strategies from a single tool.

Marketing automation assists greatly in areas like Lead Generation, Segmentation, Lead nurturing and lead scoring, Relationship marketing, Cross-sell and upsell, Retention, Marketing ROI measurement.

There are three categories of Marketing automation software: As of 25th May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, [5] this has had a large impact on the way marketing teams and organizations can manage their consumer data.

Any organization using Marketing automation tracking is required to ask consent from the consumer as well as provide transparency on how the data will be processed.

In order to effectively aid marketers in fully understanding customers and subsequently developing a strategic marketing plan, Marketing automation tools (MAT) are designed to perform eight key tasks:[6][verification needed]

Multi-level marketing

Multi-level marketing (MLM), also called pyramid selling,[1][2] network marketing,[2][3] and referral marketing,[4] is a marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce selling the company's products/services, while the earnings of the participants are derived from a pyramid-shaped or binary compensation commission system.

Although each MLM company dictates its own specific financial compensation plan for the payout of any earnings to their respective participants, the common feature that is found across all MLMs is that the compensation plans theoretically pay out to participants only from two potential revenue streams.

The first is paid out from commissions of sales made by the participants directly to their own retail customers.

The second is paid out from commissions based upon the wholesale purchases made by other distributors below the participant who have recruited those other participants into the MLM; in the organizational hierarchy of MLMs, these participants are referred to as one's down line distributors.[5] MLM salespeople are, therefore, expected to sell products directly to end-user retail consumers by means of relationship referrals and word of mouth marketing, but most importantly they are incentivized to recruit others to join the company's distribution chain as fellow salespeople so that these can become down line distributors.[3][6][7] According to a report that studied the business models of 350 MLMs, published on the Federal Trade Commission's website, at least 99% of people who join MLM companies lose money.[8][9] Nonetheless, MLMs function because downline participants are encouraged to hold onto the belief that they can achieve large returns, while the statistical improbability of this is de-emphasised.

MLMs have been made illegal or otherwise strictly regulated in some jurisdictions as merely variations of the traditional pyramid scheme, including in mainland China.[10][11] The overwhelming majority of MLM participants (most sources estimated to be over 99.25% of all MLM distributors) participate at either an insignificant or nil net profit.[12] Indeed, the largest proportion of participants must operate at a net loss (after expenses are deducted) so that the few individuals in the uppermost level of the MLM pyramid can derive their significant earnings.

Said earnings are then emphasized by the MLM company to all other participants to encourage their continued participation at a continuing financial loss.[13] Many MLM companies do generate billions of dollars in annual revenue and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profit.

However, the profits of the MLM company are accrued at the detriment to the majority of the company's constituent workforce (the MLM participants).

Only some of said profit is then significantly shared with individual participants at the top of the MLM distributorship pyramid.

The earnings of those top few participants is emphasized and championed at company seminars and conferences, thus creating an illusion of how one can potentially become financially successful if they become a participant in the MLM.

This is then advertised by the MLM company to recruit more distributors to participate in the MLM with a false anticipation of earning margins which are in reality merely theoretical and statistically improbable.[14] Although an MLM company holds out those few top individual participants as evidence of how participation in the MLM could lead to success, the MLM business model depends on the failure of the overwhelming majority of all other participants, through the injecting of money from their own pockets, so that it can become the revenue and profit of the MLM company, of which the MLM company shares only a small proportion of it to a few individuals at the very top of the MLM participant pyramid.

Participants, other than the few individuals at the top, provide nothing more than their own financial loss for the company's own profit and the profit of the top few individual participants.[15] The main sales pitch of MLM companies to their participants and prospective participants is not the MLM company's products or services.

The products/services are largely peripheral to the MLM model.

