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Digital Marketing and Its Real Impact

PROJECT REPORT

Submitted by

Shivam Bhardwaj

2101140700024

Under the guidance of

Dr. Divya Rana

in partial fulfilment of the requirements


for the award of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION


of
Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow

IPEM

Management department, Institute of Professional Excellence & Management


A-13/1, South Side G.T. Road Industrial Area, Bypass, Ghaziabad, Uttar
Pradesh
201010

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DECLARATION

I undersigned, hereby declare that the project titled Digital Marketing and Its
Real Impact submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of Degree of Master
of Business Administration of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University,
Lucknow is a bonafide record of work done by me under the guidance of Dr.
Divya Rana, Management deparment, Insititute of Professional Excellence and
Management.

Date:
Shivam Bhardwaj
Signature

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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the report titled Digital Marketing and Its Real Impact
being submitted by, Shivam Bhardwaj 2101140700024 in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the award of the Degree of Master of Business Administration, is
a bonafide record of the project work done by Shivam Bhardwaj Management
deparment, Insititute of Professional Excellence and Management

Dr. Divya Rana

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Acknowledgements

Through this acknowledgement I express my sincere gratitude towards all those


people who helped me in this project, which has been a learning experience.
This space wouldn’t be enough to extend my warm gratitude towards my project
guide Dr. Divya Rana for her efforts in coordinating with my work and guiding in
right direction.
I escalate a heartfelt regards to our Institution for giving me the essential hand in
concluding this work.
It would be injustice to proceed without acknowledging those vital supports I
received from my beloved classmates and friends, without whom I would have
been half done.
I also use this space to offer my sincere love to my parents and all others who had
been there, helping me walk through this work.

Shivam Bhardwaj

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Table Of Content
S.no Topic Page. No
1 Executive Summary
2 Introduction
3 Skill Level
4 Inbound VerSus Outbound Marketing
5 Different Ways to Market Your Business
6 Your Internet Marketing Question Answer
7 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
8 Social Media Marketing
9 Email Marketing
10 Online Advertising
11 Afflitate Marketing
12 Website
13 Online PR
14 Other Forms Of Internet Marketing
15 The Future Of Internet Marketing
16 Opportunity for Consumer and Also For Business
Rivals
17 Measuring Website Conservation
18 List of Top Online E-commerce Shopping Sites in
India
19 Survey and Openion
20 Understanding the consumer Buying Behaviour Of
Indians
21 Research Methodology
22 Data Analysis and Interretation
23 Findings
24 Conclusion
25 Learning Points
26 Questionsaire
27 References

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Online marketing or Internet advertising is a form of marketing and advertising


which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. It
includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing,
many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile
advertising. Like other advertising media, online advertising frequently involves
both a publisher, who in- tegrates advertisements into its online content, and an
advertiser, who provides the ad- vertisements to be displayed on the publisher's
content. Other potential participants in- clude advertising agencies who help
generate and place the ad copy, an ad server which technologically delivers the ad
and tracks statistics, and advertising affiliates who do in- dependent promotional
work for the advertiser.

In 2011. Internet advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable tele- vision
and nearly exceeded those of broadcast television. In 2013. Internet advertising revenues in the
United States totalled $42.8 billion, a 17% increase over the $36.57 bil- lion in revenues in 2012.
U.S. internet ad revenue hit a historic high of $20.1 billion for the first half of 2013. up 18% over
the same period in 2012. Online advertising is widely used across virtually all industry sectors.

Internet user on the basis of development of countries........

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While online shopping we use multiple tools to reach or find desirable products.

Factors that influences consumer to buy online and why they prefer this.

1. Time saving - Via online we have to access through internet and choose whatever. I want & like
to purchase.
2. Less taxes - in online shopping in absence of intermediator price differ less and also taxes.
3. Easy to compare prices - Via online shops we have freedom to compare each product and easily
differentiates.
4. Freedom to choose international product - By internet be reach at global markek and able to
buy international products.
5. No crowd - We face no crowed even millions of consumer are buying.
6. More variety - we get more variety through online shopping in comparison with
7. Spend less on fright - there is no need to go and spend money on travelling. local market.
8. Fewer prices - as we know that there's direct selling through company to cus- tomer.

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INTRODUCTION

Online Marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, internet marketing, or e-
marketing is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. Internet market- ing is
sometimes considered to be broad in scope because it not only refers to marketing on the
Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Man- agement of
digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also
often grouped together under internet marketing.

Clearly, marketers are adding on-line channels to find, reach, communicate, and sell. I-
marketing has at least five great advantages. First, both small and large firms can afford it.
Second, there is no real limit on advertising space, in contrast to print and broadcast media.
Third, information access and retrieval are fast, compared to overnight mail and even fax.
Fourth, the site can be visited by anyone from any place in the world. Fifth, shopping can be
done privately and swiftly.

Even before the Internet there were many different ways to advertise, in different media such as
radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, as well as via telemarketing or pamphlets. Usually the goal
was to get a company- and/or product name, a statement etc, communicated to as many people as
possible for the smallest price possible.

When the Internet arose, a number of search options became available. Companies had the option
to advertise themselves on a larger scale. Due to advertising perception at the time, many
businesses were assumed to have great value, and thus traded on the stock exchange at
extraordinary high rates. This collapsed in 2001 at what is commonly known as the dot-com
bubble.

After the dotcom collapse, the Internet was almost disregarded because of many failing website-
based businesses that had expectations to the market and assumptions about consumers.
However, both consumers and companies continued exploring online options. Soon more
substantial business models emerged; search advertising and e-commerce were the new
possibilities. Enhancements in targeting advertising, and understanding how websites maintain
visitors, became relevant. Researching consumer's behaviour and buying patterns online began to
interest scholars.

Due to the technologies available today, as well as broadband implementations in most homes,
advertisers are able to make massive leaps and create global campaigns (be- come globalised in
just a few minutes). Leaps that will be more obvious as a new generation of professionals take
control. "(...) are likely to continue as marketing and advertising are increasingly peopled with
individuals for whom the internet, eBay, Amazon, Google, and YouTube were always there and
which played some role in forming their worldviews, just as television, film, radio, and print did
for prior generations." (Rappaport 2007)

So, let us face the facts: The Internet is no longer a medium of "new economy", and "E-
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business" as a term has rather been rendered obsolete. The Internet is used in any and all
industries, as a

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branding and marketing tool, as an internal communication tool, and as the start of most business
transactions. Today companies use the Internet as one of the most powerful tools in a big number
of ways. The Internet has unlocked a large num ber of search options and new ways of
highlighting the important aspects of any item. Thus marketing has been redefined via the
Internet, and given even small businesses a chance to promote and brand their products on a
larger scale. The Internet has there- fore experienced enormous growth in online advertising,
since its inception in the early 1990'ies. It is still however executed in the usual one-way-
communication, as it has al- ways been done. Success stories in advertising are easy to find:
Amazon is using their customers to market products to others via the "other buyers, who looked
at this, also looked at this". Coca Cola are storytelling via the Internet, MasterCard use humorous
clips, and through that viral marketing. But are all companies aware of the possibilities, and do
they use them?

We live in a world of connectivity: the number of mobiles phone subscriptions in Denmark


outnumbers the number of inhabitants. The number of text messages increases year-by- year,
email and instant messenger programs set records each year. All of which points out that people
are in need of being in contact with others. When the Internet connects people across oceans and
continents, dating services, networking pages and blogs, fo- rums and chat rooms are increasing
every minute, are the companies aware of the con- sumers' need to be connected and be part of a
dialogue?

Are companies adopting the interaction approach to their advertising concepts? Getting the user
to feel like part of the company will create not only happy customers, but ambassadors, that will
promote the company and its products even further. Most people do not leave their home without
their mobile phone, they are scared to miss any- thing, and want people to be able to reach them
for an opinion. Customers are jumping on the chance to be heard in large audiences.

Opt-in is a term used to describe a way of getting details from a potential customer to subscribe
to a particular service. They de- cide they want to get details you offer so they Opt-in. For
example. sign up to a newsletter.

You attract customer to you rather than broadcasting your message. You promote your products
and services directly to potential cus- tomers. For example, advertising is outbound marketing

On your website a call to action is something that requests a visitor to do something. For
example- 'Subscribe Now' is a call to action.

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Inbound versus Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing was typically the traditional approach to market your business and this was
known as interruption based marketing. This is where you broadcast your mes- sage through
advertising and other mediums and try to grab the attention of the user. When consumers are
bombarded with an average 3,000 messages a day you can under- stand why this form of
marketing is becoming increasingly difficult. It certainly still works in some cases (for example,
it can be very effective with Google advertising) but there are now other ways that can be more
effective.

