2.6 The difference between B2B and B2C Marketing In B2B, buying decisions of the client are driven by logic whereas, B2C buying decisions are driven by emotions. While designing a marketing strategy for B2B and B2C, it is important to identify the difference between requirements of both the categories. In order to maximise the effectiveness of marketing strategy, it is very important for marketing team to devise different strategy for customer attraction and relationship building in B2B and B2C. 1. Customer Relationship B2B marketing focuses on building personal relationships that drive long-term business. ‘Thus, 2.10 || Digital Marketing relationship building in B2B marketing, especially during the buying cycle, is crucial B2B Support Issues are More Complex B2B customer support issues tend to be more complex and take longer to resolve than their B2C counterparts. Its often required to consult among various people and departments in order to provide the best solution to a B2B customer. As a result, metrics like First Contact Resolution, which are relied upon heavily in B2C, are not necessarily an accurate measurement of B2B customer satisfaction. 2. User Groups (B28) vs. Individual Buyer (B2C) In B2B, marketing team has to target and address a group of stakeholders like managers, staff, users, head etc. Thus, marketing strategy requires to address concerns and requirements of everyone in the team whereas in B2C, marketing team has to address and cater to only one individual buyer. 3. Market Size B2B Organizations have Fewer, and more significant, Customers in B2B it's quite common to have high value customers, much more so than in B2C. This is because B2B products and services are often large and complex, so each interaction has a higher impact on revenue. Consider software - if you sell your software to one B2C consumer you have sold one seat or license. In B2B a customer may purchase hundreds or even thousands of licenses, with the potential to sell even more as they expand and grow. ‘This is especially true when you consider lifetime value of a customer. So if something goes wrong in a B2B support scenario, it can have critical revenue implications. Understanding Customers at a Company Level B2B providers need to have a deeper understanding of their customers at a company level. In B2C its pretty unusual to have the same type of relationship with your customers because support teams are interacting with many unrelated individuals who typically have lower repeat rates. In B2B however, you are interacting with many individuals at each customer, giving you a better understanding of the customer as a whole, Its also often the case that in B2C products are sold through a 3rd party, such as retail, where in B2B the most common transaction is directly between the supplier and the purchaser. B2B also has longer sales cycles and longer term relationships overall, giving you more opportunities to build customer knowledge. Providing exceptional support in B2B, therefore, means retaining valued customers longer. 4. Detailed Description vs. Broad Description B2B marketing requires detailed description of the product or service being sold. It is very important because generally companies want to examine all the aspects before making purchase decisions, Whereas in B2C marketing, short and simple messages are required to be created.5. Rational vs. Emotional Decisions are based on rationality and logic. Thus, itis very important to address B2B customers with logic, return on investments, Whereas individual consumers are more spontaneous and make de based on emotional value of a product. sions Digital Marketing: Environment, Process and Strategy || 2.11 6. Higher Price vs. Lower Price B2B prices tend to be higher than B2C prices. Thus, in case of price increase, B2C customers are more price sensitive and need to be informed about the increase in prices and the reason behind it. 7. Large scale vs. personal use In B2B, the demand for a good and service is generally in bulk and thus, there is great opportunity for increasing sales, In B2C, customers are using goods and service for their personal use. 8. Longer sales cycle vs. shorter sales cycle In B2B, sales cycles are longer and therefore need to nurture over a longer period of time before a sale is made. In B2G, the sales cycles are shorter as compared to B2B. Sales have to made at the fi as the buying decisions are generally spontaneous. touch point 2.7 Digital Marketing Process A digital marketing process is a broad term to explain the steps that marketing team takes to achieve the goals of a digital strategy. The steps ensure that marketing strategies are effectively implemented and the objectives are achieved. It includes formulating digital strategy, choosing the right channel of communication, ensuring visibility of the brand, bringing traffic to the website. It is extremely important as it gives direction to the marketing team. Steps in the digital marketing process are as follows: Formulating a digital strategy * Generating visibility for the brand * Increasing traffic to the official website and social media platforms * Converting traffic into potential leads * Lead conversion Measuring and tracking # Retention. STEP 1: Formulating a Digital Strategy Digital strategy serves as a blueprint, a framework, or a roadmap. It helps the team to stay on track as planned. It is structured but also flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs and requirements, How to formulate an effective digital strategy * In order to create an effective brand image, it is important to understand main objective of the business, This will help in creating engaging content and attracting customers. © Creating a brand story will help the customers to connect with the organization and it should reflect what customers can expect from the brand and the experiences it will provide.