Rather, the true sales pitch and emphasis is on a confidence given to participants of potential financial independence through participation in the MLM, luring with phrases like "the lifestyle you deserve" or "independent distributor."[16] Erik German's memoir My Father's Dream documents the real life failures of German's father as he is lured into "get-rich-quick" schemes such as Amway.[17] The memoir illustrates the Multi-level marketing sales principle known as "selling the dream".[18] Although emphasis is always made on the potential of success and the positive life change that "might" or "could" (not "will" or "can") result, it is only in otherwise difficult to find disclosure statements (or at the very least, difficult to read and interpret disclosure statements), that MLM participants are given fine print disclaimers that they as participants should not rely on the earning results of other participants in the highest levels of the MLM participant pyramid as an indication of what they should expect to earn.

MLMs very rarely emphasize the extreme likelihood of failure, or the extreme likelihood of financial loss, from participation in MLM.

MLMs are also seldom forthcoming about the fact that any significant success of the few individuals at the top of the MLM participant pyramid is in fact dependent on the continued financial loss and failure of all other participants below them in the MLM pyramid.[citation needed] MLMs have been made illegal in some jurisdictions as a mere variation of the traditional pyramid scheme, including in China.[10][11] In jurisdictions where MLMs have not been made illegal, many illegal pyramid schemes attempt to present themselves as MLM businesses.[7] Given that the overwhelming majority of MLM participants cannot realistically make a net profit, let alone a significant net profit, but instead overwhelmingly operate at net losses, some sources have defined all MLMs as a type of pyramid scheme, even if they have not been made illegal like traditional pyramid schemes through legislative statutes.[4][19][20] MLMs are designed to make profit for the owners/shareholders of the company, and a few individual participants at the top levels of the MLM pyramid of participants.

According to the U.S.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC), some MLM companies already constitute illegal pyramid schemes even by the narrower existing legislation, exploiting members of the organization.[21] Companies that use the MLM business model have been a frequent subject of criticism and lawsuits.

Legal claims against MLMs have included, among other things: "Network marketing" and "Multi-level marketing" (MLM) have been described by author Dominique Xardel as being synonymous, with it being a type of direct selling.[6] Some sources emphasize that Multi-level marketing is merely one form of direct selling, rather than being direct selling.[23][24] Other terms that are sometimes used to describe Multi-level marketing include "word-of-mouth marketing", "interactive distribution", and "relationship marketing".

Critics have argued that the use of these and other different terms and "buzzwords" is an effort to distinguish Multi-level marketing from illegal Ponzi schemes, chain letters, and consumer fraud scams.[25] The Direct Selling Association (DSA), a lobbying group for the MLM industry, reported that in 1990 only 25% of DSA members used the MLM business model.

By 1999, this had grown to 77.3%.[26] By 2009, 94.2% of DSA members were using MLM, accounting for 99.6% of sellers, and 97.1% of sales.[27] Companies such as Avon, Electrolux, Tupperware, and Kirby were all originally single-level marketing companies, using that traditional and uncontroversial direct selling business model (distinct from MLM) to sell their goods.

However, they later introduced multi-level compensation plans, becoming MLMs.[23] The DSA has approximately 200 members[28] while it is estimated there are over 1,000 firms using Multi-level marketing in the United States alone.[29] The origin of Multi-level marketing is often disputed; but Multi-level marketing style businesses existed in the 1920s,[30] 1930s California Vitamin Company,[31] (later named Nutrilite) or California Perfume Company (renamed as "Avon Products").[32] Independent non-salaried participants, referred to as distributors (variously called "associates", "independent business owners", "independent agents", etc.), are authorized to distribute the company's products or services.

They are awarded their own immediate retail profit from customers plus commission from the company, not downlines, through a Multi-level marketing compensation plan, which is based upon the volume of products sold through their own sales efforts as well as that of their downline organization.

Independent distributors develop their organizations by either building an active consumer network, who buy direct from the company, or by recruiting a downline of independent distributors who also build a consumer network base, thereby expanding the overall organization.[citation needed] The combined number of recruits from these cycles are the sales force which is referred to as the salesperson's "downline".

