DR.

SHAKUNTALA MISRA NATIONAL REHABILITATION

UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW.

DISSERTATION
ON
CUSTOMER PERCEPTION TOWARDS
DIGITAL MARKETING.

FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF COMMERCE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

D.S.M.N.R.U

GUIDED BY: SUBMITTED BY:

DR. NARENDRA PRATAP SINGH SONALI

M.COM 4TH SEMESTER

ROLL NUMBER: 192100028

 DECLARATION

I do hereby declare that this dissertation work entitled “Customers Perception Towards Digital
Marketing” submitted by me for the partial fulfillment for the degree of Masters Of Commerce
is a record of my own research work. The report embodies the findings based on my study and
observation and it has not been submitted earlier for the award of any degree or diploma to
any Institute or University.

DATE: SONALI

PLACE: LUCKNOW M.COM 4 TH SEMESTER

ROLL NUMBER: 192100028

 ACKNOWLEGDMENT

It is a genuine pleasure to extend my gratitude to a number of people whose help was very
valuable in this research.

I would like to thank my supervisor, DR. NARENDRA PRATAP SINGH for his meaningful
assistance, guidance and patience. I am extremely thankful to him for giving me the
opportunity to prepare my dissertation on such an amazing topic.

I acknowledge with a deep sense of reverence, my gratitude towards my parents who have
always supported me morally and my sister who has helped in any way that she could.

Every person mentioned above has helped me in any way they could and I am obliged to each
one of them.

Thanking You

Sonali
PREFACE
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Internet and Information technology have made tremendous contributions for business
transformation witnessed nowadays all over the world. This has given birth to E-commerce
which encompasses several pre-purchase and post-purchase activities leading to exchange of
products or service or information over electronic systems such as the internet and the other
Telecommunication networks. Analyzing the competitive advantage of E-Commerce it is
observed that E-Commerce enables simpler, faster and efficient business transactions. For
developing country like India, E-Commerce offer considerable opportunity for growth. E-
commerce leads to a boon for the current economic downturn. As India’s E-commerce market
is worth about Rs.50,000 crores in 2012. About 80% of this is travel related (airline tickets,
railway tickets, hotel bookings, online mobile recharge etc.). Online retailing comprises about
15%. The number of online shoppers was estimated to go up from 75 million in 2017 to over
220 million in 2025. The rapid growth of e-commerce in India is being driven by greater
customer choice and improved convenience.

The research study analyses the impact of digital marketing on consumer Conversion/ Sales and
influence of Gender Impact on Consumer Behavior and also Demographic impact on consumer
Behavior.

Research Methodology will be the research using secondary data obtained from various sources
since we cannot step out in this pandemic for our research. The research is to understand the
impact of decision making on conversion or sales of the product and Gender impact like is there
any preference in Male or female and which age group is influenced the most.

Internet is changing the way consumers shop and buy goods and services, and has rapidly
evolved into a global phenomenon. Many companies have started using the internet with the
aim of cutting marketing costs, thereby reducing the price of their products and services in
order to stay ahead in highly competitive markets. Companies also use the Internet to convey
communicates and disseminate information, to sell the product, to take feedback and also to
conduct satisfaction surveys with customers. Customers us the Internet not only to buy the
product online, but also to compare prices, product features and after sale service facilities they
will receive if they purchase the product from a particular store. Many experts are optimistic
about the prospect of online business.

Due to these shifts in technology and consumer behavior need to develop marketing strategies
hat reach out to consumers at moments that most influence their decisions.
 TABLE OF CONTENT

S.NO. TOPIC PAGE NO.

1. Chapter-1 : Introduction
• Overview of Industry as a whole
• Objectives of the study
• Scope of the study
• Chapter Outline
• Summary
2. Chapter-2 : Theory And Literature Review
• Introduction
• Literature Review Methodology
• Digital Marketing
• Objectives of Digital Marketing
• Features of digital Marketing
• Types Of Digital Marketing
• Benefits Of Digital Marketing
• Marketing Strategies
• Understanding Digital Customers
• 7 C’s of Digital Marketing
• Digital Marketing VS Traditional Marketing
• Consumer Decision Making
• Consumers In India
• Critical success factors in Digital Marketing
• Summary
3. Chapter-3 : Research Questions
• Questions
• Summary

4. Chapter-4 : Research Methodology

• Research
• Questionnaire
• Limitations
• Summary
5. Chapter-5 : Results
• Introduction
• Questionnaire Results
6. Chapter-6 : Discussion of Result
• Introduction
• Understanding the impact of Digital Marketing on
 Consumer Behavior.
• Summary
•
7. Chapter-7 : Conclusion

8. Bibliography
9. Appendix
 CHAPTER – 1
INTRODUCTION
Abstract- The revolution of Information Technology (IT) and communications has transformed
the conduct of most of the businesses via electronic media and internet. Digital forms have
become an important channel for customer communication in marketing along with the
conventional forms. Digital advertisement allows sellers to disseminate product information
accurately and adequately to customers. Digital Marketing has been considered as a new form
of marketing and provided new opportunities for companies and also provides more buying
options to customers.

OVERVIEW OF INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE

Internet has changed the traditional way of customers shopping and buying goods and services.
With a rapid pace it evolved into a phenomenon which is globally accepted. This literature on
customer mindset for online purchasing decisions focused on identifying the factors which
affect the willingness of customers to engage in online shopping. To counter the dynamic
nature of the fast growing markets, companies started using internet as a tool to cut down the
various intermediary costs which further helped in reducing the prices of their products and
services while standing competitive in the market. These business houses also use internet to
communicate with the customers directly by direct selling business to customer (B2C) and
collect customer information and feedback which further helps in improving the business
strategies directly based on customer’s desire, need and feedback. Consumers use the internet
not only for online shopping, but also t compare prices, product features and after sales service
facilities.

Internet access is main-stream. It has intensified the use of mobile phones, computers, and
laptops leading to a high change in the growth of digital channels both in strength and volume.
Be it social media, surfing for information on Google or making purchases, India has
transformed this medium into a full-fledged market. And this market has flourished into
creating Digital Marketing as a prime source of bringing business through the internet.
Objectives Of the study

• To determine whether internet marketing will be beneficial and on what factors.

• To determine the parameters for choosing the particular seller for purchase of any
product.
• To identify the issues faced by the user while marketing through internet.
• To study the attitude towards internet marketing.
• To find out the preferences of the customers regarding the attributes of shopping over
the internet.

Scope of the study

• To determine which factor influences the customer to go for online shopping.

• To find out which feature of the website attracts the user to purchase the product from
the online shopping website.
• To find out whether online shopping is beneficial for the user.
• To analyze which factors influence the user to buy online grocery.

Chapter Outline

❖ Chapter 1 is the introduction to the research proposal and illustrates the problem
identified, the evidence thereof and the relevance of the project topic.
❖ Chapter 2 is the literature review of the research problem, which describes digital
marketing and its consumer impact, a consumer behavior model, the consumer decision
making process.
❖ Chapter 3 specifies the research questions for the study.
❖ Chapter 4 explains the research methodology used in the study. It further describes the
choice of methodology, sampling criteria, data gathering process and analysis approach
used, as well as any limitations.
❖ Chapter 5 illustrates the analysis of results.
❖ Chapter 6 is a discussion of the research study, which provides answers to the research
questions posed in order to meet the objectives of the study.
❖ Chapter 7 is the conclusion of the research study. The chapter describes the limitations
of the study and makes recommendations for business and future studies in this field.
SUMMARY
The advancement of technology, the rise of the internet and the development of Web 2.0 has
increased the interactions. Due to these developments there has been a shift in consumer
behavior, thus organizations have had to change the way they interact with consumers. In turn,
this has led to a shift in digital marketing strategies.

Due to these changes there has been an impact on the consumer decision making process. The
aim of the research study is to gain an understanding of the impact of digital marketing on the
consumer decision making process.

The results of this study can be used by organizations in the industry to understand the impact
of digital marketing on their businesses, and help them to align their marketing strategies to
reach out to consumers and create the pull through strategy for products in their organizations.
 CHAPTER – 2
THEORY AND LITERATURE REVIEW

• Introduction

The literature review explained in detail the impact of digital marketing on consumer
decision making. The first section covered the aspect of digital marketing with regards to its
marketing channels and thereafter the impact on consumers. The next section is a description
of the consumer behavior model, followed by the third section which is the description of the
consumer decision making process. Thereafter the fourth section discusses consumers in Delhi
and understanding the impact of the crowd present in the region, impacting their decision and
is it the Geographic location that impacts the decision making.

• Literature review methodology

The literature review search was focused on the relevant aspects of the research study,
which were digital marketing, consumer behavior, consumer decision making,
consumers in India.

• MARKETING

Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of

a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to
consumers or other businesses. Some marketing is done by affiliates on behalf of a
company.
Marketing as a discipline involves all the actions a company undertakes to draw in
customers and maintain relationships with them. Networking with potential or past
clients is part of the work too, and may include writing thank you emails, playing golf
with prospective clients, returning calls and emails quickly, and meeting with clients for
coffee or a meal.
 At its most basic level, marketing seeks to match a company’s products and services to
customers who want access to those products. Matching products to customers
ultimately ensures profitability.