* In order to formulate an effective digital strategy, it is important to identify short term and long- term goals. Which are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 2.12 || Digital Marketing * While designing marketing strategy, it is important to keep in mind, preferences, habits and spending pattern of the consumer. © Identify where does a user first encounter a particular organization online (or offline)? What touch-points are the most important when a user makes a decision? What makes them leave and what makes them come back? * While selecting digital platform for promotion, it is important to identify the channels where potential customers are most active on. For example, youngsters are more active on platforms like Instagram, Facebook whereas for B2B business, linked in or twitter may be more suitable, * Content strategy must be designed according to the target audience. # Prepare a budget and identify all the resources for the digital market strategy ‘ Itis also important to calculate Expected Return on investment on the strategy. STEP 2: Generating Visibility for the Brand Digital marketing is a strategic way to simultaneously build brand awareness and provide incredible value to online audiences. The more targeted and intentional you are with your digital marketing efforts, the more visibility you'll have online. Visibility can be owned, paid or earned: Owned Visibility: ‘Owned media is any web property that a business control and is unique to the brand. Website, social media channels like Facebook page, blog sites are few examples of owned media. All the marketing channels are an extension of the company's brand, It is very important to be active on all the channels where potential customers are active. Wide digital presence helps to improve the brand visibility and the conversion rate. Earned visibility: Earned media helps to drive sentiment around a brand. It helps in customer engagement. It is publicity from online reviews, word of mouth, backlinks through reputed sites etc Good search engine optimization and content marketing are very powerful means to increase earned visibility. Some other ways are: Ways for increasing visibility in digital marketing: * Establishing Brand’s Website: Having a brand website, make a business look professional and trustworthy. Ifa business doesntt have a website, it appears to be outdated and out of touch with the modern trends, * Blog Creation: Writing a blog is a way to establish loyal customers helps to increase earned loyalty and boost online presence. * Good search engine optimization: SEO is important because it highlights digital presence. * Off-Site SEO: Off-site SEO includes obtaining online reviews like Google review, being active and responsive on social media, developing a backlink strategy etc. It helps to make brand look more genuine and reliable to the prospective customers online,Digital Marketing: Environment, Process and Strategy || 2.13 Social Media Marketing: It is very important for a business to develop a social media marketing strategy. Social media strategy involves focusing a lot on creating interesting and relevant content, for the audience. Presence on social media helps to engage customers and build community of loyal customers. Email Marketing: In terms of increasing visibility in digital marketing, email marketing is a viable tool that can provide an impressive return on investment (ROL). Paid Ads: They can be used to increase visibility in digital space. Investment in paid ads has high ROL Google ads, Facebook ads are some examples of paid ads. ‘* Encourage Online Customer Reviews: Online customer reviews are very useful in increasing visibility. Research has proved that people read online custom reviews while taking a purchasing decision. Content marketing and creating content partnerships is also a subtle way of increasing visibility fora brand. It helps to establish reputation for the company when a brand work with other brand or an influencer to create content. Examples of content partnerships include: Co-hosting a webinar or an e-book, Guest posting on blogs, guest appearances on YouTube channels, Being interviewed on podcasts, Co-authoring an eBook. While selecting a brand for content collaboration, it must be ensured that the other brand has good reputation in the market and active followers. It is important to choose the brands which are complementary. * Work with Online Influencers: Another key way to increase visibility is to work with online influencers. Influencers are people who have established brands online and have large social media following. Working with influences increase brand trustworthiness as the followers also. gets the positive message about the brand. STEP 3: Increasing traffic to the official website and social media platforms ‘* Promoting blog content on social media also helps in increasing traffic and approaching to the customers, Many a times, marketeers, repurpose their blog posts to generate maximum benefit from it. Asking questions from target customers, posting different snippets of the post, changing images or headline in the blog are some ways to reuse the blog and refresh the feed to attract target customers to the website. For each blog post, a document mentioning a few blog