Inbound marketing is where you provide something of value that attracts your customer to come
to you. When you attract that customer you try to build a relationship. After you build the
relationship you develop trust and this then allows you to sell your product or service to them.
This form of marketing although difficult to grasp is becoming increasingly effective. A
permission based approach such as this can also produce much better results because:
a) When you build a relationship within any client online or offline your chances of a sale
increase significantly. When you go into a sales meeting and fail to build rapport with the
potential customer it is difficult to get the sale. Online is now becoming very similar.
b) It's generally more cost effective. It does involve more of your time but there is less expense.
c) Performance/return is relatively easy to track so you can adjust to get better results

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Different Ways to Market your Business Online

This guide gives an overview of the different means to market your business online. It's not a
case of using everything in this guide for your business as you don't have an end- less amount of
time and budget but this guide will help you to identify the areas that can be effective for your
business. The following diagram gives an overview of the type of areas we are talking about.

Before deciding which methods of online marketing tools you are going to use you need to
allocate time for the following:
 Research - The initial research is to figure out what other people are doing and what is
working or not working. You will not necessarily copy other people but you may take
some guidance when coming up with your unique plan.

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 Strategy - You need to define a clear effective strategy. It's very easy to waste time and
money on internet marketing, a clear strategy will help with this. How are you going to
attract potential customers, how are you going to engage them, how are you going to
keep in touch with them and how are you going to convert them.
 Branding - Branding is becoming increasingly important in the online world. What
message are you giving out online? Are you an approachable company? Is your infor-
mation clear and compelling? What's unique about your offering? Branding consistency
is extremely important in how you communicate, what you communicate and how it
looks. For example, always ensure the tools you use online to communicate with your
custom- ers have the same look and feel as your website wherever possible.
 Content - You need to have a clear content strategy. What content are you going to
provide that will add value, what will be of interest to potential customers. The following
gives a breakdown of the key forms of Internet Marketing as outlined above.
Type
 Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) This is process used to optimise your website so that
it appears more in google searches.
 Social media Social media marketing is marketing yourself through conversation and
engagement with your potential customers. For example, using Facebook, Twitter,
Linkedin, and so on.
 E-mail marketing E-mail marketing is marketing yourself through delivery of e-mails to
current and potential clients. This could be in the form of signa- tures on the e-mails
(showing your Facebook address etc.), news letters, mailing lists and much more.
 Online Advertising There are many forms of online advertising. Although advertising
through the likes of newspapers is not that effective, targeted ad- vertising online can be
very effective. For example, if you searching to buy a Canon camera and ad is directly
relevant to this then you don't view this as a bad thing. The advertisement is directly
relate to what you are you looking for.
 Affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is where you get third party companies to pro-
Website mote your company with a commission paid for a lead or sale. Your website is
key internet marketing tool used to promote your business online. PR can be a very
effective tool for promoting your business and there are many ways of doing this online.

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Online PR

 Your Internet Marketing Questions Answered


 What's the difference between Internet Marketing and Digital Marketing?
 There is no difference!
 Why should I consider marketing on the Internet?

As more and more people spend time on line they are spending less time with traditional media
such as newspapers, TV, and so on. So it's becoming increasingly difficult to tar- get your
audience using traditional channels. Internet Marketing is typically cheaper and a more effective
method of targeting your potential customers. Advertising online as op- posed to offline is also
easier to track to see its effectiveness.
 What is viral marketing?
Viral marketing is where you communicate a message to someone and they share out this
message to their personal and business networks, who in turn share it out to their networks, and
so on. The more people that share and pass on your message the more chance your message has
of becoming viral. There are various techniques that can be used to get this message shared out.
 What is social media all about?
People are joining social networks such as Facebook. They are now starting to use these social
networks more and more to find out recommendations about products and ser- vices from their
friends, sharing out information about their trips and experiences, and promote companies they
really like. Tapping into this can be very powerful.
 What is a smart phone?
A smart phone is a phone that contains more than just call receiving and answering functionality.
It would typically have an internet browser which allows you to get access to websites.
Increasingly people have smart phones such as an iPhone and this means you will need to make
sure that your website works on these types of devices.
 Where is it all going?
This is very difficult to know because online is moving at such a fast pace, however, one thing
for sure is that the traditional methods of broadcasting your advertising message to a consumer is
going to continue to have difficulty. That's why newspapers and TV will have to change their
revenue models because their advertising revenue will continue to decline. A lot of social media
is about networking online and this will certainly increase. The tools will change but people
networking online will continue to grow.
 Do I have to spend lots of time online sending messages through Twitter, updating my
Facebook page, writing blogs, etc.?
It is true that although a lot of the tools you use online are free you still have to invest time in
engaging and communicating with your customers and potential customers.

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Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines such as Google and Bing (Microsoft's competing search engine to Google) index
content and try to display the most relevant information to users when they per- form a search.
The search engine optimisation process is about ensuring that the search engines give priority to
your web pages over other competing pages and there are many techniques for doing this.
For more in-depth information on Search Engine Optimisation and how to apply it to your
website, see the "Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)" training guide which is part of this series
of guides.

On Page Optimisation On page optimisation is the process of optimising the content with- in the
web page to ensure that Google indexes it according to how you want to be in- dexed. Google
goes through your page to see what you have outlined what this page is about and then it goes
through all the content to figure out if it agrees with this. It's im- portant for Google to index
content in a way that makes the most sense.

For example, if you had a restaurant in Dublin and you wanted it to appear high on rank- ings
within Google when someone typed in 'restaurant Dublin' then you would optimise at least one
page on these keywords. This means the name of the optimised page would contain the words
'restaurant Dublin', the title of the post could include this and any de- tails displayed could
display information related to restaurants around Dublin.

Off page optimisation when somebody links to your website, that is like someone giving you a
vote for an election. The more relevant votes you get the better. So Google checks to see who is
linking to you and what words they are using to link to you. You need to get important web
pages to link to you using the keywords you want to get indexed on. It is much better to get 10
links from 10 important and relevant websites (e.g. getting a link from Failte Ireland would be an
important and relevant link) rather than links from 1.000 poor quality sites.

 Social Media
Social media is very simple. It's really about people networking online and how you
communicate with people online. People are networking online with a range of different tools
such as Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. As people spend more time on social net- works they
are starting to recommend products and services, share out information on their holidays, trips,
products purchased and much more. There are many ways of taking advantage of this and
generating sales. For more detailed information on Social Media and the many tools you can use,
see the range of social media training guides that are part of this series of guides. A full list can
be found in the section "Related Guides in the Series" at the end of this guide.

 Twitter

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Twitter is the answer to the question what are you doing now. It allows you to create a text like
message of up to 140 characters through a PC or on your phone and send it to your followers. It's
a mix of business and social. You could be at home communicating what you are doing or in
work It can be a very useful tool to market your message to a lot of people at the same time very
quickly. It can also be used to find out if people are actively looking for your ser- vices. For
example, recently I searched for 'recommend restaurant dublin' and within I hour of me
submitting this somebody was looking for a restaurant in Dublin. So it can be very useful,
however, until you master the tool it can be very time consuming to use.

 LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business networking tool with over 150 million users worldwide and over 66% of
them are considered influencers or decision makers. You create your personal profile (similar to
a CV) on the site and then network with other people. One big ad- vantage with LinkedIn is that
when you connect with someone through the site they be- come part of your network and you are
made aware of who is in their network. This

 Facebook
Facebook is a social network with over 800 million users and is ideal for companies in the
tourism industry to promote their business. You can create a personal profile to connect with
your friends and a business page to connect with your customers. By marketing through your
business page you can communicate directly to your fans of that page.

 Google+
Google+ is a business social network developed by Google. It's relatively new but it's growing
quite fast. You can have a personal and a business profile similar to Facebook but at the moment
its' more suitable for business networking.
Blogging A blog is basically a set of online articles normally displayed through your web- site.
When you write an article you want people to read this content and share it out. If this doesn't
happen it can still be very advantageous to keep a blog because it gives Google extra pages to
index. Every time you create a new post that's fresh content for Google to index so it really likes
blogs.

 Social Bookmarking
A bookmark is a way of keeping track of sites you went to before that you might want to go back
to. Social bookmarking allows you to share out the information on the sites you have
bookmarked to your friends and of course they can do the same.
Podcasting A podcast is a series of files, in either an audio and/or video format that can be
downloaded and listened to or viewed at a later stage. For example, a radio station could produce
a podcast of a show they run so that people that missed the show can come to their website and
download it to listen to it at their leisure.

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 Video
There are many online video sites that can be used to market your business. Video can be a very
effective tool and as Google really likes video it is more likely to appear in search results.
YouTube is the biggest video sharing site and is also one of the biggest search engines as so
many people search for content through YouTube.
 Alerting Applications
There are applications available on the web that allow you to monitor what people are saying on
the internet about your product, service or even your competitors. It's im- portant to 'Listen' to
these conversations and join in if it's useful. For example, Google have a free alerting application
called Google Alerts (www.google.ie/alerts). With this application you can enter in what you
want to be alerted about and each day Google will e-mail you with details of where on the
Internet somebody mentioned these phrases. For example, if you want to be alerted if your hotel
name was mentioned on the Internet you could create an alert for the hotel name. When your
name is mentioned Google will send you an e-mail with a link to a web page to where your hotel
name was mentioned.
 E-mail marketing
Although there is a lot of talk about social media, e-mail is still the primary form of online
communication for a lot of people. This may change in years to come as social media be- comes
more important but at the moment e-mail marketing is still quite effective at keeping in touch.
For items such as newsletters there are many cost effective tools available that will help manage
this process and most of these tools will allow you to customise the look of the newsletter so that
it is consistent with your brand. For example, Mail Chimp allows you to fully customise the look
and feel of the newsletter. It also lets you monitor statistics such as who is opening your
newsletter, who deleted it, who clicked on a link and went to your website.