• 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. It’s 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, and
as people increasingly use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, 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, social media optimization, email
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 television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-hold mobile
ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from
online marketing.

Digital Marketing is growing at a rate of 25-30% in India annually. And if statistics are to be
believed, India has reached 500 million users of the internet by the end of 2018. India also has
the World’s largest Facebook population. The high-speed digitization, online portals, social
media channels, etc lead to a growth of digital marketing in a trend par imagination.
From where we began!
Door to door advertisement, word-by-mouth publicity, radio announcements, TV commercials
– India always relied on traditional methods of marketing. Until the internet happened! The
tools of marketing changed from humans to gadgets. It became easier to penetrate through a
large segment of the audience in minimal efforts. And as the number of laptop and mobile
users keep expanding, digital marketing to spread its wings wide and far.

Digital Marketing Industry in India

The earliest examples of online connectivity were demonstrated with the introduction of
Michael Aldrich online shopping system. In the following years, the Thomson Holidays UK was
launched, then came the IndiaMART B2B in 1996. It was ultimately in 2007 that the launch of
Flipkart, an e-commerce marketing website changed the structure of marketing in India. What
followed was a rise in the number of people picking up mobile phones, online shopping, at-
home delivery, and internet marketing as a means to popularize the brands. And over the years
the Digital Marketing Industry has prospered into bringing a large percent of business online
with its promising ability to create a global network and flourish even the small businesses
internationally.

According to the International Journal of Advanced Research Foundation, India is undergoing a

golden period of digital marketing growth ever since 2013 and the trend continues till 2021 at
least.
NUMBER OF SOCIAL NETWORK USERS IN INDIA FROM 2015 TO 2018 WITH A FORECAST UNTIL
2023 (in millions)

How it influences lives?

On average an Indian spends about 4-5 hours a day scrolling through social media, emails, and
browsers. The growing market of gadgets like smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc has only
increased the pace of usage and penetrated the market to make it reach to a wider set of
audience. The content on the internet influences the lives of people big time. Display of ideas
through images, videos, texts, etc has a sound foundation into the minds of the people which
translates into their living. Digital marketing is very much about influencing the audience online
with mediums of content to increase a brand’s impact over the audience. The amount of time
spent by the people on the internet empowers digital marketers to create impactful strategies
to influence consumer behavior. The right strategy converts the audience into sales.

The Emergence of Digital Marketing Agencies and Professionals

Digital marketing has become a genre of business. With more number of businesses opting to
create a brand image online and reach out to the audience globally, the technicalities around
the internet are also increasing. Websites, blogs, marketing campaigns, SEO strategies, etc have
penetrated deep into the metrics of the technicality that influences one’s presence on the
internet. As a result, it takes some well-equipped experts to create a social standing for a brand.
Over the past decade, the digital marketing agencies and professionals with deep insight into
the field have emerged to cater to the needs. With sound skills, imaginative minds and par
excellence knowledge of what shall works for a business online – these experts are the flag
bearer of digital marketing.

The role of experts in Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a big umbrella under which the technical, as well as non-technical skills to
create a wave of popularity over the internet, is covers. The industry has created a variety of
job roles for individuals to seek employment and display their talents. It takes experts from the
field of web designing, web development, social media consultants, brand consultants, content
writers, graphic designer, artists, etc to come together and collectively work towards creating a
visual representation of ideas that is easy to plant into the minds of the audience. As the
industry grows more employment in India and making India a hub for IT activities.

What the future holds for digital marketing in India

The return on investment for businesses through digital platforms has exceeded than that from
real life platforms. Companies are today shifting towards a more digitally empowered set-up to
make the most of the golden period of digital marketing that India is witnessing. About 70-80%
of the population is dedicated to making purchases online, and e-commerce websites like
Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, etc are making waves with their influence over the market. And all of
it in a country that still has about 2/3rd of the population with no access to the internet or
smartphones. As the access to the internet over a larger population rises, India is to witness a
revolution in terms of digitalization that will soon make India as one of the top markets in the
world with the highest numbers of internet users.

Online podcasts, web stories, entertainment, sports, business, social awareness and career in
India gets more dependent on digital platforms for generating revenue, sharing information
and country’s progress, Digital Marketing is becoming a promising industry with raped career
growth, increasing influences, and widespread activities!

Indian Government promotes Digital India

From 69 million online shoppers in 2016 and more than 100 million in 2017, India has seen a
stark rise in the internet population. Ever since the launch of Digital India in 2015 as an initiative
to improve online infrastructure and digital empowerment, there has been mushrooming of a
complete market of start-ups, services and more than connect people globally! It has resulted
in a rise of active internet users, mobile connections, social media traffic and more.

• Objectives of Digital Marketing

Some of the main objectives of digital marketing are as follows:

• Construct A Brand – Constructing a brand is one of the most important objectives of

digital marketing. The aim of digital marketing also involves setting up a new brand.
Constructing a brand not only represents placing your organization’s name in people’s
minds.

Well-known brands that are particularly associated with successful relationships are also
more trusted by consumers. The internet is an ideal resource for creating this policy
because it is very comprehensive and helps you to directly communicate with people.

Social networking is particularly useful when creating a new brand, as it helps

businesses to build and publish more directly. Organizations also discovered that the
use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinteresst could
encourage this kind of brand. Companies can improve brand awareness by charging for
advertisements and placements in addition to organic content on such pages.

It requires patience on the part of the members of the company as faith and loyalty
grew over many months, even years. Staying centered on results in your priority.

• Develop Revenue – Increasing revenue is the primary objectives of digital marketing.

Luckily, the internet gives every company several opportunities to boost their
performance.

By combining SEO with pay per click, or PPC ads, your company will increase the
probability of getting identified by potential clients.

You will put yourself as an expert in your field with tactics such as content marketing
and social media marketing that also cares about your customers.
 • Boost Local SEO – Apart from companies concentrating on raising revenues in some
geographic areas, many small businesses are focusing most of their marketing efforts on
enhancing their local SEO.

This mean developing a selection of posts on their pages to draw local consumers who
are searching for the services they provide. While the amount of research that involves
both your sector and your city is obviously less than what merely defines a product or
form of company, these fighters appear to generate far more skilled traffic.

If a consumer searches for businesses where you are now, they are usually ready to
enter their physical location.

• Boost Traffic - Not all visitors can make a purchase at your place. It’s just the path of the
internet that you have got to recognize.

Furthermore, if none of the visitors to your site make transactions, they are likely to attract
“unskilled” visitors or others who do not wish to become clients.

You will increase the return on investment of your marketing strategies as well as your
performance by targeting your ads to other individuals and trying to attract different and skilled
people.

• Paid Advertising – Paid ads are one of the easiest objectives of digital marketing which
has a number of ways of getting to our target audience and selling your goods or
services.

Simply create an ad, choose the target audience based one demographics, venue,
interest, etc., allocate the budget for effort, and you’re finished.

One of Google Adwords‘ most popular advertisement channels has paid off. Google
Adwords can be used to view ads on websites, its related websites, Youtube, etc.

They give paid ads on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Quora, and several other social
networks. You can also do paid ads or direct partnerships in the field that concerns you,
through contacting influencers, bloggers, etc.

• Email Marketing – It is also another really important form in digital marketing. In this, it
uses direct mail to meet potential customers. Email marketing for individuals with an
 email base with their current customers may be handled internally or by an outside
organization.

To that site, you may also find multi-vendor email lists and cold mail promotions, but
this might not work because they did not want to accept emails. The biggest challenge
of email marketing is to make sure that the emails sent hit the client’s inbox (instead of
heading to the spam folder where people barely recognize them).

In the end, use solid innovative content and subject line to get the full open rate of
email.

• Marketing By Affiliate – Distributor marketing is essentially a third- party distributor

selling its goods or services at a fixed price. The commission for each sale may be a
certain fixed percentage of all revenue produced by a fixed price.

This is a fantastic way to produce enough sales growth for you if you are using the right
approach. Since a third party partner promotes in return for a fixed cost per sale, the
possibility of a marketing expenditure that arises without the customer’s acquisition or
purchase is zero.

The secret to that channel will be providing a great service or product, giving affiliates
competitive rewards and choosing the right affiliates.

• Maintain A Continuous Flow Of New Insights - You can expect direct sales if you have
your own website that sells the goods. But if you run a company offline like a car dealer,
you can use digital marketing to create online leads that can then be used offline.

It’s important to have a continuous lead for your sales team to have enough leads to
deal with. Given your marketing strategies, you may also expect a rise in customer visits
to your shop.

• Reduce The Cost Of New Consumer Acquisition – The cost of attracting new customers
is typically high for most businesses. Companies spend too much on attracting new
 consumers hoping they would become brand loyal fans and make regular purchases
that would produce profits.

But markets are bombarded with hundreds and thousands of product choices, making
maintaining loyal customers impossible, even though you have the best-in-class
solutions.

It is therefore very important that the cost of attracting new customers to be closely
controlled so that it takes place in a reasonable manner without overspending.