post titles with URL can be scheduled. This will help to drive traffic back to old blog and the website. ‘* Content should be easier to share: Existing site visitors can be allowed and encouraged to share the content on various social media platforms, Social sharing tool and a plugin can be installed to ease the proces * Content should be posted when target customers are most active on a particular social media channel: Marketing analytics can be used to examine/identify when is the consumer more active ive. peak time. It will increase the changes of more hits on the content or website. ‘© Focus on sharing visual content: Visual content attracts more viewers and attention, ‘Thus, content marketing team should focus on creating good quality content using visual media.2.14 || Digital Marketing © Consistent engagement with the audience: Its very important to payattention to the social aspect in social media and a marketing team must constantly engage with the target customers. Itwill go a long way in increasing brand visibility, setting up reputation, getting right feedback and improving experience of the customers, Customer engagement over social media is also very useful STEP 4: Converting Traffic into Potential Leads Converting traffic into potential leads is an important activity for a business. Some of the ways which help to convert the traffic into leads and build relationship are as follows: + Newsletter Signups: Newsletter sign up is a process through which traffic choose to receive updates from an online business through email. Once people signup for a newsletter, it is important to keep them updated about the latest offers but not bombard them with emails. Occasional offers encourage customers to be more receptive and convert more easily. Navigation bar, static ads, pop-ups, and sliders are the most popular ways to collect newsletter sign ups. * Call to Action: It is the activity which we desire from our visitor or audience when a person visits the landing page. Business can convert leads through strategically placed CTAs. Outside the website also. Itis also important to ensure that lead lands on the relevant page designed for that purpose. * Lead Magnets: A lead magnet is an activity/action that encourages potential leads to share their contact details and provide an opportunity to develop a business relationship. For example: trial subscriptions, free samples, white papers, e-newsletters, and free consultations. Lead magnets are powerful conversion tools and can help to create sales lead. © Remarketing: Remarketing is simple words means advertising to an already existing audience. It is connecting with the customers who previously interacted with the webpage. It is a way to generate brand awareness and remind audience to buy something they liked earlier or purchased earlier. It involves strategic placement of ads on the websites that an existing customer is visiting. * Webinars: Running regular webinars is also one way of building relationship with the customers and offering them value of a product or a service. One way to convert prospects into customers using this tool is to offer them a special discount or encourage them to sign up at the end of the webinar, STEP 5: Lead Conversion Lead conversion is the marketing process of turning leads into paying customers. It includes all the marketing practices that stimulate a desire to buy a product or service and push a lead towards a purchasing decision. Following stages are lead funnel that convert lead into customer: Awareness, Interest, Decision and Action. Some of the strategies for the lead conversion are: * Landing pages Content marketing Social media marketing Email marketing Placing call to action ChatbotsDigital Marketing: Environment, Process and Strategy || 2.15 * Pay per click * Push notifications Lead conversions are of two types: Micro Conversions A Micro Conversion is an action, or a set of actions, which provides a strong indication that a user is progressing towards a valuable action on your website. For example, a firm is an e-commerce brand, a new user registration would be called a micro conversion. ‘Common micro conversions might be: + Creating an account + Anewsletter sign-up + Adding products to a cart + Downloading an eBook or white paper + Subscription to RSS feed + Visiting specific pages, for example, product page, category page, the features page, and so on Macro Conversions ‘The term macro conversion describes the conversion of a website visitor into a paying customer or a subscriber of a web service. Macro conversions are defined as website goals, so that the success of a website can be measured using the conversion rates, Based on this goal definition and using a tracking system, the economic success of a website can be measured so that the specific user actions represent the conversion rates. Step 6: Measuring and Tracking It is very important to measure and track the performance of digital marketing strategies so that timely action can be taken well in time. Marketing teams use Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs to measure and track performance of their marketing strategies. Creating specific digital marketing KPIs makes it easier to set targets and measure performance based on those targets. Some of the key performance indicators ar * Online conversion rates * Return on investment Click thru rate © Web traffic sources * Brand awareness © Cost per lead ‘© Website traffic leads * Returning visitors * Lead conversion rates ‘* Customer lifetime value2.16 || Digital Marketing ‘There are various analytics