This "downline" is the pyramid in MLM's multiple level structure of compensation.[6] Several sources have commented on the income level of specific MLMs or MLMs in general: MLM businesses operate in all 50 U.S.

states.

Businesses may use terms such as "affiliate marketing" or "home-based business franchising".

Many pyramid schemes attempt to present themselves as legitimate MLM businesses.[7] Some sources say that all MLMs are essentially pyramid schemes, even if they are legal.[4][19][20] The U.S.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) states: "Steer clear of multilevel marketing plans that pay commissions for recruiting new distributors.

They're actually illegal pyramid schemes.

Why is pyramiding dangerous? Because plans that pay commissions for recruiting new distributors inevitably collapse when no new distributors can be recruited.

And when a plan collapses, most people—except perhaps those at the very top of the pyramid—end up empty-handed."[44] In a 2004 Staff Advisory letter to the Direct Selling Association, the FTC states:Much has been made of the personal, or internal, consumption issue in recent years.

In fact, the amount of internal consumption in any multi-level compensation business does not determine whether or not the FTC will consider the plan a pyramid scheme.

The critical question for the FTC is whether the revenues that primarily support the commissions paid to all participants are generated from purchases of goods and services that are not simply incidental to the purchase of the right to participate in a money-making venture.[45] The Federal Trade Commission warns "Not all multilevel marketing plans are legitimate.

Some are pyramid schemes.

It's best not to get involved in plans where the money you make is based primarily on the number of distributors you recruit and your sales to them, rather than on your sales to people outside the plan who intend to use the products."[21] The Federal Trade Commission issued a decision, In re Amway Corp., in 1979 in which it indicated that Multi-level marketing was not illegal per se in the United States.

However, Amway was found guilty of price fixing (by effectively requiring "independent" distributors to sell at the same fixed price) and making exaggerated income claims.[46][47] The FTC advises that Multi-level marketing organizations with greater incentives for recruitment than product sales are to be viewed skeptically.

The FTC also warns that the practice of getting commissions from recruiting new members is outlawed in most states as "pyramiding".[48] Walter J.

Carl stated in a 2004 Western Journal of Communication article that "MLM organizations have been described by some as cults (Butterfield, 1985),[49] pyramid schemes (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997),[50] or organizations rife with misleading, deceptive, and unethical behavior (Carter, 1999),[51] such as the questionable use of evangelical discourse to promote the business (Höpfl & Maddrell, 1996),[52] and the exploitation of personal relationships for financial gain (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997)".[50][53] In China, volunteers working to rescue people from the schemes have been physically attacked.[54] MLMs are also criticized for being unable to fulfill their promises for the majority of participants due to basic conflicts with Western cultural norms.[55] There are even claims that the success rate for breaking even or even making money are far worse than other types of businesses:[56] "The vast majority of MLMs are recruiting MLMs, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit.

Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLMs is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company."[56] In part, this is because encouraging recruits to further "recruit people to compete with [them]"[4] leads to "market saturation."[22] It has also been claimed "(b)y its very nature, MLM is completely devoid of any scientific foundations."[57] Because of the encouraging of recruits to further recruit their competitors, some people have even gone so far as to say at best modern MLMs are nothing more than legalized pyramid schemes[4][19][20] with one stating "Multi-level marketing companies have become an accepted and legally sanctioned form of pyramid scheme in the United States"[19] while another states "Multi-level marketing, a form of Pyramid Scheme, is not necessarily fraudulent."[20] In October 2010 it was reported that multilevel marketing companies were being investigated by a number of state attorneys general amid allegations that salespeople were primarily paid for recruiting and that more recent recruits cannot earn anything near what early entrants do.[58] Industry critic Robert L.