This is extremely important information to monitor as you want to continuously tweak your
newsletter to make it more effective. If you find that people are more engaged with any
particular type of information you provide then provide a lot more of it.

Your newsletters should have the following characteristics


 Branding consistency - Make sure it follows your branding guidelines.

 Clear call to action - When you send out a newsletter you want people to take action. For
example, if you have any special deal make sure you have a clearly visible way of a
potential customer availing of this offer (e.g. Book Now!)

 Clean design - They say that people make a judgment on design in less than 1/20th of a
second. If your newsletter doesn't look professional you are facing a real up hill battle.

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 Relevant, short, interesting - Be considerate of the time pressures that people are un- der.
Keep the information relevant and short with very interesting catchy titles. If they want to
read more information, give them the option but don't provide too much content up front.
They don't have time to read everything so they will skim through the content and pick
out what is relevant to them. How many people read your entire newsletter? Very, very
few.

 Regular - People like consistency to what you do, so if you decide that you are going to
send a newsletter every month make sure you deliver it every month like clockwork.

Do not automatically subscribe anybody to a newsletter. This should be an 'Opt-In' pro- cess
where people decide they want to see your content and opt-in to receive it. It is just annoying for
a person to be put on a newsletter they didn't subscribe to and if they con- sider this as spam
(unwanted online communication) they can report you.

There are other forms of e-mail communication such as people just signing up to a mail- ing list,
however, the guidelines for a newsletter still apply.

For more in-depth information on Email Marketing and the many tools and techniques you can
use in an effective email marketing campaign, see the "Email Marketing" training guide which is
part of this series of guides.

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Online Advertising
Although permission based marketing (e.g. social media) is growing and advertisements are not
as appealing as they were, targeted online advertising can still be very effective. The following
gives an outline of some of the most popular ways of advertising your products online.

 Google AdWords

When you do a search on Google you generally see advertisements to the right hand side of the
search and sponsored advertisements across the top.

 Google w
Companies are paying for these advertisements based on a cost per click or cost per impression
basis.
 Cost per click - this means that you pay when somebody clicks on the advertisement
but you don't pay for it to be displayed. • Cost per impression - this means you pay an
amount every time the advertisement is displayed 1.000 times irrespective of whether
someone clicks on the advertisement or not.
When you create an advertisement you decide when the advertisement will appear and this is
based on matching up with keywords that people use for searching. So if you sell boating tours
on the Shannon you might want your advertisement to appear when some- body searches
'boating tour Shannon'. The price of this advertisement is based on an auction so it is more
expensive if there are a lot of companies that are also interested in these keywords and want
advertisements based on this.

There are many other factors that Google also take into account when pricing the adver-
tisement. For example, it assigns a quality score to your advertisement. If your quality score is
high then your advertisement cost could be lower compared to another com- petitor with a
similar ad with a lower quality score. The quality score is calculated using a variety of factors
and probably the most important is the click through rate. If your ad is displayed and nobody
clicks on it then your click through rate is 0%. Google now thinks you ad is not relevant so
penalises you for this.

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Your advertisement can be displayed on Google searches but it can also be displayed on partner
websites that work with Google. This is known as the content network.

For more in-depth information on using Google Adwords, see the "Using Google Adwords"
training guide which is part of this series of guides.

 Banner Advertisements

A banner advertisement is an advertisement that appears on the website that is clicka- ble. When
you click on the advertisement you are brought to the website for the compa- ny that is paying
for the advertisement. Here is an example of a banner advertisement on the RTE website.

Typically the banner advertisement would be graphical and you pay on a pay per click or pay per
impression basis.

 Facebook Advertising

In Facebook you can run targeted advertising based on a cost per click or cost per im- pression
basis. The big advantage with Facebook is that you can target in on exactly who you want to see
the advertisements. For example, if you ran an adventure centre and the typical profile of a
customer is a male between 30 and 45 that live in Dublin you could just advertise to them. When
they login to Facebook they see these advertisements on the right hand part of the screen.

 Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you use other websites to help drive traffic to your website. The
source of the traffic is called the affiliate. The affiliate then gets payment for driving this traffic
depending
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on the result. For example, the affiliate may only get paid if they drive traffic to your website and
this ends up in a sale.

There are many forms of affiliate marketing and sometimes these cross over with other forms of
advertising. Here are some examples:

• You write a blog post about a hotel you stayed in and the link to the hotel is an affiliate link. So
if you go to the hotel and book a room then the source of this traffic will get paid an amount.

• You send an e-mail newsletter and include an affiliate link in this content.

 Website

Your website is a key internet marketing tool where you can promote your business and sell your
products and services. When you do all your work with other forms of online promotion and
drive traffic back to your website you want to convert this traffic. If this is not a sale then at a
minimum you need to capture their details so that you can continue to market to them.

So the design of your website is very important. You want it to look professional to fol- low all
the appropriate usability guidelines and you want it to produce business. A key term on a website
is a "call to action" and this is what you want the visitor to do. For ex- ample 'Book Now' is a call
to action to make a booking. If they are not ready to book now maybe you'll provide another call
to action to sign up to a newsletter or become a fan on Facebook. At least then you'll have
another opportunity to market to them.

There are many websites out there that are just brochure websites. They tell us how good the
company is and all the great services they provide but that is not enough any- more. You need to
provide some value to people arriving at your site. Think about what information you can
provide that will help them make a decision about booking a room at your hotel, a table at your
restaurant, or an activity at your adventure centre. Don't think about how you can promote your
business. If they are booking a hotel let them know what other people have said about the hotel,
let them know all the facilities nearby and provide them with a video where they really get a feel
for what the place is like. Recommendations from other people are extremely important online.

For more information on how to get the most out of your website through the use of an effective
layout and design, calls to action, and many more, see the training guide "Get- ting the Most
from Your Website" which is part of this series of guides.

 Online PR

PR is a very effective tool for promoting your business and there are many ways of achieving
this. The following gives some examples:

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o Irishpressreleases.com - This is a site that the press monitor for any Irish press re-
leases so if you've got something interesting to say, say it here!

o Guest Blog Post - Instead of you writing a blog post (article online) on your own
web- site, why not find another popular blog that is related to your business and
write a post for them. That is good PR for you and you can also provide a link
back to your website that helps with your rankings on the search engines.

o Article writing -There are many sites online that allow you to write articles and
these articles are read and distributed by many people.

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Other Forms of Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing contains a lot of different areas and it is continuously changing. The
following are some newer forms of internet marketing you may come across. Location Based
Check-ins there are many sites (e.g. Foursquare. Facebook places) that

are providing the ability for people to check in to any location they are. When they check in they
see who else is checked in, what there is to do in an area, and much more. Mobile Marketing The
mobile device has become increasingly popular over the last few years and with a mobile being
with you 24 hours a day 7 days a week it's not something to ignore. There are lots of new and
innovative ways of using the mobile to promote your products and services. For example:

 Mobile Applications - You can then develop mobile specific applications (e.g. iPhone
Ap- plications) that can run on the mobile and can be used to promote your service. For
ex- ample if you run a hotel in Kerry maybe you'll have an application for tourists which
shows you where to go and what do to.

 Mobile website - Your website can be a very effective marketing tool but does it work on
the mobile device? Make sure it does!

 Mobile location based services - Increasingly people will use their mobile device to see
what's going on in the area, what activities are running to-day etc. It will be important to
be part of this conversation.

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The Future of Internet Marketing

Where this is all going is hard to predict because it is moving so quickly but we can see that
broadband access is increasing, mobile device usage is increasing and social net- working is
increasing. So that just means more people spending more time online and everybody having
access to the internet.

17 Prediction about the future of internet marketing

I've listed 17 trends I'm seeing in the "internet marketing" world. Internet marketing (also called
"make money online") is one of the more monied niches online, and as a result it's also one of the
most innovative. Many products in niches like "productivity" or "passion" or "blogging" or
"lifestyle design" and countless others are, at the core, internet market- ing products as well.