Digital marketing is one of the best ways to lower the sales price of attracting new
customers. In addition to the reduced costs, this makes it possible to reach a wide
variety of highly targeted markets even quicker than conventional marketing.

• DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS

It was in October 1994 when the first web-based banner ad was born courtesy of an
advertising campaign for AT&T. The copy read: “Have you ever clicked your mouse right
HERE? YOU WILL”. In the four months that followed, 44% of internet users had actually
clicked on it, giving the company heaps of advertising mileage.

The publishing of that ad, which is now better known as display ad, has been referenced
as the earliest form of digital marketing. Then again, display ad is only part and parcel of
the entire digital marketing industry.

Almost three decades after the launch of the iconic banner or display ad, the industry
has evolved beyond ads. It now encompasses a wide range of internet-based strategies
using digital marketing channels to deliver content and promotional offers.

Digital marketing channels are platforms that you can use to reach your target audience
with information about your brand, product, or service. Utilizing these channels allows
you to help your customers with any questions or challenges they may have while
positioning your business well so that you can be a step closer to your marketing goals.
 Not all digital marketing channels are cut out for each and every one of your business
objectives though. Some are more suitable for certain types of audiences, while others
are set up differently depending on what they’re capable of doing. As such, you must
know which digital marketing channel to use and then implement the best practices to
achieve a particular goal.

Some of the most effective digital marketing channels are:-

1- Websites (Content Marketing) – The websites is a must-have tool for your business as
it provides you with a dedicated platform where you can educate audiences about your
brand, products, and services. This requires a solid understanding of your target
audience and an effective content marketing strategy.

Whatever the size of your company, a website can give your business the online
presence it needs to communicate and/or sell to prospects. In fact, another study
showed that 69% of Americans have purchased an item online. Whether your business
is concerned with e-commerce or it’s something that’s more service-oriented, be it B2C
or B2B, you should definitely invest in a website.

Your website is an ideal channel for your content marketing campaigns. Through blog
posts and announcement, you can provide existing and potential customers with
valuable and relevant content to help them solve their pain points. Because websites
have multimedia capabilities, you can easily distribute different types of content- from
articles to infographics, and even video.

At the rate that people are consuming content, having the right mix of these top-
performing content types can exponentially increase your site traffic and engagement.
Ultimately, this can result in better brand recognition, authority building, and new sales
opportunities for your business.

How Your Website (Content) Can Help You

• Increased organic traffic – People will naturally gravitate to your website for high-
quality, relevant, and insightful content that displays your though leadership.
• Lead generation – When people come to your site, it means they are interested to find
out more about your product or service, making them potential customers for your
business.

How to use Websites: Best Practices and Top Strategies

❖ Create content assets in various formats. Certain types of content are more
effective for a particular stage in buying cycle. For example, you should reserve
product videos for audiences in the consideration funnel and not when they’re
barely starting to be aware of your business.
❖ Promote your content via social media and email marketing. Promoting your
content makes it easier for audiences to find it- and possibly share it with others
in their network.

2- Email – There are several reasons why it’s so hard to dislodge email as a channel that
delivers medium to high ROI for your business, but the one thing you can’t take away
from email is its versatility. Although emails may not be the newest technology
available, it allows you to apply the latest trends in content marketing, such as
personalization and automation, without hurting your marketing budget.

Email also has the ability to support other marketing objectives, so it’s no surprise that
73% and 63% of B2B marketers say that email is their top tool for generating leads and
driving revenue, respectively.

Beyond lead generation and revenue, email helps you in many more ways as follows:

▪ Email has become so widespread that it reached 3.9 billion users in 2020 all over
the world, and the figure is expected to grow to 4.3 billion users in 2023- more
than half of the world’s population!
▪ Email still delivers the best returns, with 73% of respondents of the study
ranking the channel as excellent, compared to SEO and paid search at 72% and
67%, respectively.
▪ Up to 62% of opens are done on a mobile device, compared to 10% on desktop.

How Email Can Help You

 ▪ Brand awareness and Conversion – Emails are sent straight to users’ inbox,
allowing you to deliver branded content as well as those for marketing
purposes. This makes email ideal for driving conversions and, ultimately, growth
and success for the business.
▪ Lead nurturing – A series of emails sent to customers is helpful in establishing a
relationship and building trust with them, so they’ll eventually make a purchase.
▪ ROI – Statistical data shows that email remains unbeaten as the channel that
generates the highest ROI among any other marketing tactic.

How to Use Email: Best Practices and Top Strategies

▪ Craft time-sensitive subject headlines. This method encourages those in your

contact list to take advantage of your promotional offerings before they end.
▪ Personalize your email marketing campaigns. Whenever someone takes a
specific action, such as visiting your products pages or signing up for a free
trial, send them triggered emails containing the right message based on where
they are in the buying cycle.
▪ Reserve email for customer feedback and support. Good customer service is
always a good way to increase sales. From surveys to reviews and problem
resolution, the uses of email are practically endless!

3- Social Media – Social media marketing is on this list for some very worthwhile reasons,
but this isn’t just about social media users reaching the 3.81 billion mark. From being a
channel that people use to establish personal connections, social media has evolved into
something grander, bigger, and better than what it was originally envisioned to be.

These days, you can reach out to potential buyers by engaging them in a more personal
and authentic fashion. As such, it’s easier to direct your efforts toward organic social
media marketing since the platform was initially designed to foster interactions rather
than sell to your prospects.

You must invest time in cultivating relationships with your target market as you try to
understand the needs and interests of your buyer personas. Ultimately, this can help
you generate highly qualified leads on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook – which account
for driving 80%, 13%, and 7% of qualified B2B leads, respectively.
 Although this can directly drive sales, you should remember that social selling isn’t really
about selling at all, so prioritize building a strong, positive relationship.

How Social Media can Help You

▪ Customer engagement – Social media allows you to build rapport with your
brand followers. With social, you can reinforce your company images by putting
names to faces and adding that human touch, which makes your band more
relatable to the public.
▪ Wider audience range – Social media posts are easy to share, opening up word-
of-mouth opportunities that can help you grow you’re your audience or
customer base. Even better, it doesn’t cost you a fortune for your content to be
shared.

How to Use Social Media: Best Practices and Top Strategies

▪ Be original – This applies to the topics you tackle and the approach you
employ in creating your content. Remember, creativity is a major factor in
social engagement.
▪ Include hashtags in your posts – Word spreads fast when you use the # tag,
allowing people to see and jump in the conversation.

4- Organic Search (Search Engine Optimization) – Did you know that over 75,000 Google
search queries are performed every second? Just imagine how many people are
searching on the internet! Given that people use search engines for research, shopping,
and entertainment, the opportunities for businesses are huge!

When prospects or customers look for products or services, they’ll tend to go with
whoever ranks higher. Standing out from the competition at this stage means that you'll
be capturing new opportunities organically, driving a consistent flow of leads down your
sales funnel.

As long as you adopt modern SEO best practices – keyword research, blog post
optimization, and linkable content creation-improving rankings on search engines will
come a lot easier.
 How Organic Search (SEO) Can Help You

▪ Search rankings – Since people are mainly using search engines to look for
information when shopping for products or services, producing quality and
optimized content on a regular basis can propel you on top of search results.
▪ Link Building – As you start ranking on search engines search engine results
pages (SERPs), you can expect backlinks from high-quality sites to follow.

How to Use Organic Search: Best Practices and Top Strategies

▪ Optimize your website with on-pages and off-page optimization. On-page SEO
includes choosing the right keywords and providing meta descriptions for your
content, while off-page SEO involves link building techniques like guest
posting. Together, on- and off-page SEO create signals that Google can use to
rank your site.
▪ Implement local SEO to market your business within your community and
nearby areas. One of the ways to do local SEO right is to list your business
name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistently across your website,
business directories, and social media profile as they work like keywords that
help Google and users locate your business.

5- Paid Search (Search Engine Marketing) - On the surface, it might seem inconceivable
that paid search (also called SEM) will have the potential to give you ROI. After all,
you’re paying for each click you get, unlike SEO, where people find you organically (and
technically for free).

The advantage of using paid search is that your ads shown above organic search results,
making them more visible to users. Even if you have to pay for every time a user clicks
on your ad, there’s still a lot a value- monetary and otherwise- that can be had from
paid search. Being above organic results means you’re still capturing that engaged
searcher before they even have a chance to see their other options (your competitors).

For every $1 you spend on Google Ads, you can earn an average of $2 in return. That’s
100% ROI right in the bag. It’s also been found that PPC results gain 150% more
conversions than organic visitors. Clearly, paid search could very well represent a win-
win situation for your marketing campaigns.
 How Paid Search (SEM) Can Help You

▪ Remarket to your audience on Facebook. As the world’s largest social network, you can
use Facebook’s remarketing tools to get people who have expressed interest in your ad
but weren’t ready to buy yet back to your website.
▪ Direct users who click on your ads to the right places on your website, such as landing
pages that contain a contact from. You can then collect your visitors’ personal
information and use it to engage them with your marketing campaigns.