FitzPatrick has called Multi-level marketing "the Main Street bubble" that will eventually burst.[59] Multi-level marketing (simplified Chinese: 传销; traditional Chinese: 傳銷; pinyin: chuán xiāo; lit.: 'spread sell') was first introduced to mainland China by American, Taiwanese, and Japanese companies following the Chinese economic reform of 1978.

This rise in Multi-level marketing's popularity coincided with economic uncertainty and a new shift towards individual consumerism.

Multi-level marketing was banned on the mainland by the government in 1998, citing social, economic, and taxation issues.[60] Further regulation "Prohibition of Chuanxiao" (where MLM is a type of Chuanxiao was enacted in 2005, clause 3 of Chapter 2 of the regulation states having downlines is illegal).[11] O'Regan wrote 'With this regulation China makes clear that while Direct Sales is permitted in the mainland, Multi-level marketing is not'.[10] MLM companies have been trying to find ways around China's prohibitions, or have been developing other methods, such as direct sales, to take their products to China through retail operations.

The Direct Sales Regulations limit direct selling to cosmetics, health food, sanitary products, bodybuilding equipment and kitchen utensils.

And the Regulations require Chinese or foreign companies ("FIEs") who intend to engage into direct sale business in mainland China to apply for and obtain direct selling license from the Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM").[61] In 2016, there are 73 companies, including domestic and foreign companies, that have obtained the direct selling license.[62] Some Multi-level marketing sellers have circumvented this ban by establishing addresses and bank accounts in Hong Kong, where the practice is legal, while selling and recruiting on the mainland.[10][63] It was not until August 23, 2005 that the State Council promulgated rules that dealt specifically with direct sale operation- Administration of Direct Sales (entered into effect on 1 December 2005) and the Regulations for the Prohibition of Chuanxiao (entered into effect on 1 November 2005).

When direct selling is allowed, it will only be permitted under the most stringent requirements, in order to ensure the operations are not pyramid schemes, MLM, or fly-by-night operations.

In 2015, the Government of Bangladesh banned all types of domestic and foreign MLM trade in Bangladesh.[64] Many Islamic jurists have considered MLM trade to be prohibited or haram, the reasons behind which are as follows: In this process, followings are related - exchange without labor and labour without exchange, contract on another contract or condition on another condition, similarity with interest, similarity with gambling, widespread uncertainty of profits and losses, not everyone benefiting equally, financial fraud and torture, lying and exaggeration, etc.[65][66]

NBA digital marketing

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the fastest growing sports leagues in the United States.[1] In 2017, NBA broadcast game ratings had increased by 32% since the previous season,[2] the 2017 NBA Finals had 20.4 million total viewers with an additional 434,000 digital streaming viewers in 215 countries and territories, in 49 languages.[3] The growth of NBA viewership is related to its path to globalization and their digital marketing campaigns, which has allowed the NBA to expand their brand awareness and sponsorship deals across borders.[4] The NBA started its globalization strategy by holding international exhibition games between NBA teams and international teams in different countries, as well as inviting over 110 international players to join the league.[5] Online Social Networks (OSNs), which provide high-quality information, can offer users a better understanding of the brand, and provide support among a community of users.[6] The NBA has a powerful digital presence, with a huge number of followers among different social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Reddit, etc.[7] In 2018, Twitter declared that the NBA was the most tweeted-about sports league, above the NFL and MLB.[8] The content on these social platform are diverse, varied, and engaging; Facebook users are able to ask NBA players questions through the Live Video platform, Twitter offers in-game video highlights when users click the hashtag #NBARapidReplay,[9] and the number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers of the NBA is still growing.[10] With high-quality information, the audience can receive and retain updates on every basketball game, enticing fans to keep a watchful eye on future games and matchups between their favorite teams.[11] High-quality information also benefits users who wish to obtain information related to a service or product.[12] For example, fans may purchase an NBA League Pass for access to every NBA game on their TV, computer, smartphone, or other Internet-connected device.[11] NBA fans can also engage in E-Commerce, shopping at the online NBA Store for their favorite player's jersey or team gear.[11] The motivations and objectives of corporate sponsors and partners include using sport leagues as a versatile medium to reach a wide range of audiences as well as achieving several business objectives, including enhancing brand awareness, promoting sales, building business relationship, advocating for community relations, and for personal interest.[13] Some businesses also engage with corporate sponsors and partners as a marketing tool to explore the B2B market.[14] In 2013, NBA started its high-profile marketing campaign with various corporate sponsors and partners; the NBA signed with four major entertainment companies: Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony and The Walt Disney Company to produce co-promotional spots advertising each movie studios' upcoming films during the 2013 NBA Playoffs and 2013 NBA Finals.[15] The NBA has also partnered with brands in other industries, like Sprint and Taco Bell.[15] A variety of advertisements are placed inside NBA arenas for visibility during broadcast games and for in-person attendees.