1. Your customer's track record will become more important than yours. More than ever
before, you need to have a home run answer to the question how much money do you
make and what have you done? That's just the beginning, in the coming years it'll matter
even more how your customers are faring.
2. Niche specific tool sets will be huge. Suites of online tools that empower entrepreneurs
will no longer require massive scale to develop, so it'll be much easier (and more
profitable) to create custom or white labelled tools to fit niche com- munities.
3. Expensive eBooks are dead. I'm sorry. Stop writing that $97 eBook right now. It's not
going to work out. Build a real product, then consider the eBook as a marketing tool, if
necessary.
4. Cultivated and proctored communities will start popping up everywhere. The readers of
the TMBA often cite "100 True Customers" as one of our most useful articles. There
you'll find a pretty clear plan for making $40,000 a year as a con- tent producer. I think
this approach will get utilized a lot more in the coming years.
5. $2,000 DVD training courses are dead. You know what I mean- they aren't dead, they are
like "Microsoft dead." They'll continue to work for people with deep pockets and for
those who are in the game. If something like this is your idea of how you are going to get
a foothold in a market. I'm on my way to bet against you.
6. Podcasting is the new blogging. Instead of starting a blog, start a podcast. Recently. Pat
Flynn reported the number of unique visitors to his blog was surpassed by the number of
podcast enclosure downloads of his podcast. (Balla Pat!) I'm not surprised...
7. Blogs will continue to be the most powerful brand building force new onlineventures
have. They'll also continue to be the most resource intensive. So it goes. It's no wonder
solopreneuers who use blog-marketing as a customer acquisition strategy end up just
being full time blog-marketers.
8. The market value of chops has never been higher. Podcasts as such powerful marketing
tools because even on the 3rd episode of a new podcast, you'll have an immediate idea of
how much you trust the speaker. You'll also have a clear idea of how knowledgeable they

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are. If you don't have chops, don't worry, you'll just have to buckle down and do some
real work.
9. Personal freedom is slowly starting to be articulated as "personal sover- eignty." That
space will explode in the next 5 years. Get in while the getting is good.
10. Your customers will need to use your product and be successful for you to have a
sustainable online marketing business. I always thought it was dipshitty when internet
marketers feigned complaint that their customers never"implemented their product."
Those conversations will go the way of the dodo. If your customers "don't implement
your product" you'll "go out of business."
11. In-person events and training will explode. Events provide a ton of value, it's cheaper to
move around, and your target market has a more flexible income. Easy call.
12. The daily podcast format will become prominent. James Shremko is already testing it out
(take a walk, listen to this episode, and tell me you don't run back home looking for a
notepad!). People will write me one year from now and "hey you were right about that
daily podcast thing!"
13. More and more, content will need to be delivered with high-level consult- ing. No more
$2.000 DVDs. instead I'll get on the phone with you once a week and walk you through a
deliverable. This is way better than some worksheet or video. Even Frank Kern is doing
it.
14. More 4th wave internet marketers will emerge. They will be selling you blog networks,
software suites, audiences, ad campaigns, e-commerce sites, niche websites, blogs- you
name it.
15. University educations will start to look more like internet marketing train- ing, and
internet marketing training will start to look more like university educations. They'll
converge and find a middle ground in the coming decade.
16. If you want to start a blog about entrepreneurship or personal development and you don't
have an angle that gets everyone in the room FREAKING PUMPED and saying they'd
buy products from such a publisher... don't do it. It's getting harder. The good news is that
it's easier to spend your energy on creating a great premise than it is publishing blog posts
into the inter-nether world.
17. pprenticeship is back. We aren't all about internships anymore, but this next decade will be.

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Opportunity for consumer & also for business rivals

Almost any digital marketer will tell you, increasing customer engagement and conver- sions are
their top priorities. Yet many of these professionals have still not tapped all of the opportunities
available to make this happen on their sites, leaving disconnect be- tween what they say and
what they actually do.

Wondering what areas offer some of the greatest opportunities for digital marketers to see the
ROI of their efforts? What do they say their priorities are vs. what do they actual- ly spend their
marketing budget on? Hot off the presses are the results of the Adobe 2012 Digital Marketing
Optimization Survey and a corresponding infographic (see below) that uncover the top five areas
that digital marketers should focus on to immediately improve conversion and return on their
marketing investments.

Survey responses from more than 1,700 digital marketers worldwide, spanning business- to-
consumer and business-to-business commerce companies across retail, finance, me- dia, and
technology and consumer goods industries, reveal that:

Conversion Optimization needs to be given higher priority.

Over 80% of respondents allocate 15% or less of their marketing budget to opti- mization efforts
- up only 1% from our 2009 survey.

Testing consumer engagement throughout the funnel is critical to optimization. But more than
50% of the respondents cited testing was still not a company priority. The search box is often the
most- used area of a website.

Yet fewer than 50% of respondents are optimizing on-site search results.

Marketers are not taking advantage of simple cross-sell or up-sell opportunities .38% of digital
marketers surveyed do not provide any content or product recommendations.

In the burgeoning areas of video, mobile and social, marketers seem to be on the right
path: 61% of respondents are focusing on video in 2012 for helping drive conversion.
70% of respondents are focusing on social sharing as a top effective social strategy. . The top
three mobile strategies marketers plan to focus on this year are mobile optimized sites, mobile
apps, and advertising promotions, including bar codes and codes.

In evaluating this year's responses, the following Top 5 conversion opportunities emerged:

Prioritize optimization across your organization as a strategic process - demon- strate small
conversion wins to gain support and buy-in for more ongoing optimi- zation efforts.

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Use a data-driven approach to optimization - leverage your analytics to better in- form site search
results, what content to test and to recommend and what areas to focus on personalizing.

Optimize conversion with video - offer more video content, whether it's created in-house or
created by your users. Both formats offer visitors with a way to en- gage deeper with your brand
and become more educated before deciding to click. purchase or subscribe.

Optimize social engagement - enable content sharing functionality within your conversion funnel
and test the placement and messaging of the calls-to-action.

Optimize for all mobile channels - make sure that your tablet experience is laid out for that
particular audience and the way they prefer to shop or consume con- tent. Your approach for
smartphone users will also be distinct.

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Measuring website conservation

Conversion metrics are among the most important indicators to measure and monitor.
Conversion rates are easy to measure and can be improved by fine-tuning your website: thus
every online business should watch these numbers and have Plan B ready in case key conversion
rates suddenly plunge.

When you measure conversions you are also looking at abandonment - the visitors who got
away. Maybe they intended to complete an action but were frustrated during the pro- cess and
bailed out. Industry average conversion rates hover around 3 percent. This means only 3 out of
100 visitors complete an intended action.

What conversion rates should you measure? There are three basic processes that can be
measured for conversion versus abandonment:

Activities that lead to an acquisition.

Activities that lead to gathering important data. Activities that direct visitor to information that
reduces your operational costs (e.g.. fewer calls to your tech support group).

Each activity should subtly be directing the visitor toward conversion. Before any further
analysis can be done, it is important you can identify
(1) which processes on your website are candidates for measurement, and
(2) how your web analytics solution will achieve these analyses. Ask yourself the following
questions when deciding which processes to measure. Yes answers indicate that the process is a
good one to measure.
Can visitors contact you if they have difficulty with the process?
Will you be able to collect the appropriate data when visitors complete the pro- cess so that you
can retain them in the future? If visitors have difficulty on your site, can they complete a similar
process on a competitor site?

Before going into the details of conversion metrics, it is important to note that you are dealing
with two types of conversions, your website conversions and your marketing campaign
conversions.

Website Conversions

Once you have decided which site-wide processes to measure and how to measure them. the
following metrics can help you understand visitor success or failure:

 Home to purchase - abandonment rate for visitors going through sales path.

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 Search to purchase - abandonment rate for visitors coming from site search, . Special
offer to purchase - effect of various merchandising and pricing options. • Lead generation
- abandonment rate when personal data is requested.

Marketing Campaign Conversions

It is important to measure the effect of marketing campaigns on your website traffic. The
following metrics are specific to marketing campaigns aimed at driving traffic to your site.

Campaign conversion rate - effect of traffic from specific campaigns. Cost-per-conversion - cost
effectiveness for specific campaigns.

Campaign ROI --cost effectiveness for specific campaigns. Segment conversion rates - track
conversion progress over time. Percent of orders from new and repeat customers - determines
effectiveness of marketing or customer retention programs.
New and repeat customer conversion rates - helps understand barriers to online
purchases Sales per visitor - measures marketing efficiency.

Below are the key indicators you should track regardless of business model:
 Conversion rates for any process that makes or saves money, or is critical to the customer
experience.
 Campaign conversion rate for current campaigns, or the most expensive
 Campaigns if too numerous.
 Cost-per-conversion for the campaigns you selected to monitor.
 Segment conversion rates for key or critical group conversions.

Below are the key indicators e-commerce sites should track:


 Site-wide conversion rate (all purchases to all visits or visitors) .
 New and repeat site-wide customer conversion rates
 Percent of orders from new and returning customers
 Average order value, site-wide and for new and returning customers
 Sales per visitor (compare to site-wide conversion rate)

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List of Top 30 Online e-commerce Shopping Sites in India
With people becoming busy with their work and commitments, they are left out with only a little
spare time. In addition, with wide availability and usage of smart devices, people find internet as
the easiest medium to meet their requirements. This has given immense popularity to online
shopping sites in India, numerous online shopping websites are flaunting best deals to lure
buyers.