6- Mobile – The number of mobile phone users is increasing by the day, and this trend is
expected to continue in the years to come. Because of this, it only makes sense to serve
promotional content o mobile users. And thanks to geo-targeting strategies where
location information is used to recommend products or services more conveniently,
customer experience can be consistently improved as well.

Smartphone users are also spending 90% of their mobile time using apps and games,
which makes mobile apps a profitable marketing channel. Last but not least, mobile can
collect customer data, which you can then use to map out a mobile marketing strategy
that produces results.

How Mobile Can Help You

▪ Increase in sales – Mobile shopping is in, making mobile marketing a core

strategy especially if you’re in the retail business.
▪ Creating demand for your product/service while driving brand value – Modern
consumers prefer businesses who can deliver the information they want or need
in real time, straight into their mobile devices.

How to Use Mobile: Best Practices and Top Strategies

▪ Create your mobile website or app. A website or app that’s optimized for
mobile viewing is vital for creating a positive and engaging user experience.
Must-have features include quick loading pages, compressed images, top-to-
bottom scrolling, large buttons and font sizes, and the like.
▪ Explore mobile technologies like QR (Quick Response) codes that customers
can scan to go to your website, access or save your business details, pay for
 their purchases-anything to make the interaction between you and your
customers more instantaneous.

7- Display Ads – Display ads allow you to use images, audio, and video to communicate
your advertising message better. These are shown on websites, email platforms, social
media, and many other digital channels that offer ad placements, usually in the form of
a banner.

Compared to search ads, display ads generally have lower cost-per-click since there’s
more advertising space available across the web than on a search engine. The core
difference is that you don’t target keywords. Display advertising success depends on
how well you can match your ad to the host website’s audience to drive conversions.

One of the great things about display ads is their ability to track users for retargeting.
For example, if a user lands on your website and doesn’t convert, you can track them
with a cookie and retarget those with a relevant display ad later on. It should be no
surprise to know that with this much contextual relevance, you'll be generating a lot
more conversions at a lower cost-per-click (CPC).

How Display Ads Can Help You

▪ Brand awareness – Since your ads are distributed via the Google Display
Network (GDN), you can gain access to millions of sites across the web, each
with their own set of audience.
▪ Sales and conversion – When done correctly, your ads can compel visitors to
pursue an action that you want them to take, whether it’s to buy your product or
download your business app.

How to Display Ads: Best Practices and Top Strategies

▪ Highlight your unique selling proposition (USP). Let your customers know
how your business can help them- whether it’s quality, value for money,
brand of customer services, which they can’t get anywhere else.
▪ Avoid hard-sell call to action (CTA) phrases. It’s the first time that visitors are
encountering your brand, so choose CTAs that focus more on customers’
needs rather than those of your business.
 Factors to Consider When Choosing the Right Digital Marketing Channels

❖ Goal – As a rule of thumb, the channel you choose should be guided by what you
want your marketing campaign to achieve, whether that is brand awareness,
conversion, thought leadership, lead generation/nurturing, or ROI. You can refer
to the previous section contained in this post to narrow down the perfect
channels for your goals.
❖ Budget – Advertising expenses differ from channel to channel. Some offer tools
that you could use for free, while others can only be used for a fee. Still, some
others like paid search fall somewhere in between the performance marketing
benefits, where you only pay when someone clicks your ad.
❖ Target Audience – One way to target specific personas is to know on which
channels they’re most active or engaged. With this information, it’s also easier to
come up with content that will interest your audience.
❖ Competitors – If your competitor is selling to customers via a particular
marketing channel, you can either (1)go the same route and take advantage of
that channel’s existing market or (2) look the other way where there is less
competition- although you'll need to consider too if there’s enough opportunity
for you to sell in less popular channels.
❖ Functionality – Depending on the size or nature of your business, you may or
may not need all those nice-to-have features that a particular digital marketing
channel offers. Consider starting with basic features and then scaling things up
once you see they’re worth investing in.
❖ Integration – Even if you’re using multiple digital channels in marketing your
business, you should be able to provide a seamless experience to users, where
they can move from one channel or device to another without any difficulty.

• BENEFITS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Some of the top benefits of Digital marketing can be described as follows:

1. Increase Customer Loyalty with Frequent Communications – As you know, it cost more
to attract and convert new customers than it does to retain existing customers.
Customer loyalty can be difficult to establish, but it’s well worth your efforts.
 It’s great to finalize a sale with your customers, but it’s even better to retain those
customers after the sale. A customer retained can make another purchase or
recommend your brand to others, which helps increase sales. To retain customers, you
need to keep in contact with them and digital marketing makes that easier than ever.
Some proven tactics include:

• Personalized email offers: As you learn about your customers, you can send them
personalized offers like seasonal discount codes for related products or exclusive access
to new product releases. This not only makes the customer feel valued, but it’ll also
drive repeat sales.
• Social media engagement: Encourage customers to follow you on social media
channels. When they do, you'll have daily access to them as they scroll through their
social media feeds. Keep them engaged with helpful, relevant content or with content
that inspires and delights them. Whenever they need your service or product again,
they’ll be more apt to buy from your business.

2. Engage the Customer at Every Buying Stage – Before digital marketing became popular,
not many people were talking about the customer journey, mainly because it was
difficult to understand and analyze. More often than not, a customer would go to a
physical store after seeing an ad on TV or in the newspaper, make decision, and pay for
the product or service inside the store. However, in digital marketing, we can track
every step that a customer makes, often from the moment when they are triggered to
find a solution or product.

These days, it’s common for a customer to see an ad online, search and compare prices
on different websites, then go to a store to try the product or shop on an online store.
Mobile apps provide shoppers with special offers and coupons, customer support, and
comparison tools, which enhance our understanding of the buying process. With digital
marketing, a marketer can follow the entire buying journey of the customer.

3. Target the Right Audience – It’s now easier than ever to segment audiences since many
digital marketing platforms allows you to target a specific audience. We have access to
online tools that keep track of an individual’s online activities and demographic
information. Digital marketers can use this date to offer users specific products or
services that they may be interested in. For instance, once visitor clicks on a brand’s
display ad, whether on social media through a search engine, the brand can target that
visitor with subsequent and related ads. If the content a visitor receives is based on their
interests and online behaviors, it creates positive reinforcement and makes shopping
easier and more satisfying.
 You can also target your audience with content and offers based on what stage they’re
at within the buying journey. For example, email marketing can be used to nurture a
lead until they’re ready to make a purchase. Perhaps they subscribed to your blog and
consistently open your blog update emails. After several months, they visit your about
me and service web pages. At this point, you know to send them a targeted email with
an exclusive offer. They click on the offer and submit a request for a quote.

Sophisticated digital marketing tools make this possible. For instance: when a user fills
out a form online, he or she provides personal information. Most web pages have
cookies that track the user’s behavior on the page. It’s this data that companies or
digital marketers analyze and devise the right strategies for different types of audiences.

4. Generate a Consistent Lead Pipeline – Creating your “sales funnel” is ultimately the
main purpose of marketing. A sales funnel is basically a system for generating consistent
leads and sales from traffic. In other words, turning traffic into brand enthusiasts. A
sales funnel’s job is to separate the “window shoppers” from the real buyers. It can also
help improve the customer journey based on Taboola’s study.

An online sales funnel is specifically designed to consistently generate leads. Here’s an

example, before creating an online sales funnel, a betting company relied on its billboards and
location to generate walk-in leads for its products and services. Now, the company is using a
digital offer to build a more consistent pipeline of leads. Whenever someone places their first
deposit or stake, they’re given a coupon for a free amount of play. The promo is only available
on the company’s website and users must register to take advantage of the offer. With this
approach, the betting company generates leads in a much more systematic and predictable
way. As an added bonus, because customers had to submit their email to receive the free offer,
the business can stay in contact with the customer through email marketing.

5. Optimize and Obtain Better Conversion Rates - unlike traditional marketing, which
includes expensive TV, radio, or print ads, online advertising platforms, are much more
affordable. You can also improve your ad conversion rate more conveniently than you
can with traditional advertising. With print advertisements, it’s often difficult to track
conversion rates as everything is happening offline. How do you know if someone saw
your ad in a magazine and then went to store? If you can’t track your advertisement’s
performance, how can you optimize it?

Digital advertising makes it easy since every interaction is tracked. You instantly know
how many people are viewing your ad and what actions they take. Most online
advertising platforms include some level of reporting, which you can use to refine your
ad targeting, copy, and design.
6. Accurately Measure All Results - With offline marketing, it’s difficult to measure the
results of your marketing campaigns. For example, if you place an ad in a newspaper
and on a billboard simultaneously, you can’t know exactly how many people viewed the
newspaper ad or how many viewed the billboard ad. What can be more frustrating is
knowing which ad is more effective and which ad to invest in.

However, digital marketing doesn’t have such issues. In fact, with digital marketing, you
can measure everything worth measuring. From when the ad is clicked to when the
visitor leaves the pages. Everything! You are able to determine how many people saw
your ad, how many sales resulted from the ad, and ultimately, your return on
investment (ROI). Data analytics software (such as Google Analytics) and social networks
or ad platform (such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads) metrics make this monitoring or
measurement possible.