tools available which can be used to gather all the information about KPIs. Step 7: Retention Retention marketing isa strategy that caters to existing customers. It focuses on bringing back customers who have already done business with a brand and keeping customers who are already connected to a brand, Retention is useful because it is easier and more economic to sell to existing customers than selling to the new customers. Also, itis noticed that existing customers are likely to spend more and help to attract/acquire new customers through word of mouth referral and positive feedback. ‘The purpose of retention marketing is not adding new customers but retaining existing ones. ‘The main objectives are: # Increase customer return rates and bring past customers back into the purchase cycle. * Decrease customer churn rates and keep existing customers in the buying cycle. * Drive purchase frequency and get customers to enter the buying cycle more often Some of the retention strategies are as follows: * Daily deals and coupons + Exclusivity-creating an exclusive club or membership * Loyalty programs + Email marketing * Referral Bonuses * Personalization « Retargeting * Exceptional service Retention can be of two basic types: * Horizontal Retention ie., when a customer purchases same line of goods «Vertical Retention ie., when a customer purchases more range of goods in the same brand6.3 The P.O.E.M Strategy / Framework in Digital Marketing POEM refers to Paid, Owned, and Earned Media that provides for a framework for digital marketing strategies. The companies do not rely and depend on a single marketing strategy rather they always prefer to go for various strategies for ensuring success. We must have observed that in order to increase the visibility on digital platform, companies maintain a website, pages or account on almost all social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc., create efforts for SEO, create visibility by SEM, etc. Let us understand all these forms of media one by one Paid Media Itis also known as outbound media. Any effort on the part of the company for ensuring its online/ offline presence that requires payment falls under this category. For example, companies create visibility by paying to the search engines like Pay Per Click. Ads and commercials are the most popular forms of paid visibility. One must have come across these ads and commercials on different channels such as social media and search engines. The objective of paid media marketing is to deliver sponsored ads to reach the right audience on online platform. Digital Marketing Presence: Key Aspects || 6.7 Owned Media Owned media means the possessions of the company. For example a company's website, social media pages, blog posts, etc are the company’s own possession. In this form of media, the company has full freedom and control on the content to be published. ‘The objective is to deliver quality content for the audience, It is highly cost effective than paid media, Versatility and longevity are the other benefits of owned media, The brands have complete control over the way they handle their marketing assets.Earned Media Earned media is also known as inbound marketing. It refers to the exposure and recognition that a brand gets due to the organic publicity and awareness. It allows you to interact with your audience through third-party channels like social media, public relations (PR), and referrals. It refers to the activities performed by the business houses that results in building reputation and earning name and fame. By providing quality products and by responding to the customer's query, a company can earn its visibility. For example a happy customer will surely spread positive word-of-mouth. ‘The company has to just create happy and satisfied customers for publicity and finally earned media. ‘The best way to accomplish success for your marketing efforts is to follow the POEM framework. With the accurate balance of paid, owned, and earned media marketing strategies, one can formulate better and more effective tactics for the business. Understanding the Poem Framework POEM FRAMEWORK Pp ° E Paid Media ‘Owned Media Earned Media + Paid Ads + Website + Word-of: mouth + Search Engine + Social Media Marketing Marketing Pages + Viral Marketing Figure 6.3 ‘The following are the strategies suggested by POEM Framework that ensures in securing paid, earned and owned visibility. 1. Social Media Marketing Social media marketing can be defined as the process of developing tailored content for different social media platform to ensure customer engagement and promote the business. SMM helps in increasing the brand understanding.1. Social Media Marketing Social media marketing can be defined as the process of developing tailored content for different social media platform to ensure customer engagement and promote the business. SMM helps in increasing the brand understanding. 6.8 || Digital Marketing SMM covers all the three aspects of the POEM framework ie. it is paid media, earned media, owned media. Paid Media: A brand can boost its paid ads on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram to reach more people. Owned Media: A brand can share and create content while using its own social media page. The objective is to engage with prospective customers and drive more traffic to the website. Earned Media: By sharing valuable content different platforms such as social media will help companies to increase brand awareness. As a result, the brand can earn publicity on social media to attract large number of potential customers and inviting likes and comments will further result in earning visibility. 