According to a recent survey, India ranks at position number three for shopping online and using
credit card for online transaction. Indian netizens are now third biggest users of credit cards for
making online purchases globally and they are next only to the netizens of Turkey and Ireland. If
you also want to make online purchases and want to know about the best sources, you have
visited the right place. Here you will find infor- mation about top online shopping sites in India.
The best list of online shopping sites along with brief reviews is mentioned below:

Flipkart.com

Flipkart.com is the most popular of all Indian online shopping companies, offering genuine
products to people. They have huge stock of innumerable products like clothes. music,
electronics, books, health products, kid's toys and accessories, perfumes, games, movies, home
appliances, shoes, stationeries and many more things.

The shopping website offers great advantage of faster product delivery and free shipping on
ordered products for more than Rs.500. Customers also enjoy the privilege of excep- tional
services like payment on delivery or 'cash on delivery'. They can also pay on a monthly basis, as
EMIs. In case any customer is not satisfied with the products, he or she can even return them and
get entire payment back. As one of the notable online shop- ping companies in India. Flipkart
also offers 30-day replacement policy. All types of Visa and Master Debit or Credit cards are
accepted to initiate the online transaction system.

Dedicated delivery partners of Flipkart take the responsibility for timely product deliveryat
mentioned addresses.
Jabong.com

Jabong.com is certainly in the acclaimed list of online shopping websites in India. One of the
best customer support services I found in India. The online shopping website is highly popular in
offering best quality products of reputed brands. Customers can cater to a wide variety of fashion
apparel, footwear, accessories and even jewelleries. They have huge collection of all mentioned
items for women, kids and men.

The online shopping website strives best to offer highest shopping satisfaction over the internet
to all customers from a wide region. They even use cutting-edge technology on their online

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shopping

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platform to make it swift for surfing through various product pages. In addition, highly
experienced support team provides exclusive service for consumers and tries to solve almost all
problems, if any situation demands.

Jabong.com is one of the fastest growing online shopping portals offering reliable, trendy and
stylish products according to taste of reigning period and fashion concerns of people. They are
highly popular as an online shopping portal offering best prices with ex- clusive discount offers.

Myntra.com

A one-stop online shopping portal, myntra.com caters to fulfil all requirements pertaining to
lifestyle and fashion products. The company is counted in the list of online shopping sites raging
the country recently. They even offer variety of branded products through the online shopping
portal. They are primarily reasonable to make online consumers con- scious about brand value of
different products of daily utility.

From its introduction into the online business world, myntra is dealing in exclusive choic- es of
accessories, footwear, cosmetics and apparel from more than 500 reputed inter- national and
Indian brands. Notable among them are Biba. Adidas, Inc5. Puma, Nike, Unit- ed Colours of
Benetton etc. The online shopping portal is reputed to offer more than 3000 styles of products,
fitting requirements of all valued consumers.

The customer support service and process of home delivery are one of the swiftest in the
business world. They are also one of the leading Indian online shopping companies offering
guaranteed 30- day free return of goods from doorsteps of consumers in case of unsatisfactory
service.

Snapdeal.com

Snapdeal.com started their online business platform in 2010 under the leadership of Ro- hit
Bansal and Kunal Bahl. Presently, they are placed at favourable positions on the list of online
shopping sites in India. They offer widest range of products - lifestyle, fashion apparel,
accessories, electronics, games, eateries, chocolates, grooming, books etc., for both men and
women.

The online shopping platform has their service in more than 50 cities across India and also has a
record 15 million registered users in the country. The website features more than 3000 brands
national, international and even less famous yet offering quality products. The online store has
more than 200 categories featuring more than 250000 products listed with them. More than
25000 products are sold every day.

Snapdeal has close ties with reputed courier services that help in faster home delivery process.
They even offer free return policy of products, if they fail to meet the expecta- tions of
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customers.

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Unlike other Indian online shopping companies, they initiate com- plete refund and even
additional courier charges that the consumer bears, if any, while returning the products in an
undamaged and unused condition.

Amazon.in

Amazon is one of the most reputed name in the world of online shopping for products like
eBooks, electronics and others items. The Amazon India website and it services are being
tweaked for India and its hugely growing online shoppers. Amazon.in is operated by Ama- zan
Seller Services Private Ltd, an affiliate of Amazon.com, Inc. is a Fortune 500 compa- ny based in
Seattle, which opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995; and today offers Earth's Biggest
Selection.
They are committed to ensure 100% Purchase Protection for your shopping done on Am- azon.in
so that you can benefit from a safe and secure online ordering experience, con- venient electronic
payments and cash on delivery, easy returns, Amazon's customer ser- vice with 24×7 support,
and a globally recognized and comprehensive purchase protec- tion provided by Amazon's A-to
Z Guarantee.

You can find this Fulfilled by Amamzon badge on many product pages. This specifies that the
Orders are eligible for FREE Delivery and can be placed using Cash on Delivery. It is being
mentioned by Amazon India that the orders which contains products worth Rs 499 or more are
only eligible for FREE delivery. In my opinion Amazon have introduced almost all the practical,
useful and cool facilities and features on its Indian counterpart. If you have purchased from
Amazon India, please share your experiences. You can also share your feedback on the website.

The world's largest shopping mall on the Internet. eBay is an online marketplace, where
individuals and businesses come together to buy and sell almost anything.

You can find everything on eBay Mobile phones, digital cameras iPads, t-shirts, shoes. candles,
furniture, jewellery, watches, handicrafts, kurtas, laptops, perfumes, computers. microwave
ovens, toys, baby products, weighing scales, and much more. There are many ways to buy, so
you can choose the format that is best for you. Make an instant purchase for products at a fixed
price with Buy It Now button. Bid using the exciting auction-style format at the price you are
willing to pay. If you are the highest bidder you get the item at your price. If you can't find what
you want, let sellers know - Post a Want It Now!

You can Buy and Sell with Confidence. eBay's Feedback system is very popular. Members rate
each other based on their experience during a transaction. This is the easiest way to check a
member's reputation before you trade with them. Using eBay's Buyer Protection Program, eBay
covers your purchases up to Rs. 50000 (for PaisaPay transactions and up to Rs. 10,000 for non-
PaisaPay transactions. eBay's Dispute Resolution Center is also very well known. They can help
you resolve any issues with your trading partners.

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Naaptol.com

Naaptol.com is one of the fastest growing top ecommerce sites in India. The company was
founded on 2008 under Manu Agarwal. Initially the company served as a search en- gine to
provide comparison of product prices and offer services for product research. A year later, they
emerged to be an online marketing platform and were able to create a furor in the market. With
plenty of items in store, like cameras, tablets, home appliances. mobiles and others Naaptol saw
a whopping turnover of more than Rs.10 crore in 2009- 10.

One of the top ecommerce websites in India, Naaptol initiates faster delivery of all or- dered
products. However they charge a small amount of shipping charges, based on the distance the
parcel is addressed. Naaptol also offers alluring points to online customers on ordering different
products, which can also be utilized to get attractive discounts at a later stage. All products are
genuine. Naaptol reserves the right to declare products eli- gible for return and refund in case a
dissatisfied consumer takes up the case with cus- tomer representatives of the company over
telephone within 2 days of receiving their orders.

Yebhi.com

Yebhi.com is a fast growing online shopping platform that started its business venture since
2010. They are considered to be a premium online lifestyle shopping website that powered sales
of branded footwear over top online shopping sites in India. They at- tained highest success in
sales of other product categories varying from accessories. jewellery, mobiles, bags and fashion
apparels Yebhi.com runs their own operation of warehousing that helps in fulfilling orders com-
pletely through fastest shipping service. They are the best company to offer exclusive choices of
products for a wide genre of consumers. They are an authentic company of- fering online
marketing service and even deal in products from leading brands directly. They do not sell
products that do not have brand authentication.
Yebhi.com is presently one of the top e-commerce websites in India offering authentic and
dedicated support service for valuable customers. They accept payment through online
transaction mode and even initiate effective home delivery service.

Yepme.com

Yepme, one of the top ecommerce sites in India is popular for selling wide range of watches and
shoes. At present, the site is dealing with brands that specialize in manufac- turing accessories
like sunglasses, leather belts, fashionable shoes, etc. Young custom- ers are quite fond of this
shopping site because the products available here are very trendy and attractive. Lifestyle
products like designer costumes, jewelleries are also available here. Cutting edge templates are
used in this site so that users can access the site from any gadget, be it a Smartphone or a
desktop.

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Three alumni of IIT or Indian Institute of Technology - Sandeep Sharma, Anand Jaday and
Vivek Gaur initiated this site in the year 2010 and from then it has been quite popular. The site
mostly target customers of the tier 3 and tier 2 towns where the people can't ac- cess products by
the reputed apparel brands from the local stores. It is the only online retailing site that organized
fashion show of online dealers first time in the year 2011.

Infibeam.com

Infibeam.com is a growing online ecommerce platform having their own headquarter at


Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The online shopping website especially deals in automobiles, elec- tronic
goods, books and lifestyle products. They initiated online business since 2007 and have an
employee base of more than 1300. The online retail store is highly popular among prominent list
of online shopping websites in India due to their authentic products.