However, it is important that you prioritize the most important data because there are
many trackable metrics. This important data is called key performance indicators (KPIs).
KPIs are those metrics that are related to the objectives and goals outlined in strategy
planning and represent an effective business outcome. Some examples of KPIs are:

• Cost-per-click (CPC)
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Customer acquisition (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV)

7. Gain Brand Credibility - If any brand is to gain credibility quickly and sustainably, it
would e via the internet. Content marketing studies show that digitally active brands
usually end up having the most credibility. Through its content, a company can address
customers’ doubts, clarify important concepts, and show that it understands what
drives its market.

Useful and interesting content helps a company to gain the trust of its customers, as
well as that of industry experts. It can be effective to extent that competitors start to
cite it also in their content.

But how do you know your brand has gained credibility? Well, one thing to look for is its
rank in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs). You’re a reference to the
market if you rank at the top of Google, for example. This attracts more stakeholders to
your business and builds confidence in what you produce. After all, it’s natural to rely on
professionals who are industry leaders, right?

Blogging is one way that you can establish your expertise. Consumers seek out high-
quality content that addresses their challenges and questions. Your company’s subject
matter experts have insights that are highly sought and should be shared with target
 market. According to HubSpot, companies that blog generate 67%more leads and it
takes five-to-seven impressions for people to remember a brand.

8- Levels that Playing Field – Of course, large companies have big marketing budgets, but
digital marketing provides a level playing field for everyone to operate, be it a large or
small business. Content marketing and SEO require investments, but you don’t have to
break the bank. If you can create high-quality content that answers people’s question,
you can rank for long-tail keywords. It may take, but it is possible.

It is true that big companies can throw serious money behind their digital advertising
campaigns. However, money isn’t the only factor that matters when determining an ad’s
rank on the SERP. Both Google Ads and Bing Ads evaluate an ads’ relevancy and quality
before determining its rank. If you have a highly relevant ad that answers searchers’
questions, you can achieve the top spot on the SERP.

• DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

A digital marketing strategy is a plan that outlines how your business will achieve
its marketing goals via online channels like search and social media. Most
strategy plans will summarize which online channels and digital marketing tactics
you will use, plus how much you will invest in these channels and tactics. Digital
marketing can attract more people to your website, increase customers for your
business, and enhance branding of your company and products. Some of the top
marketing strategies used at the starting of your business are as follows:-

❖ Start with a web promotion plan and an effective web design and
development strategy.
❖ Get ranked at the top in major search engines, and practice good Search
Optimization Techniques.
❖ Learn to use Email Marketing Effectively.
❖ Dominate your marketing niche with affiliate, reseller and associate
programs.
❖ Request an analysis from a Digital marketing coach or Digital marketing
consultant.
❖ Build a responsive opt-in email list.
❖ Publish articles or get listed in new stories.
❖ Write and publish online press releases.
❖ Facilitate and run contests and giveaways via your website.
❖ Blog and interact with your visitors, by following the above tips you'll be on
your way to creating a concrete digital marketing strategy that could boost
your business substantially.
• 7 C’s OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital Marketing is the backbone of any brand. It acts as a medium for communication
between customers and brands. For a particular brand to sustain itself in the market, it has to
maintain its presence on various social platforms. There are 7 things to consider when planning
to market a product or service digitally. Effective digital marketing requires careful planning,
research, execution and analysis in order to generate a positive return on investment. The
following are the 7 C’s of digital marketing.

1- CONTENT

In the kingdom of Digital Marketing, content is the king. So, the content of any product or
service should be informational or inspiring or entertaining. Most of all, the content should be
emotionally engaging and shareable. Each thing you send, promote or post must be unique to
your brand and evoke emotion in the end user. A good idea is to create a monthly content plan,
which will keep you on track in line with other marketing activities in addition to organizing
your time more effectively.

2- CONTEXT

All content must fit into a certain context, especially where your brand is concerned because
digital marketing isn’t just about generating enquires, it’s about brand building too. If your
content has no context, you will not be able to engage with your customer.

3- COMMUNITY

Digital marketing is all about building quality, engaged, communities that will ultimately convert
and become customers of your brand. By sharing content actively, whether it be sponsored a
social media advert to a targeted consumer group or even sending a personalized HTML mailer
to your compliant database of prospects, you’re creating and engaging a community that will
benefit from your marketing efforts.

4- COLLABORATE

Marketing can be the significant difference between the success or demise of a business;
whether it be a start-up or a large, multi-national enterprise. Collaborating with the public via
your digital marketing methods can have a huge impact to the on-going growth of a company. It
could even come down to something such as crowdfunding for a particular new product launch.
Don’t forget, people are powerful.

5- COMMUNICATE
Digital marketing is, without a doubt, the most effective way to communicate with your
consumers - both current and prospective – across the world. Platforms, such as social media,
give you direct access to target consumers on different continents which ultimately, offers you
– as a brand – a much higher global reach than ever before. Whether it be for advertising
purposes, customer services or general brand awareness, you have that option, which is
incredible.

6- CAPTURE

Digital marketing gives you the unique opportunity to capture data from a variety of sources
which can then be used to influence your digital marketing strategy, budget and direction
moving forward. Not only that, but data might surprise you. A brand might experience new
people and places where it is flourishing.

7- CHANGE

It’s important to consider that this is where we are now. Digital marketing is a dominant force
to promote your business and push your products and services online. You can communicate
with customers globally, directly reach target markets at the click of a button and accurately
measure your conversion rates with in-depth digital data insights. However, there are still many
companies reluctant to make this change, but our question to you is what will you choose – to
survive, or to thrive?

• UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL CUSTOMERS

In a narrow sense, a digital consumer may be defined as someone using mobile devices, and in
a broad sense, as e-consumer, looking for and purchasing products on the Internet, taking
advantage of the content published on-line, aware of themselves and of their needs, and keen
on simplifying the decisions they need to make. The aim of this paper is to present the essence
of the idea of digital consumer, to highlight the considerations related to the behavior of
digital consumers, and to describe the trends in their behavior that may pose a challenge to
contemporary businesses. The conclusion lists the main factors enter- prises should take into
account when developing business models to target digital consumers.

Digital consumer is a consumer who has grown up in the world of the Internet, a consumer
who is more conscious and less prone to influence. Their specific behaviour changes the
approach to traditional marketing instruments. According to Tapscott (2008), in the case of
the digital world, it is no longer effective to reach for a marketing mix in the form of 4 or 5 P;
instead, consumers should be influenced by means of an appropriate set of tools in the
form of ABCDE (anyplace, brand, communication, discovery, experience). A digital consumer
may buy products anywhere and anytime, unlimited to anything but the Internet infra-
structure. Such consumers want to (and do) participate in co-creation of their favorite
brands and products, keen on customizing them ac- cording to their own needs and
preferences. Digital consumers don’t want to be merely passive recipients of
communication – they want to be listened to and interacted with. They are willing to
negotiate prices, and want to be able to influence them. Finally, they buy not only a given
brand or product, but most of all a unique experience.

Going digital is no longer a strategy planned for the future – it’s simply a requirement for doing
business in today’s multichannel world. But there are many parties involved in managing the
'digital customer experience'. But ecommerce managers, digital buyers and marketing
managers can take the following six steps to truly understand digital customers and ultimately
drive clicks.

1. The medium is the message - The Smartphone may be the hub of today's customers' digital
life, but the interactive customer experience involves multiple channels – whether it's voice,
web, SMS, chat or social. It's not good enough to just provide these channels, the customer
experience is unique to whichever channel the customer chooses – what works well on the
telephone may not work so well on web chat. Make the response appropriate to the channel,
even co-browse or chat to help customers on their journey to deliver the clicks you are looking
for. Given that most of today's digital channels are available on a Smartphone – email, SMS,
voice, web chat – make the most of this device. Mobile marketing can provide a great avenue
to attract new customers and reward loyalty.

2. The customer only has one voice, but uses many channels - Integrate the channels so you
have a single view of the customer. No customer wants to send an email explaining an issue
and then have to call and explain. Agent desktops are also fast becoming the technology of
choice for contact centre’s – they store all the information from whatever channel about a
customer in one place so no customer has to repeat the question as they change channel or
agent. They are also completely customizable and much more flexible than traditional CRM
systems – and most can be fully integrated into your legacy system. A sophisticated agent
desktop also has another important management benefit – they can be personalized for each
individual agent with business rules and targets through advanced scripting, item queuing and
blended work schedules. Adopting a holistic agent desktop will ultimately improve the
customer's digital experience.

3. Never miss a (relevant) tweet - So you've made the move to social media, now how do you
keep on top of it? As a company, you will receive 100s of tweets a day, too many to sift through
individually to make sure you provide good customer service to each person. Social analytics -
often available as a cloud offering – will do it all for you, showing you tweets that don't contain
your twitter handle but contain your company name, only showing you tweets that are
actionable and relevant, and listing tweets based on selected topics such as “good service” or
“poor service”.