For example, PepsiCo and Harbin Brewery have placed their respective company logos on the court.[16] Celebrities enjoy public recognition and often are perceived to possess some expertise.[17] Celebrities actively participate in NBA games, especially when it comes to All-Star Weekend.

Every year, the NBA invites celebrities like Justin Bieber, Jerry Ferrara, Brandon Armstrong to participate in the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game.[18] The NBA leverages the fan bases and online following of these celebrities and influencers to drive its own digital presence.

Celebrities are also frequently spotted attending NBA games.[19] A celebrity attending an NBA game can generate a lot of press.

For example, David Beckham received attention for attending Kobe Bryant's last game.[20]

E-commerce in Bangladesh

E-commerce in Bangladesh refers to the electronic commerce sector of Bangladesh business.[1][2] In 2009 Bangladesh Bank approved online payment and in 2013 the bank approved the use of debit and credit card for online payment.

The eCommerce Association of Bangladesh is the trade body for eCommerce in Bangladesh.[3] According to the association, there are 8,000 eCommerce pages in Facebook alone.[4] The growth of the industry has been inhibited by low usage of credit and debit cards, and the unavailability of PayPal.[5] In 2016 the government of Bangladesh opened eCommerce sites for every district in the country.[6] The same year, FBCCI recommended removal of tax on eCommerce.[7] Ten billion Taka worth of transactions take place through eCommerce site per year according to a 2017 report.[8] Currently, the following four types of eCommerce are popular in Bangladesh: There are number of company that offer office supplies, stationery, computers, cleaning, chemical[10] for other companies.

The Business-to-consumer segment grew through the growth of home-delivery of food.[11] There are other companies based on Facebook that allow people in Bangladesh to buy products from the United States, the United Kingdom and India.[12] The majority of the transactions are carried out through cash on delivery.[13] There are a number of companies that act as classifieds, including Bikroy.[12] There are a number of websites that host information about jobs in Bangladesh.[12] Digital Marketing is a recent sector that has experienced rapid growth.[14][15] Since 2014 twenty companies have started as the nation's digital marketplace emerges.

Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing involves strategies designed to engage consumers and drive brand conversation on various digital platforms.[16] The digital marketing industry in the nation has not matured with consumers having low online literacy rate.[17] The industry has doubled in size due to increase to mobile transactions, an estimated 70 billion taka are transferred through mobile phones every month.[18] Bangladesh has the tenth-largest mobile phone user base in the world and has sixty million internet connections.[19] Zunaid Ahmed Palak the state minister for ICT in the Best of Global Digital Marketing World Tour 2016 which was held in Dhaka, "I am happy to say that from today we will speak about digital marketing as being an essential part of Digital Bangladesh."[20] Bangladesh has sixty-five million internet users, about forty percent of the population.[21] A Digital Marketing Summit is organised annually since 2013 by the Bangladesh Brand Forum.[22][23]

Digital display advertising

Digital display advertising is graphic advertising on Internet websites, apps or social media through banners or other advertising formats made of text, images, flash, video, and audio.[1] The main purpose of display advertising is to deliver general advertisements and brand messages to site visitors.[2] According to eMarketer, Facebook and Twitter will take 33 percent of display ad spending market share by 2017.[3] Google's display campaigns reach 80 percent of global internet users.[4] Desktop display advertising eclipsed search ad buying in 2014, with mobile ad spending overtaking display in 2015.[5] Digital display advertising is an online form of advertising in which the company's promotional messages appear on third-party sites or search engine results pages such as publishers or social networks.