The website also features images with higher resolution and functional zoom tool that eventually
helps to visualize every product in minute details. They even offer in-depth in- formation about
the technical specifications of products making it easier for online con- sumers to choose their
desired items easily.
Infibeam is highly popular due to an innovative scheme of Magic Box that offers enticing deals
through the initiative of BuildBazar. BuildBazar is able to boast implementation of over 10,000
operative stores across internet platform. Magic Box is activated every mid- night and offers two
dreamy deals on products from Infibeam.com, one of the notable online shopping portals.

Homeshop18.

Homeshop18.com is a popular online merchandise catering to fulfil major electronics and


household items for online consumers across major locations of the country. One of the most
popular online shopping companies in India, Homeshop18 even offers wide collec- tion of
fashion apparel at high discounts. They showcase more than 1500 products under Indian and
even international brands. The company has close contractual ties with major courier service
providers to deliver ordered products across 3000 locations.

The online retail store has been a major attraction for consumers across the country due to
authenticity of products. They even offer pleasant visuals of products – including detailed video
graphic demonstrations and images from a wide range of angles.

The online shopping website even offers a wide range of payment option, including net banking,
online credit or debit card transaction and facility of cash-on-delivery. Homeshop18.com, like
most reputed Indian online shopping companies, even guarantee 100% money back offer, in case

38
of consumer dissatisfaction and if the product is re- turned unused and undamaged within 2-days
of delivery.

ShopClues.com
A reputed online shopping retail website having headquarter in Gurgaon, Shopclues.com
maintains more than 12,000 merchants who are registered with the company. It is one of the top
ecommerce websites in India, which deals in more than 2 million products. They guarantee
authenticity of products, warranty and even ensure lowest price. They even have a record of
catering to more than 42 million online visitors. The company has even more than 350 registered
employees across the country. They offer wide range of branded products to consumers from
every corner of the country.

Shopclues.com initiate free delivery services at the doorsteps of customers through re- puted
courier services to nearly 10,000 cities across the country. They even initiate a 30-day return
guarantee if unable to meet customer satisfaction. One of the leading online shopping companies
in India, Shopclues.com accepts online payment through major credit and debit cards, including
net banking services. The online shopping website service employs more than 400 personnel for
effective handling of the business and is even funded by national institutional investors.

IndiaTimes Shopping

Shopping.indiatimes.com now tops the list of online shopping websites in India. The site mostly
deals in electronic gadgets. What is special about this online shopping site is that the owners
offer discount on varied electronic gadgets on the eve of different festi- vals. The site is quite
user friendly and can be accessed from hi-tech mobile phones easi- ly. People can visit the site to
purchase both new and used mobile phones of reputed brands at considerable price. Along with
electronic gadgets, site owners are also now retailing fashion jewelleries, books, lifestyle
products etc.

Shopping.indiatimes.com introduces special deals, coupons to help customers purchase attractive


appliances within budget. As Diwali is approaching, it is the perfect time to visit the site to
purchase expensive gadgets like laptops, computers, Smartphones within budget. Shipping
facilities and customer care service of the site is noticeably different. This is one of the online
gadget shopping sites that offer EMI facility to customers.

Rediff Shopping

Shopping.rediff.com is among the top India online shopping companies where daily thou- sands
of customers visit to purchase different products. It is a one-stop solution that retails everything -
from daily-needed objects to exclusive apparels manufactured by top international brands. A
huge number of customers visit the site to purchase attractive gift hampers. The site is now

39
dealing with

40
more than 250 brands, both national and inter- national to provide customers wide range of
products from the house of top manufactur- ers.
The site owners follow only one mode of transaction- cash on delivery, in order to keep up good
relation with clients. The owners often to help customers in purchasing expen- sive articles at
considerable price introduce special deals or coupons. The site was in- troduced in the year 1999
and is operating quite successfully and creating loyal consum- er base. Present visitor rate for the
site is 89.1%. Shopping.rediff.com is a competitor of flipcart.com and junglee.com..

Inkfruit.com
Inkfruit.com is among one of the top ecommerce websites in India. They offer a co- creation
platform to showcase exclusive products for online consumers. The store came into business in
2007 under the name Gnome. Presently, the company has over 400 retail outlets throughout
various cities of the country. They can certainly be considered as one of the largest online retail
platform dealing in the business of latest designer and casual clothing apparel and associated
accessories for men, women and kids.

Among major Indian online shopping companies. Inkfruit.com is highly sought after by online
shoppers who cater for branded clothing and accessories. The company offers special discount
offers on a number of branded products on various occasions. They even have additional
discounts for customers shopping through credit or debit cards of major banks.

Inkfruit.com is backed by strong source team to ensure highest class in maintaining standard in
quality. They even ensure delivery of products within 2 to 5 business days. after any consumer
places orders through online shopping.

Pepperfry.com
Pepperfry.com is one of the top online shopping websites in India. They have abundant stocks of
various products associated to lifestyle enhancement, home care, appliances. home décor,
furnishing, kitchen, dining and many more. All products are authentic and guaranteed. The
online merchandize offers exclusive payment services like pre-payment, easy monthly
instalments and even cash on delivery.
The company offers fastest shipping and delivery of all products ordered. They even offer huge
discount on various festive seasons throughout the year. New customers are also entitled to
various shopping discount vouchers amounting to Rs.2000. Pepperfry.com started operations
since 2012 to deliver online shopping experience that customers are bereft of till now. They have
even partnered with thousands of merchant partners who showcase their craftsmanship, service
orientation and design skills across India.

Pepperfry.com is also one of the renowned online shopping companies that showcases a number
of branded products and also offers them on special price that is otherwise not available at open

41
market. The online marketing platform also offers favourable and dedi- cated customer care
support service.

Fashionara.com
Fashionara.com is one of the emerging online shopping portals reputed to deal with ex- clusive
fashion clothing, apparel and accessories. The online merchandise initiates fast- est product
delivery across 8 cities of India, with guaranteed shipping right on the next day of placing orders.
They even gift wrap the products as a gesture of effective custom- er service, which is certainly
exclusive.

The online merchandize portal deals with world reputed brands like Espirit. FCUK, Fossil.
Calvin Klein. Adidas, Lee, Steve Madden, Wildcraft, Roxy, Van Heusen, Manchester United,
Arrow. Gini&Jony and much more.

Fashionara.com also offers an effective service through which the customers can track their
ordered products once those are shipped. As most reputed online shopping portals,
Fashionara.com accepts financial transactions through online mode with the help of credit and
debit cards. Payment through Net banking service is also accepted. They offer exclusive
customer support and look into every problem of customer related to online shopping experience
over the portal. Customer queries are entertained from 6 am to 12 midnight.

Firstcry.com

Firstcry.com is one of the top ecommerce websites in India that especially deal with kids and
baby care products. The site is mostly operating in Asia and deal with reputed Indian and
international brands. Kids and baby care products manufactured by reputed compa- nies like
Hotwheels. Funskool. Ben10. Pigeon are available here. Other brands that have already tied up
with Firstcry.com are Barbie. Mee Mee, Disney. Pampers etc. At present, the sourcing team of
the site is working with more than 150 national and international vendors to provide customers
with exclusive range of products.
Owners of firstcry.com have recently launched another online shopping site, goodlife.com to
retail life care products manufactured by both national and international brands. Founders of this
online trading site- Supam Maheswari and Amitave Saha have lately raised a fund of $4 million
from an equity company named SAIF partners. At present. Firstcry is retailing more than 4000
items.

BabyOye.com

When it comes to top ecommerce shopping websites for new born babies and kids, Babyoye is
one name not to forget. This website is a fairy tale dream for soon to be par- ents to new parents
and all the baby stuffs are just a click away. They have vast invento- ry of baby products from
Diaper

42
and bathing stuff to Clothes, Toys and Books & music. They have tie up with several
multinational brands and bring home more than 200 inter- national baby brands like Disney.

Being a top ecommerce site in India, they promise bring wide range of Innovative prod- ucts to
every parents. They have exceptional customer care and after sales supports which makes them
widely popular among the new parents. The company has been formed by Sanjay Nadkarni and
Arunima Singhdead and is registered in the name of Moms Sup- plies Pvt. Ltd.

Zovi.com

Zovi.com is one of the recognized top ecommerce websites in India dealing in branded fashion
apparel for women and men. They offer exclusive stock of premium apparel that is designed with
classy components. The company is highly acclaimed to provide top class lifestyle apparel at
extremely reasonable price. They are a traditional fashion re- tailer. They accept payments
through major debit and credit cards.

Zavi.com, one of the notable online shopping companies in India, even offer a number of
alluring offers with additional discount facilities through various discount coupons on a number
of occasions. All products ordered online are delivered to desired destination within least
possible time through dedicated courier services.

The company even guarantees full refund in case there appears some defect in the prod- ucts
delivered or the customers are unsatisfied with them. In that case, consumers have to return the
undamaged products to the company after contacting the customer service personnel over
telephone. The return process should initiate within 48 hours of receipt of the products.