4. Go self-service but don't leave your customer high and dry - Companies that use proven
self-service solutions tend to foster a higher rate of first-contact resolution, leading to positive
experiences and loyal customers. It has even been shown that in some situations the majority
of customers prefer self-service over calling an agent or sending an email. Here, Interactive
Voice Response (IVR) provides one of the quickest, easiest and best self-service options
available. Easy to install – IVR can be deployed through a cloud service – an IVR self-service
solution must be simple to navigate. But never abandon the customer – you want your
customers not just to click through today, but tomorrow and next week – so make sure you
offer an assisted service option.

5. Don't underestimate email - Email is long thought to be dwindling in popularity thanks to the
abundance of new social media channels and alternative communication channels. But this isn't
necessarily the case. In fact, it has been suggested that email use is actually increasing, thanks
to its instant accessibility on the Smartphone. It's convenient and while it isn't necessarily
instant, this works in its favor as a channel – a customer and can send and receive emails back
at times convenient to them – and for a company, agents don't have to tell a customer “I will
find out and give you a call back” or “can you hold the line while I find out the information”,
they can respond to the email as soon as they have the information, increasing first-contact
resolution rate.

6. Manage leads effectively - Through all of these channels, it's essential that lead management
is integrated across different departments in the company. Whether that's the marketing
department, sales team, website administrator or the customer service department. Using an
intelligent workload management system, companies will make the most of digital interactions
and maximize opportunities wherever possible, making each click count.

Companies need to be there when and where it is convenient for the customer. Going digital is
the answer but it involves much more that just adding digital channels for customers to use.

The customer may use many digital channels but they still have just one voice, and this means
using digital customer service to understand that voice and engage with it. Only that way will
ecommerce managers, digital buyers and marketing managers start to get a handle on their
elusive customers in a digital world.
• DIGITAL MARKETING VS TRADITIONAL MARKETING

Traditional Marketing means the marketing of goods and services using those platforms,
channel and techniques that involve one-way communication tool, instead of two-way
flow. It integrates different forms of advertising which are easily recognizable yet
expensive.
Traditional marketing is the typical form of marketing which helps to reach the customer
via offline advertising modes, like television, newspapers, magazines, posters, banners,
radio, hoardings, etc.
Traditional Marketing is mainly concerned with reaching a wide range of audience and
competing by numbers. This means that the larger the number of people watching or
going through the ad, the higher will be the leads that you attract.

The reasons why traditional marketing is preferred are:

• Easy Connectivity with the target audience: Advertisements can be placed on the local
news dailies and channels of the concerned geographical area to target the prospective
customers easily.
• Save hard copies: Customers can save the hard copies of the ads placed in the
newspaper or magazine, which they are interested in, so as to refer them when they
wish to buy that product or service. They can also share those copies with their friends,
relatives and acquaintances, who require that product.
• Easily recognizable: People are quite accustomed to the conventional ads, as they are
being used for a long time and so they understand and recognize it easily.
• High Reach: Traditional marketing channels have a large customer base, and so a single
ad can reach millions of customers of the area in just one circulation. Further, people
living in those areas where there is no internet access or there is a lack of network
connectivity can also be reached through this medium.

Digital Marketing is the fundamental term that includes each and every online marketing
effort. In digital marketing, companies make use of all the digital channels to reach the
existing and potential customers. The channels may include Google search, social media,
email, websites, so on and so forth. Further, the most important technology, upon which
digital marketing relies, is ‘Internet’.
Simply put, any kind of marketing which is carried out online comes under the periphery
of digital marketing.

The reasons why digital marketing is preferred are as under:

• Highly Cost-effective: Small scale business or startup with minimum capital investment
can find a better and budget-friendly channel to promote their products and services.
• Levels the playing field: Digital Marketing evens the playing field for all, i.e. it provides
equal and similar opportunities to all the enterprises be it a multinational corporation or
a start-up company, to attract the targeted customers.
• Connect with customers via powerful content: On the internet, content is regarded as
king, that can influence your audience right away if you have the powerful content.
• Increases conversions: The rate of incoming traffic converted into the customers often
determines the success of digital marketing.
• Higher revenue generation: When customer engagement and conversion is higher, it
will reap higher profits for your business. And so, the businesses can expand both
domestically and internationally.
• Creating brand awareness: Digital marketing helps the firm in creating brand awareness
among customers, by keeping them updated about the new products, offers, discounts,
etc.
• Realize Higher ROI: When the company reaps higher revenue at low costs, it will
ultimately help in reaping a better return on investment.

BASIS FOR TRADITIONAL MARKETING DIGITAL MARKETING

COMPARISON
Meaning Traditional Marketing refers to the
marketing that uses traditional
channels or media, for the purpose
of marketing communication.
Nature Traditional Marketing is static in
nature.
Conversion Its conversion is slow.
Engagement It has a low engagement.
Return on Investment The return on investment cannot be
measured easily.
Digital Marketing implies the
marketing of products and
services via digital channels,
such as the internet,
smartphone, display ads, and
other digital medium.
Digital Marketing is dynamic
in nature.
Digital marketing is
comparatively fast than
traditional marketing.
It has a high engagement.
ROI can be measure easily.
 Traditional Marketing is less Digital Marketing is less
Effectiveness and effective but it is more expensive as expensive but it is far more
Expensiveness that compared to digital marketing. effective than traditional
marketing.

Tracking It is not possible to track traditional Digital marketing can be

marketing. tracked.
Targeting Traditional Marketing is Digital Marketing is
standardized. customized.
Tweaking Not possible once the ad is placed. Can be performed anytime,
even after the ad is placed.
Reach Traditional marketing has a local Digital marketing is global.
reach.
Results Traditional marketing gives delayed Digital marketing gives quick
results. and real-time results.
Interruptions Consumers cannot skip the ads, as Digital marketing allows the
they are bound to see them in consumers to avoid or skip
traditional marketing. the ads which do not interest
them.
Communication Traditional marketing is a one-way Digital marketing is a Two-
communication. way communication.

• CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS

While making decisions customers go through 5 different steps:-

• 1. Need Recognition – the awareness that there’s a gap between where we are and where
we want to be.
• 2. Information Search – once we determine that we have a little need we want to go away,
we look at alternatives to satisfy that need.
• 3. Evaluation – which is just a fancy word meaning we use something to help us rank the
product alternatives that turn up in our search.
• 4. Decision — Whatever evaluation tool we use, we come up with some type of decision
that we are going to buy Brand X.
• 5. Post-Purchase Evaluation – but, we’re not done when we make our purchase, we still
have to decide whether we like the product (satisfaction) and whether we like the process
we used to make our decision.
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACTS CONSUMER DECISION MAKING

A few years ago, advertising had a significant impact on the consumer decision-making process.
Certainly, word of mouth had a major impact on consumer buying decisions, but pre-social
networks, word of mouth had not yet gone too far.

Now, social media gives word of mouth. The impact of social media on awareness, brand
attitudes, and social norms is so strong that we often refer to viral marketing or buzz marketing,
which reflects a strategy designed to stimulate positive word of mouth.

1. Need Recognition – as we said early, we have a bunch of needs. Actually limitless needs we
have. And social media shapes those needs. When you see pictures posted by a friend on
different social media, then you also want to do that kind of thing.

2. Information Search – this is the most obvious impact on consumer buying decisions from
social media. Folks ask friends for recommendations on social networks or consult social
networks for evaluations before buying a product.

And friends offer free recommendations either directly, through their endorsement of the
brand, or indirectly, by showing images of them with the brand or checking in at the location
using apps.

3. Decision – Social media impacts consumer decisions because friends can help you find the
brand you decided to buy, talk you out of it if they don’t agree, maybe even help find a way to
pay for the item. Social media either helps overcome obstacles or puts more obstacles in the
way of buyers who have decided on a purchase.

4. Post-Purchase Evaluations – social media has a big impact on cognitive dissonance. Let’s say
you just bought a new car and a friend’s posts about a different new car they just bought and
how wonderful it is.

HOW MARKETERS CAN BENEFIT FROM UNDERSTANDING THE CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING

PROCESS?

Marketers need to understand the consumer decision-making process in order to aid

consumers in deciding to buy their brand just one of the many reasons you should use as a
marketer to do your social media marketing. You need to understand what’s going on in
consumers’ head to optimize your return.

Understanding the consumer decision-making process and developing social media tactics to
make sure your brand is making the cut at each stage in the process will propel your brand to
the top.
Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior in the Online Medium

Consumer behavior online is affected by a number of factors like: Personal, Psychological and
Social & Cultural. Personal characteristics include age, gender, occupation, status, education
and lifestyle. Young individuals have more interest towards new technologies as compared to
older people and easily adopt them. Moreover, cross-shopping is more intense in this group.
Both gender groups are using the internet but as stated by Rodgers and Harris, the men make
more online purchases. But in today’s world, this gap is decreasing and an increasing number of
women buy online. Moreover, individuals with lower income find the online platform riskier for
purchases as compared to those with higher incomes. Online shoppers are generally not that
educated as it is considered an easy activity. Online consumers psychologically deal with
themselves, get motivated to look for price or buy online. Perception plays a huge role and
consumers assess the security and quality of the website of the product. Personality drives
them to websites that best suits to their personal preferences. Attitude is the one marketer is
more interested as it can be changed easily. For the online consumers, the virtual communities
and their opinions play an important role in formulating their purchase decisions.