There is an evidence showing that this advertising can increase the number of website page view of a company from most types of customers except from the non-authenticated visitors who visited the website before.[6] The main purpose of display advertising is to support brand awareness (Robinson et al., 2007)[7] and it also helps to increase the purchase intention of consumers.

Social media is used by many organizations.

One example is, in 2014, ASOS and Nike collaborated with Google Hangouts to create the first shoppable video web chat[8] on Google+.

The video is an example of display advertising used for commemorating 27 years of Nike's Air Max shoes.

The video advertising aimed at creating brand awareness among users and convincing them to watch the Hangout and purchase products from the display advertising itself.

Consumers were able to shop by clicking the display advertising.

According to an ASOS statement, display advertising has contributed to an increase in both the number of users visiting its website and downloads of the ASOS App by 28 percent, with users having then visited the website eight times a month, on average.[9] Since the early advent of technology, the Internet has completely changed the way people relate to advertisements.

As computers prices decreased, online content became accessible to a large portion of the world's population.[10] This change has modified the way people are exposed to media and advertising and has led to the creation of online channels through which advertisements can reach users.[11] The first type of relationship between a website and an advertiser was a straightforward, direct partnership.

This partnership model implies that the advertiser promoting a product or service pays the website (also known as a publisher) directly for a certain amount of ad impressions.

As time went on, publishers began creating thousands of websites, leading to millions of pages with unsold ad space.

This gave rise to a new set of companies called Ad Networks.[12] The ad network acted as a broker, buying unsold ad space from multiple publishers and packaged them into audiences to be sold to advertisers.

This second wave of advertiser-publisher relationships rapidly gained popularity as it was convenient and useful for buyers who often found themselves paying a lower price yet receiving enhanced targeting capabilities through ad networks.

The third and most recent major development that shaped the advertiser-publisher ecosystem started occurring in the late 2000s when widespread adoption of RTB (real time bidding) technology took place.

Also referred to as programmatic bidding, RTB allowed companies representing buyers and sellers to bid on the price to show an ad to a user every time a banner ad is loading.

When a page loads during a user visit, there are thousands of bids occurring from advertisers to serve an ad to that user, based on each company's individual algorithms.

With this most recent change in the industry, more and more ads are being sold on a single-impression basis, as opposed to in bulk purchases.

Programmatic display advertising, or real time bidding (RTB), transformed the way Digital display advertising is bought and managed in recent years.

Rather than placing a booking for advertising directly with a website, advertisers will manage their activity through a (demand side platform), and bid to advertise to people in real time, across multiple websites, based on targeting criteria.

This method of advertising quickly gained popular, as it allows for more control for the advertiser (or agency), including of the individual target audience, rather than just the website.

It has become a threat to website operators and generally the cost paid for advertising in this way is less than the old method and so the earning potential for them is reduced.[citation needed] Programmatic is not without its drawbacks, as without the appropriate management adverts can appear against unsavoury content or inappropriate news topics.

This issue became front-page news in February 2017,[13] when advertisers on YouTube were found displayed on terror group websites and fake news sites.

As a result, a number of major advertisers paused all of their online advertising until they could put the appropriate measures in place to prevent this occurring again.[citation needed] The birthday of the first banner display on the World Wide Web was on 27 October 1994.