Koovs.com
Koovs.com is probably one of the renowned online shopping portals of fashion wear and
associated accessories dedicated for women. The online shopping website has exclusive varieties
of clothing, beauty whims, shoes, lingerie, bags and accessories. They have eve- ry item
matching the requirements of almost all taste of women. They have exclusive col- lection of
handbags, fragrances, jewellery, handbags, high-end clothing and even latest designer fashion
accessories from more than 200 reputed brands.

As one of the reputed Indian online shopping companies, Kooves.com is highly reputed to bring
up fresh product lines exceeding 500 categories every day. The online shopping platform is also
reputed to showcase high-street fashion products under the brand KOOVS. They are mostly
visited by people having fascination for shimmering dresses. jumpsuits, workplace sleek attire
like jeans, jackets, shirts, pants, floral print tops etc. Their exclusive customer support center is
highly motivated to lend striking service in case any there is any issue of refunding, cancellation
of order, shipment issues etc.

43
CromaRetail.com
CromaRetail.com is one of the recognized top e-commerce websites in India dealing in
electronics and home appliances. This exclusive electronics mega online store include vast
collection of products categorized under varied sections such as phones, comput- ers,
entertainment, home appliances, kitchen appliances, gaming, cameras and accesso- ries. They
include products from leading manufacturers of different domains in the elec- tronics and
appliance sectors.

44
Survey & Opinion

45
46
47
48
49
UNDERSTAND THE CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF INDIANS

As part of this internship, I have done a research to understand the consumer buying be- haviour
of Indians in the digital era. First, we can understand consumer buying behav- iour, Kotler and
Keller defined consumer buying behaviour as "the study of the ways of buying and disposing of
goods, services, ideas or experiences of the individuals, groups and organizations in order to
satisfy their needs and wants".

The main motive behind this research is zero moments of truth (ZMDT) of Google. In 2012
Google done a research to understand the change in consumer buying behavior, for that they
have taken samples from US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Russia, France, Nether- lands,
Australia, Poland, Turkey and Brazil. After the research they arrived at a new con- cept called
ZMOT', which showing the big change in consumer buying behavior in the digi- tal era.

In past years marketer believed that consumer get 'two moments' to understand a brand.
Marketing efforts at that period will try to create stimulus in customers through advertisements
and this stimulus will lead customers toward 'two moments'. At that pe- riod one model was
coined by P&G in 2005 and CEO said "The best brands consistently win two moments of truth.
The first moment occurs at the store shelf, when a consumer decides whether to buy one brand or
another. The second occurs at home, when she us- es the brand - and is delighted, or isn't"

Let's see an example to understand how this model works.


Stimulus is advertisement. Dad is watching a football game and sees an ad for digital cameras.
He thinks. "That looks good."

50
First moment of Truth it will happen in the shopping Shelf. He goes to his favourite
electronics store, where he sees a terrific stand-up display for that same digital camera. The
packaging is great. A young sales guy answers all his questions. He buys the camera.

Second moment of truth is Experience or Post Purchase behaviour. Dad gets home and the
camera records beautiful pictures of his kids. just as advertised. He becomes loyal to the brand.

Later in 2012 Google coined a model and named it as ZMOT or Zero Moment of Truth. Google
coined this model through research of 5000 shoppers and asked them a simple question, how
many sources of information you will collect before making a purchase de- cision? The survey
revealed that the average shopper uses 10.4 sources of information, ranging from TV
commercials and magazine articles, to recommendations from friends and family, to websites,
ratings to blogs. ZMOT model of customer buying behaviour is like this.

Let's take the pervious example: dad purchased the camera after see television ad. But now, after
seeing an ad dad will open his laptop and make a search or ask in social net- working sites or
visit company site or see customer rating before making an action. Then only first moment of
truth and second moment of truth will come. So presence in digital is important for brands, they
need to use this platform to convince customers.

In this ZMOT report Google is advising brands to go for multi-screen marketing. The rea- son
for this was "77% of viewers use another device while they are watching TV". So if brands go
for multi-screen it will help to create efficient stimulus in customers.

51
This is main motive for doing this research; one more thing is there penetration of inter- net in
India. I already mentioned about penetration of Internet in India in this report

52
Research methodology

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It may be under
stood as a science of studying how research is done scientifically. It is a system and in-depth
study for any particular subject. Its purpose is to find out answer to ques- tions through the
application of scientific methods. It involves collection, analysis and in- terpretation of data. It
deals with the application and utilization of data.

Topic - The selected topic for the research is "Understands the consumer buying behaviour of
Indian in digital era"

Period of study - The study is conducted during the 28th April 2014 to 6th May 2014

Objectives of the study

Primary objective

The main objective of the study is to understand the consumer buying journey in Digital

era. Secondary objectives

 To know affinity in customers for collecting information before purchase.

 To determine out the media, which is most important in creating stimulus in Indians?

 To understand the media consumption of Indians.

 To figure out how Indian will purchase a product.

 To understand post purchase behaviour of

Indian Scope

This study is useful for determining the consumer buying behaviour of Indians. It can able to
help brands to reach their target group through appropriate media. It will present an idea to
brands, based on where to invest in achieve their marketing objectives.

Universe

Universe means the total population available for the study. In this study, the universe constitutes
all Indian, who have online presences.

53
Sample

Sample means a representation of the whole universe by a small population. Samples for this
research are under Indian youth and young Indians, who came under 17 to 45 year age groups
and who have online presences.

Sample size

The number of sample units selected from the total population is called sample size. Sample size
selected for this study is 200. Among them 146 are males and 54 are females.

Tools

Tools used for this research is an online questionnaire, which consist of 21 questions.

54
Data Analysis and Interpretations

55
Interpretation for 1 to 3: Samples are highly information seekers, 95% of the sample will do
reach before purchase. Only 40% of the samples saying they get to know about a product
through advertisements, 30% get to know from friends and 10% from family. 32% of samples
are collecting information about quality of product the and 26% about price and 21% about
customer experience

Interpretations for 4 and 5: 81% of the sample will make online purchases also: mostly they
purchase electronic products, followed by fashion and travel accessories through online.

56
--

57
Interpretation 6 to 9: 93% of the samples are watching T.V. 53% of the samples is watching TV
programs through online portals. 93% are reading newspapers and 74% are reading news papers
through online portals.\

58
55
Interpretation 10 to 15: More than 90% of the sample have can mobile or Smartphone and
laptops or PC. While coming to tablets it is low, but it doesn't mean no one is using tabs. Still,
30% of samples have a tablet. 96% of samples have an internet connection is any of these
gadgets, this showing the penetration of internet in India.
33% of the samples are using these gadgets while they are with their
friends. 25% of the samples are using these gadgets while watching T.V.
42% of samples are using gadgets in office or college.
21% use these gadgets for chatting.
16% for surfing and 14% for watch videos & games.

5
5
Interpretation for 16 to 18: 97% of the samples are seeing ads among them 35% of samples
noticed ads through online media. 22% on TVC and 17% on Newspapers. 48% of the samples
are saying they have trust in online ads. 34 % are saying they have trust in T.V.

5
5
Interpretation for 19 to 21:

32%

22% of samples will do research on online and purchase from retail shop. 21% of the samples
will do research in mobile and purchase from retail shop. But

19% of the samples will purchase directly from a retail shop only.

67% of the samples will like to express their experience with others; it may be a nice deal, good
experience or bad experience with product.

37% will share their experience through face to face talk, 32% through social networking sites
and 24% through messaging.

6
FINDINGS
Indian customers are highly information seekers. They collect more information about quality,
price and refer customer's experiences before purchasing a product.

Advertisements have high impact for creating stimulus in Indian customers. But this stimulus
will get in to action only through opinion leaders.

Indian consumers have high tendency to go for online purchase. They have high affinity to go
online for electronic products and apparels.

One of the current trends in Indian youth and young Indians are watching the T.V programs via
online portals. May be the main reason is convenience of time, they can watch programs which
they had skipped due to some reasons. The same thing is happening for the newspaper also,
people have more affinity towards online news portals. Here's the reason may be they can get
news updates very early: they don't need to wait for daily newspapers In both of these cases, one
opportunity is lost for marketer and one opportunity is emerging for them to reach their T.G.

More than 90% of the samples have a mobile or Smartphone and laptops or PC. 96% of samples
have an internet connection is any of these gadgets, this showing the penetration of internet in
India.

If we take tablet, penetration in Indian is low. But it doesn't mean that no one is using tabs. More
than 30% of samples have tablet. For brands they are getting three more platforms to reach their
TG and engage them.
33% of the samples are using these gadgets while they are with their friends, so just think about
the reach. If one person noticed something which is cool and awe- some they will surely
communicate to others.

25% of the samples are using these gadgets while watching T.V; it's again a bar- rier for brands
which use TVC only. 21% of the samples are using this gadget for chatting and 16% are using
for surfing. What they are surfing? It can be about a product, local events or locations...etc.