Indian Apparel market

In the last few years, the apparel industry in the developing countries is witnessing a robust
growth. Changing consumer trends and demand, social and environmental factors are
influencing drastic changes in the apparel industry with India being one of the preferred
destinations. Indian apparel market is expected to grow at CAGR of 13% and is predicted to
reach USD 124 billion by 2020 (Indian Apparel Market: The 2020 promises, 2017). Many global
brands are entering India and at the same time the domestic brands are strengthening their
positions. The support by the government is also boosting the confidence of global and
domestic brands. There are some major trends that are changing the Indian apparel industry.
The rise in new middle class and its soaring aspirations is leading to increase in preference of
branded clothes by consumers. This trend is more visible in Tier-I cities with more population of
middle class and affluent consumers but this trend is seen descending in Tier-II & Tier-II cities of
India too. The role of women in family decision making is gaining prominence with the growing
contribution of women in the family income. With smarter women and thus smarter kids, the
Indian apparel industry is witnessing a major change in the way females demand hard core
fashion brands and decide buying clothes online. One set of Indian consumers are buying
apparel on the basis of their functionality like anti-stain, anti-odor or quick dry while the other
are buying motivated by high order needs like sustainable clothing. This is forcing companies to
think beyond the predictable consumer needs while buying apparels. There is a return of trend
of custom-fit tailoring with basically either made-to-measure or bespoke tailoring. Premium
brands like Raymond and Louis Philippe and luxury brands like Armani, Versace, Zegna, Cadini
and Canali offer made-to-measure services. Premium brands like Van Heusen’s My Fit and
Creyate by Arvind group have introduced the concept of bespoke tailoring. The increasing and
fast access to internet devices is enabling to opt for online shopping experience in apparels too.
It gives them the benefit of exploring a wide range of products and their prices on a single
platform at a time and place comfortable to them. With increasing social media engagements,
customer experience and huge discounts on weekends and festivals, online shopping is
definitely giving a different shopping experience with enhanced customer satisfaction and
engagement. So, online apparel sales are on the rise but at the same time the need to develop
digitally driven brands is also emerging in Indian apparel industry.

These days in the era of digital marketing, the process of consumer decision making has
changed beyond all recognition. User behavior has been streamlined and today’s business
model is a much briefer one than in the past. Now, when a consumer decides they need a
product, they can surf the internet immediately, find exactly what they need virtually instantly
and make a snap purchasing decision. Researching online takes a matter of minutes or hours
rather than days trawling around stores and calling suppliers. Reviews are right there at the
consumer’s fingertips and product demos can be viewed immediately before making any
purchasing decision. This accessibility has had a major impact on the standard business model.
It no longer follows a linear and traditional path. It has become a moving target that has digital
marketing right at its heart.

Recognizing A Need
The first step of the traditional business model involved the consumer recognizing that they
had a need for a product or service. Today, there is a wealth of options that companies can
choose from to facilitate this stage of the process. Social media can have a powerful impact,
reaching a targeted audience base within the brand’s most relevant demographic, with around
3 million advertisers now using Facebook to reach consumers. Email newsletters can reach out
to interested parties and previous customers to highlight the latest products and promotional
offers, encouraging them to find out more. Banner adverts can attract the attention of web
surfers… in short, the options are extensive and effective.

The Information-Gathering Phase

Once the consumer has recognised their need, they begin gathering information about the
product or service that they require. This is, arguably, the stage at which digital marketing can
be most powerful. Around 89% of all consumers now begin their search for product information
on the internet. That means that when companies harness the power of a strong SEO strategy
paired with sponsored and PPC advertising they can rise up the search engine rankings to get
their brand in front of the widest possible audience.
Even local companies can benefit from taking a digital marketing approach. While they may be
catering for a more localized demographic, they can take advantage of local SEO to point
customers towards their physical presence. Around 86% of shoppers search for a local business
to meet their needs online so the digital marketing avenue is something that even the smallest
business can profit from. Gone are the days of relying on the Yellow Pages or locally distributed
flyers.
Evaluation Of Options
Next, we reach the evaluation stage. At one time, businesses could be fairly confident that as
long as they were the first to reach the customer they could make a sale however this is no
longer the case. Thanks to the internet, price comparison is the work of minutes. Companies
can harness this power themselves, however, by featuring live price comparisons on their own
website so that consumers need to look no further. By keeping the customer on the site, the
chances of a sale increase.

Assessing The Evidence

Online reviews also have a key role to play at this stage of the consumer decision-making
process. Evidence has shown that around two-thirds of all shoppers reference reviews before
making most kinds of purchases. By taking a proactive response to consumer reviews, it’s
possible to create a positive brand impression for outstanding customer service and so to sway
the consumer in the company’s direction even if there are negative reviews.

Making The Decision

By this point, buyers have all the information they need to make a purchasing decision at their
fingertips. Digital marketing has done its work. It is now important to ensure that the process of
making the sale is as simple and efficient as possible with a smooth-loading, user-friendly site
and a secure payment facility.
It’s clear that, regardless of the size or type of a business, digital marketing is essential in
today’s modern competitive marketplace. Harnessing its potential to generate leads, convert
customers and close sales couldn’t be more important.
 • CONSUMERS IN INDIA

Even though widespread internet usage is still a relatively recent phenomenon in India,
most observers agree that it is changing everything—social relationships, shopping
habits, even societal norms. Often overlooked, however, are India’s extraordinary
diversity and the fact that no technology, no matter how powerful or pervasive, will
affect each of the country’s 1 billion consumers—of whom 50% will soon be online—in
the same way.

The adoption of digital in India is occurring considerably faster than that of technologies
in the past. It estimated that India will have more than 850 million online users by 2025,
more than the combined populations of the G7 countries.
Digital’s impact is becoming pervasive across all consumer segments. India’s initial digital
consumers were male, millennial, and mostly metro-based. The future looks very
different. By 2020, half of all internet users will be rural, 40% will be women, and 33% will
be 35 or older.
Internet penetration has been, and continues to be, mobile first. Four out of five users go
online with mobile devices. Today, these devices are a mix of Smartphone (with 3G or better
connections) and feature phones with primarily 2G connections, but the trend is toward faster
connections and more capable devices. To get a sense of the speed of this shift, consider this: it
took nearly eight years for India’s mobile market to reach 250 million 3G connections, but the
country’s Reliance Jio 4G network added 100 million connections in just seven months.

Finally, the primary determinant of consumer behavior is not age, gender, or location (urban
versus rural), but digital maturity—that is, the number of years that a user has been online. The
more digitally mature people are, the more they do online. As a consequence, digital’s
influence on purchases and actual digital commerce are both increasing. From 2014 through
2016, the number of online buyers rose sevenfold, to between 80 million and 90 million.
Digitally influenced spending, currently $45 billion to $50 billion a year, is projected to increase
more than tenfold, to between $500 billion and $550 billion—and to account for 30% to 35% of
all retail sales—by 2025.

WHAT COMPANIES NEED TO KNOW

So far, so good, but much of this common knowledge has led to a commoditized approach to
the consumer. Most companies see the same trends, and they try to capitalize in similar ways—
building websites, launching e-commerce platforms, and developing their social media
presence, for example. Nothing in the conventional understanding of digital’s development
translates into a source of competitive advantage. This research has uncovered some insights
that challenge the existing notions.

Online activities defy stereotypes - One popular stereotype has the Indian consumer using the
internet largely for socializing, window-shopping, and staying abreast of Bollywood. This
research identified a much more engaged consumer and a broader set of online activities—
eight categories of behavior that include, for example, consuming media, pursuing studies,
managing finances, and, of course, shopping. The “eight S’s” of online activity outlined in
Exhibit 2, some of which overlap, characterize the Indian consumer in a much more complete
and specific manner than does a more conventional, simplified view of online presence.

Consider the case of Aniket, a 23-year-old postgraduate student in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar
Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Aniket works part-time as an accountant for an auto
dealership and lives in a two-bedroom apartment with his family (his father, a regional sales
manager for a pharmaceutical company; his mother, a housewife; and his younger brother,
who is in high school). The family’s monthly household income is the equivalent of $2,000,
which puts them in the affluent income segment and provides a comfortable lifestyle. Aniket
spends four to five hours a day online (using his smartphone)—more than a quarter of his
waking hours. Half of this online time is spent socializing with friends, using apps such as
Facebook, WhatsApp, and Skype. Almost 20% is spent consuming media and playing games,
and another 10% to 15% is related to his schoolwork at the University of Lucknow. He spends
the remainder looking for e-commerce deals, searching for information, and managing his
finances.

Like Aniket, many Indian consumers have seamlessly integrated digital technology into their
daily lives; the phone is central to much of what they do, and they do not even think about the
division between online and offline activity. Our research indicates that it is difficult to correlate
any consumer’s usage pattern with any single variable, whether age, income, gender,
occupation, or some other social or demographic factor.