It appeared on HotWired, the first commercial web magazine.[14] The COCONET online service had graphical online banner ads starting in 1988 in San Diego, California.

The PRODIGY service, launched also in 1988, had banner ads as well.

The accounts department meet with the client to define campaign goals and translate those goals into a creative brief to be forwarded to the creative department.

The role of the creative team is to conceptualise and create the advert.

They have to develop a creative execution that will be compelling enough to drive a customer to buy a product or a service.

The team often consists of a mix of copy writers and graphic designers who use their respective skillsets to communicate via copy and visuals.[15] People have to test in which way the user experiences all the information of a data visualization.

For this reason, they have to study the users' response to sounds, image, and motion.

They have to be aware of everything that is digitally consumed, to know all the newest technologies and media solutions, and to help all the other departments to find the best way to reach the object's campaign.

Ad Operations, or 'Ad ops', are the people who ensure that the ad is physically delivered to the correct website at the correct time.

They do this by uploading the ad into the advertiser's ad server so that it can be delivered to the website and displayed to the end user who will see it.

Ad servers helps manage digital display advertisements.

It is an advertising technology (ad tech) tool that, throughout a platform, administrates the ads and their distribution.

It is basically a service or technology for a company that takes care of all the ad campaign programs and by receiving the ad files it is able to allocate them in different websites.[16] The ad server is responsible for things such as the dates by which the campaign has to run on a website; the rapidity in which an ad as to be spread and where (geographic location targeting, language targeting..

); controlling that an ad is not overseen by a user by limiting the number of visualisations; proposing an ad on past behaviour targeting.

There are different types of ad servers.

There is an ad server for publishers that helps them to launch a new ad on a website by listing the highest ads' price on its and to follow the ad's growth by registering how many users it has reached.

There is an ad server for advertisers that helps them by sending the ads in the form of HTML codes to each publisher.

In this way, it is possible to open the ad in every moment and make changes of frequency for example, at all times.

Lastly, there is an ad server for ad networks that provides information as in which network the publisher is registering an income and which is the daily revenue.

Two students of the "Amsterdam school of Communication Research ASCor" have run studies about the audience reactions to different display advertising formats.

In particular, they took into consideration two different types of format (sponsored content and banner advertising) to demonstrate that people react and perceive formats in different ways, positive and negative.[17] For this reason, it is important to choose the right format because it will help to make the most of the medium.

It is also possible to add: To help to better select the right format for the type of ad, Interactive Advertising Bureau has realized a Display Standard Ad Unit Portfolio that works as a guideline that can be followed by the creatives.[19] In 2017 IAB also introduced the new guidelines, featuring adjustable ad formats, as well as the guidelines for new digital content experiences such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), social media, mobile video, emoji ad messaging, and 360-degree video ads.[20]

Promotion (marketing)

In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue.

It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind.

The aim of promotion is to increase awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty.

It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.[1] Promotion is also one of the elements in the promotional mix or promotional plan.

These are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing publicity and may also include event marketing, exhibitions and trade shows.[2] A promotional plan specifies how much attention to pay to each of the elements in the promotional mix, and what proportion of the budget should be allocated to each element.

Promotion covers the methods of communication that a marketer uses to provide information about its product.

Information can be both verbal and visual.

The term promotion derives from the Old French, promocion meaning to "move forward", "push onward" or to "advance in rank or position" which in turn, comes from the Latin, promotionem meaning "a moving forward".

The word entered the English language in the 14th century.[3] The use of the term promotion to refer to "advertising or publicity" is very modern and is first recorded in 1925.[4] It may be a contraction of a related term, sales promotion, which is one element in the larger set of tools used in marketing communications.

The terms, promotion and marketing communications can be used synonymously, but in practice, the latter is more widely used.[5] There are three objectives of promotion.

These are:[6] The purpose of a promotion and thus its promotional plan can have a wide range, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image.[2] The term 'promotion' tends to be used internally by the marketing function.