In this situation, one opportunity is again losing to brands and one opportunity is emerging for
brands to reach their T.G. More than 90% of samples are noticing ads, among them 35% of
samples noticed ads through online media, followed by TVC and Newspapers. 48% of samples
are telling they give more importance to online ads and 34 % of samples give importance to
T.V.C

From the first part of this research itself, we know that customers are highly in- formation seeker.
It may be the reason for high trust in online ads. They can search for more information after
seeing an ad or online is the only two way communication channel for customers.

6
22% of the samples do research through their lap or PC before purchasing a product from the
retail shop and 21% do research via mobile.

Most of the Indians prefer to purchase from a retail shop only, but before going to retail shop
they will seek information about the product through an online plat- form. Here is actually
change happens in consumer buying journey, early times consumer belief a product only after
seeing the product in a retail shop.

But now Indian customers want to get conviction about a product before going to retail shop. So
from a marketers view they want to convince their customers be- fore going to a retail shop.

Brands want to build a cool presence over digital platforms because the customer will do
research about the product after seeing an ad or after getting stimulated. Brands are getting more
touch points to reach target group in a cost effective manner.

6
CONCLUSION

The successful completion of this internship indicates that the future of marketing is in the hands
of digital. Digital marketing is not only concerned with placing ads in portals, it consists of
integrated services and integrated channels. Marketers want to use these components in an
effective way to reach target groups and to build a brand. In this digital era marketer is not the
custodian for a brand, people who are connected across the digi- tal platforms are the custodians.

Brands want to build their presence over digital platform, because customers have high affinity
towards digital media than other media's. More than that customers are highly information
seekers and digital media is the only platform for two way communication between brands and
customers.

Digital media is the best platform to convert a product to a brand. Because it is more cost
effective and it provide lot of touch points to marketer. Brands can able to engage their target
group in an effective way through digital platforms. Digital media is not only for engagement,
brands can increase their customers or they can retain their existing customers. Digital platforms
help to increase the impact of brand recall in target groups. The research focused on the
consumer buying behaviour shows that, Indian consumers are highly information seeker and they
will do research about a product before going to a retail shop. So brands want to give platforms
to consumers to understand their product or to get a really feel of that brand.

I honestly believe that this project report will be at most useful for marketers to understand the
digital marketing and also to plan for future strategies.

I conclude my research by quoting again that "Brands can't sustain without digital presence".

6
LEARNING POINTS

"Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master" by Philip Kotler

Before leaving from IBS. I believed that I am will become a good marketer because I know all
the concepts which I learned from my classrooms. But from the begin- ning of second week
itself, I understood, marketing is not about concepts it's all about the experience.

 Strategy is not a rock science

After induction my first assignment was to create pitch presentation for amante lingerie. I start
working on my first assignment, but I don't know how to create strategy part. I tried my best, but
I am completely blank. After two days I went to talk with my company guide. He told me this
"strategy is not a rock science you will take some time to create an excellent strategy". But in the
last week of my in- ternship, I accomplished my mission for the 3M Health care & Safety. I
made B2B online strategy for 3M.

Every day same task, but the situations are different It's not only from my experience, but also
from my observation. All colleagues are doing the same type of work, but the situation is
different. Sometime they have problem with a client, but on the next day they problems with
vendors or with creative team. While coming to me, my first month was more concentrated with
pitch presentation. Industry or clients are different or requirements of the client are different, but
contents or the flow of pitch presentations are same. "I don't know" short sentence, but difficult
to tell

Agilent is an American company that designs and manufactures electronic and bio-analytical
measurement instruments and equipment for measurement and evaluation. Once my guide told
me make a presentation based on their products. mainly on Gas chromatography-mass
spectrometry (GC & GC/MS Columns). Ba- sically, he wants details about application and
component of this product. This was one of the biggest challenges which I faced in my
internship. Because I am a commerce background student and I don't understand the technical
usage of this product and component used to manufacture this product. But I can't refuse to do
this because it will affect my image and mark. I took 3 days to study the whole things, before
making the presentation. Finally. I learned you can't tell "I don't know" in your corporate life.
 Observation is the best teacher

There are lots of situations where I am completely blank and I don't know how to do some task.
In those situations I observed my colleagues to know how they are doing it and I understood the
importance of observation.

 Go and ask for work

6
In beginning stage of my SIP. I don't have any work to do or they are not giving. First week full
of induction and in second week, first two days I sat idly. I felt that they will not give any work
and my internship is gone. But in next day I went and ask for work. From that moment to last
day, I enjoyed my internship and learned a lot of stuffs.

 Work life balancing

This is the most important learning for me. This SIP thought me how to balance your personal
responsibility and professional responsibility together and how to enjoy life even after getting a
job. Working in an agency is not an easy task: the person wants to face a lot of stress and
challenges. I am the only person in my of- fice leaving early, while comparing with others.
Because my colleagues have lots of work, sometime they will leave by late night only. But they
are really enjoying all the moments in their life. They don't have any difference between
professional life and personal life.

6
QUESTIONNAIRE

Understand Consumer Buying Behaviour of Indians

This questionnaire will be used to understand the consumer buying behaviour of Indians.

1) How do you get information about products?

 Friends

 Family

 Advertisements

 News

 Other sources

2) Do you collect the information before purchasing the product?

 Yes

 No

3) What type of information will you collect?

 Price Quality

 Attributes

 Quantity

 Customer's Experience

4) Did you ever purchase from an online site?

 Yes

 No

6
No 5) If yes, then what type of product/service did you purchase online?

 Apparels

 Electronic

 Books

 Travel Products

 Fashion accessories

 Kitchen and Home items

 Toys

 Sports equipments

 Health and Beauty Products Gifts

 Automotive

6) Do you watch television?

 Yes

 No

7). Do you watch television programs through online?

 Yes

 No

8) Do you read newspaper?

 Yes

 No

6
9) Do you read News through online?
 Yes
 No
10) Do you have mobile phone or smartphones?

 No

 Yes

11) Do you have a laptop or PC?

 Yes
 No

12) Do you have a tablet?

 Yes
 No

13) Do you have internet connection in any of the above mentioned gadgets?

 Yes

 No

14) When do you use these gadgets?

 While watching TV Office

 College

 With friends

15) What you do with these gadgets?

 Games

 Surfing

 Shopping News reading

6
 Blogging

 E-booking Reading

 Watching Videos

 Chatting

16) Do you ever notice advertisements?

 Yes

 No

17) If yes, from where?

 TV

 Online

 Newspapers

 YouTube

 Magazines Out Door Hoardings

 Radio

18) Mention one form of media from the list below, which you give more importance?

 TV

 Online

 Newspaper

 YouTube Out Door Hoarding

 Radio

6
 Display ads in shops

19) How do you normally purchase a product?

 Research in mobile and purchase from retail shop

 Research in laptop and purchase from retail shop laptops

 Research in mobile and purchase from

 Research and purchase from mobile

 Research and purchase from laptop Visit the retail shop and purchase from mobile

 Visit the retail shop and purchase from laptop Visit and purchase from retail shop itself

20) After purchase, what type of experience will you share with others?

 Nice deal which you got in terms of price

 Bad experience with the product

 Good experience with the product All the above mentioned

21) How will you share your experience with others?

 Social networking sites Messaging

 Write a blog

 In company website

 Through face to face

talk Age

Gender

7
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 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.html

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 http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/14/study-digital-marketing-industry-worth-62-

 billion/

 SEOPressor - Best SEO Wrft.html

 https://www.google.co.in

 https://www.facebook.com

 https://in.yahoo.com/

 https://www.bing.com/

 https://twitter.com/?lang=en

 https://in.pinterest.com/

 www.amazon.in/

 www.india.alibaba.com/

 www.flipkart.com/

 www.homeshop18.com/

 www.snapdeal.com/

 https://www.youtube.com/?gl=IN

 https://www.youtube.com/user/26weekplan

 www.myntra.com/

7
 www.sabusiness.com

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 challenges-p6.html measureconversions.htm

 http://www.medianama.com/2014/02/223-groupm-says-digital-advertising-in-india-30-
in-2013-rs- 3402-cr-expected-in-2014/

 http://www.afaqs.com/news/story/40235 FICCI-KPMG-Report-2014-Indian-ME-
industry-to-touch-

 Rs-1785.8-billion-by-2018 http://www.slideshare.net/TheHWD/digital-advertising-in-
india-statistics-trends-2013

 http://blackboard.cmediate.com/2013/02/demand-side-platform-for-rtb/
 http://www.kbridge.org/en/online-advertising-explained-dmps-ssps-dsps-and-rtb/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/India-to-have-243-million-intemet-
users-by-June 2014-IAMAI/articleshow/29563698.cms

 http://www.ipost.com/blog/email-marketing/push-or-pull-which-type-of-digital-
marketing-is-mosteffectivel

 http://empowering.abc.com/2010/08/04/a-is-for-aisas/
http://www.coms.core.com/About.comScore/comScore Fact
Sheet

 http://www.stargroup.com/blog/zero-moment-truth-and-why-marketers-must-win-it

 http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/research-studies/2012-zmot-handbook.html
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 http://www.socialsamosa.com/2014/01/you-are-not-the-custodian-of-your-brand-
anymore!

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