Each user is unique. Individual consumers exhibit their own digital behaviors and footprints.
Each decides how much time to spend online and what to do there. (See Exhibit 3.) It may be
convenient for marketers to segment digital consumers into three or four archetypes, but the
reality is that behavior patterns are not easily grouped. For Aniket, for example, the internet is
first and foremost a social medium. For Siraj, a 32-year-old event manager in Kochi, Kerala, it is
an indispensable part of his job. “The internet makes me better at my work,” he says. “It gives
me leads for events and shows me what is working in bigger cities.” Anish, a 28-year-old shop
owner in rural Gujarat, is a shopper himself. He says, “The internet gives me access to products
that are not yet available in my town. I also show off my purchases to my friends by posting
them online.”

A good first experience is critical. Many consumers are strongly influenced by their early
experiences online: their first online purchase and receipt of the item, for example, or their first
online booking of an appointment with a new doctor and subsequent experience with the
practice.
These early “moments of truth” shape future behaviors. Many Indian consumers are still
apprehensive about online transactions, and the first one looms large in their minds. A good
experience encourages a second transaction, and a third. A bad experience sets the individual’s
online development back. If an online retailer makes it easy and natural to research, buy, and
take delivery, for example, the new online consumer will be off and running. When the shopper
encounters problems—a hard-to-use website, payment difficulties, poor-quality goods, or, just
as important, trouble with delivery—the experience is likely to inhibit further online shopping.
One consumer told, “I ordered a lehenga online; some celebrity was wearing it. In reality, it was
of such bad quality that I had to return it. I never buy clothes online anymore.”
Even many consumers who could be considered digitally mature retain some level of distrust in
the online world. “My kids introduced me to the internet three or four years back when they
showed me a recipe on YouTube,” one urban woman in her forties told us. “But I have never
shopped alone—my daughter always does it for me.”

The product category makes a difference - While the current retail buzz is all about the need
for omnichannel options, the reality of how people shop—and will continue to shop—varies
substantially depending on the particular consumer and the product or service category. In
some categories, such as small appliances, more than a third of all buyers travel the entire
purchase pathway online, and more than half combine online and offline shopping activities. In
others, such as apparel and accessories, two-thirds of purchasers follow an exclusively offline
path to purchase. This figure rises to more than 90% in consumer staples and fresh foods.
During the course of our research, Aniket (our post graduate in Lucknow) bought a sofa without
going to the store. He found a good offer on a “daily deals” website, discussed the idea with his
family, and put in the order, all on the same day. This behavior may not yet be typical, but for
some it is the norm. At the other extreme, we observed digitally mature consumers who spent
plenty of time online but never conducted a single transaction.

WHAT COMPANIES NEED TO DO

As both e-commerce and the influence of digital continue to grow, companies that want to
maintain their relevance with consumers and increase sales and share must take steps in four
areas.

Focus on solutions over products. As their digital maturity grows, consumers will increasingly
migrate toward online companies that offer integrated solutions, rather than to companies that
simply serve up individual products or services. Companies have the opportunity to serve a
broader set of customers and deepen their relationships, but to seize the opportunity they
must provide complete solutions and manage the overall experience. This typically means
either complementing core offerings with ancillary products and services or developing multiple
core propositions that overlap with the various pathways customers follow on their way to
making a purchase.
Digital natives offer some useful models. Quikr started off as India’s answer to Craigslist, but it
quickly learned that operating only as a listing site was insufficient. It has since transformed
itself into a full-service company that offers B2B and B2C classifieds, orchestrates delivery of
the products purchased through its ads, and manages escrow accounts for buyers and sellers.
Practo began as a cloud-based software-as-a-service provider for doctors, but now it also
functions as an online marketplace for doctors and patients. It serves as an appointment-
making service for patients and provides doctors with the data they need to better manage
their patient base and their practices.

Companies in India should begin by examining their interactions with consumers through the
lens of the categories of online activity mentioned earlier, keeping in mind their ability to guide
consumers along the purchase pathway. They should then develop a set of interventions that
can engage consumers and influence their decisions and actions.

Build a network of partnerships - As they broaden their focus from products to solutions,
companies may find that they can’t do everything themselves. Incumbent players need to
understand what their core offering is. Understandably, many will want to own the entire
customer relationship, but in some areas, such as the delivery of products and services,
customers may be better served by others. Quikr, for example, partners with Delhivery, which
manages delivery logistics. Indiapost (equivalent to the US Postal Service) has partnered with
retailers such as Amazon and Flipkart (the two largest e-commerce companies in India) to
provide delivery and collection, especially in smaller cities and in rural areas. Practo’s
partnership with Uber and Ola enables users to book cabs to visit their doctors. The platforms
are seamlessly integrated—users get a reminder an hour before their appointment and can
book a cab directly through the Practo app.

Invest big and differently in digital - Companies recognize the power of digital, and most are
building websites, mobile apps, and e-commerce capabilities. They understand the importance
of digital marketing and social media, and they are investing in IT infrastructure and assets.
In our view, however, many companies are basing their plans and investments on the
expectation that the Indian digital marketplace will evolve as it did in developed markets. We
believe this underestimates the digital potential in India; companies may actually be under
investing for the long term. In addition, many companies are failing to realize that fast-rising
digital demand requires more investment in people and capabilities than in physical assets.
Making the transition to a digital organization is a challenge for most companies, but it is all but
impossible without the right technology and talent.

Consider omnichannel—one channel at a time - The rise of e-commerce and digital influence
has led to a great deal of discussion about omnichannel customer journeys and the need to be
present in all channels. The reality is that many companies would do much better if they made
sure their offering in each channel was right before they focused on how the different channels
interact. For most businesses, there is ample opportunity in both online and offline channels, at
least for now. Most of the action for consumer packaged goods companies is still in stores.
Consumer electronics players, on the other hand, have seen close to 40% of their sales move
online. Each type of company should make sure it is serving its primary channel as effectively as
it can before trying to develop multichannel or omnichannel capabilities. And companies whose
business is still primarily in one channel should probably focus for now on getting that channel
right, rather than solving the omni puzzle. There is more than adequate upside in the near to
medium term in addressing the basics—putting the right images and descriptions on the
website, ensuring high fill rates with channel partners, and providing proper after-sales service,
for example.
For companies that are pursuing omnichannel strategies, multiple factors—affecting
consumers, retailers, and marketers—shape the purchase pathway for each product category
and determine the extent to which digital channels can play a role. For consumers, the most
important factors are trust (including dependable guidance from the seller), the degree of
product standardization (standardization facilitates online sales), purchase size (expensive or
inexpensive), and assortment. Digital retailers, as they think about which categories to push,
are concerned primarily with the gross margin of the product, the price relative to the cost of
delivery, and the challenge of logistics and payment. The interplay of these factors determines
whether a category moves substantially online (as ticket sales, travel, and media have),
develops omnichannel customer journeys (health products, electronics, and banking), or
remains mostly an offline activity (food and groceries).

Within categories, pathways can vary. In apparel, for example, men’s casual wear—which
involves limited prepurchase research, no customization, and modest expense—is likely to
remain a single-channel purchase (either online or offline) in most circumstances. Women’s
fashion, on the other hand, involves considerable prepurchase online research, limited
standardization in fit and quality across brands, and frequent customization and tailoring. Most
consumers of women’s clothes, therefore, are likely to follow a multichannel path to purchase.
This does not make life simple for companies, but managing such complexity is critical in this
fast-changing environment.

India is defined by its extraordinary diversity—something that digital technologies will not
change. In the future, more and more Indians will do more and more things online, but
individual users will approach the digital experience in their own ways and integrate digital
tools into their lives in the manner they see fit. There is a massive opportunity for companies
that understand this diversity and know how to engage digital consumers as individuals. These
companies will build relationships, collect data, and create experiences that will lead to a large
and growing online (and offline) customer base for years to come.

• CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN DIGITAL MARKETING

Having observed the evolving paradigms of business in the Internet era, there are five critical
success factors that the Digital Marketer has to keep in mind.

1. Attracting the Right Customer – It is the first crucial step. Rising digital penetration
would mean that the number of customer visiting particular sites would inevitably go
up. While the number of eyeballs or pages views has so far been conveniently used as a
satisfactory measure by most web sites, it would be foolish to cater to the whole
spectrum of digital visitors. Content has to be very target specific. The digital company
has to select its target segment by finding out which section of customers are the most
profitable in terms of revenue transactions and who are the customers who generate
the maximum number of referrals. It is important to note that the majority of online
customers are not seeking the lowest price. Rather they are seeking convenience above
everything else. The power of customer referrals has never been so enormous, since
word of the mouse spreads faster than word of the mouth. E-Bay attracts more than
half of its customers through referrals. Not only do referred customers cost less to
acquire than those brought in by advertising or other marketing tools, they also cost less
to support since they use their friends who referred them for advice rather than using
the companies’ own technical desk.

2- Delivering Content Value to engage the user’s interest -