To the public or the market, phrases like "special offer" are more common.

Examples of a fully integrated, long-term, and large-scale promotion are My Coke Rewards in the USA or Coke Zone in the UK and Pepsi Stuff.

There have been different ways to promote a product in person or with different media.

Both person and media can be either physically real or virtual/electronic.

Promotions can be held in physical environments at special events such as concerts, festivals, trade shows, and in the field, such as in grocery or department stores.

Interactions in the field allow immediate purchases.

The purchase of a product can be incentive with discounts (i.e., coupons), free items, or a contest.

This method is used to increase the sales of a given product.

Interactions between the brand and the customer are performed by a brand ambassador or promotional model who represents the product in physical environments.

Brand ambassadors or promotional models are hired by a marketing company, which in turn is booked by the brand to represent the product or service.

Person-to-person interaction, as opposed to media-to-person involvement, establishes connections that add another dimension to promotion.

Building a community through promoting goods and services can lead to brand loyalty.

Examples of traditional media include print media such as newspapers and magazines, electronic media such as radio and television, and outdoor media such as banner or billboard advertisements.

Each of these platforms provide ways for brands to reach consumers with advertisements.

Digital media, which includes Internet, social networking and social media sites, is a modern way for brands to interact with consumers as it releases news, information and advertising from the technological limits of print and broadcast infrastructures.[8] Digital media is currently the most effective way for brands to reach their consumers on a daily basis.

Over 2.7 billion people are online globally, which is about 40% of the world's population.[9] 67% of all Internet users globally use social media.[10] Mass communication has led to modern marketing strategies to continue focusing on brand awareness, large distributions and heavy promotions.[11] The fast-paced environment of digital media presents new methods for promotion to utilize new tools now available through technology.

With the rise of technological advances, promotions can be done outside of local contexts and across geographic borders to reach a greater number of potential consumers.

The goal of a promotion is then to reach the most people possible in a time efficient and a cost efficient manner.

Social media, as a modern marketing tool, offers opportunities to reach larger audiences in an interactive way.

These interactions allow for conversation rather than simply educating the customer.

Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, as well as alternate audio and media sites like SoundCloud and Mixcloud allow users to interact and promote music online with little to no cost.

You can purchase and buy ad space as well as potential customer interactions stores as Likes, Followers, and clicks to your page with the use of third parties.

As a participatory media culture, social media platforms or social networking sites are forms of mass communication that, through media technologies, allow large amounts of product and distribution of content to reach the largest audience possible.[2] However, there are downsides to virtual promotions as servers, systems, and websites may crash, fail, or become overloaded with information.

You also can stand risk of losing uploaded information and storage and at a use can also be effected by a number of outside variables.

Brands can explore different strategies to keep consumers engaged.

One popular tool is branded entertainment, or creating some sort of social game for the user.

The benefits of such a platform include submersing the user in the brand's content.

Users will be more likely to absorb and not grow tired of advertisements if they are, for example, embedded in the game as opposed to a bothersome pop-up ad.[12] Personalizing advertisements is another strategy that can work well for brands, as it can increase the likelihood that the brand will be anthropomorphized by the consumer.

Personalization increases click-through intentions when data has been collected about the consumer.[13] Brands must navigate the line between effectively promoting their content to consumers on social media and becoming too invasive in consumers' lives.

Vivid Internet ads that include devices such as animation might increase a user's initial attention to the ad.

However, this may be seen as a distraction to the user if they are trying to absorb a different part of the site such as reading text.[14] Additionally, when brands make the effort of overtly collecting data about their consumers and then personalizing their ads to them, the consumer's relationship with the advertisements, following this data collection, is frequently positive.

However, when data is covertly collected, consumers can quickly feel like the company betrayed their trust.[13] It is important for brands to utilize personalization in their ads, without making the consumer feel vulnerable or that their privacy has been betrayed.

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