2. Influencer Marketing Influencer marketing means where a brand collaborates with an online influencer for the purpose of marketing its products or services. Anyone who has large followings on the internet and social media can be the influencer provided your brand and the influencer share the same audience. Influencer can influence the purchasing decision of the intended audience to a large extent and therefore for securing large audience awareness and customers, third party channels can be really worth. Earned media provides a platform for interacting with the audience through third-party platforms. 3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization is the process of maximizing the number of quality visitors to a website by ensuring the high rank in the list of organic results returned by a search engine. Search Enginelarge audience awareness and customers, third party channels can be really worth. Karned media provides a platform for interacting with the audience through third-party platforms. 3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization is the process of maximizing the number of quality visitors to a website by ensuring the high rank in the list of organic results returned by a search engine. Search Engine Optimization is all about organic results, mean what practices, strategies or tactics, we used to get our website ranked high in the organic search results so that maximum visitors can land on a website. It has nothing to do with Inorganic results or paid advertisement. Search engine optimisation leads to achieving higher web visibility. The entire process of SEOs has been discussed later in this chapter. 4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) SEM is a practice of marketing where a business pays for advertisements which then appear on search ‘engine results pages (or SERPs). Generally the advertisers bid on keywords that users usually enter on any search engine like google, yahoo etc while searching for certain products or services and such searches provides an opportunity to the advertiser for showing their ads alongside results for the search queries of the users. SEM is an example of paid media, ‘The entire process of SEM has been discussed later in this chapter. 5. Content Marketing “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a well defined audience and resulting in profitable customer action’. In other words, content marketing is a proven technique for engaging audience and building long-term relationship resulting in increasing sales. It is one of the most cost effective and efficient ways of creating brand awareness, maintaining long-term relationships with the target audience and in acquiring new customers. For owned and earned media, content marketing practices are highly recommended to promote the business, engage with the target audience, and boost the SEO rankings. ‘The entire process of content marketing has been discussed later in this unit.Digital Marketing Presence: Key Aspects || 6.9 6. Viral Marketing “Viral marketing seeks to spread information about a product or service from one person to another person by word of mouth or sharing via the internet or email” The objective behind viral marketing is to encourage individuals to share a marketing message to their friends, family and other individuals and help brands to create exponential growth since each person receiving the message is expected to spread it to multiple others. This is the best example of earned media to generate publicity and attract attention at a large scale in a short span of time. ‘The entire process of viral marketing has been discussed later in this unit. 7. Email Marketing “Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy where emails are shared with prospects and customers. Effective marketing emails has the potential of converting prospects into loyal customers’. According to a survey, email marketing is still ranked as the topmost effective marketing channel, beating out other popular domains of digital marketing such as social media and affiliate marketing. Email marketing is highly cost-effective and has the potential to deliver the highest ROI compared to any forms of marketing. The entire process of email marketing has been discussed later in this unit. Benefits of POEM Strategy ‘The POEM framework is a guide for framing the marketing strategies for any brand. By combining all the three parts i, paid, earned and owned media together, one may reach a large number of audience and will be definitely be benefited. With the advent of digital marketing this framework is getting more popular. The following are some of the benefits of this framework: 1) All the three forms of media are highly successful in creating brand awareness. 2) Owned media and earned media are highly cost effective. 3) All the three forms of media have the potential to increase the customers base of any brand3.2. The Internet and the Marketing Mix Jerome McCarthy first proposed the modern form of the 4Ps in the year 1960 in the book entitled, “Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach: ‘Ihese four Ps have since provided a standard method for 3.8 || Digital Marketing Cescribing marketing programs. These 4Ps comprises of Product, Price, Place and Promd p. But with the advent of technology and the evolution of internet era, the practices of industrial world have changed significantly, Booma and Bitner introduced the extended version of the marketing mix in the year 1980 known as the '7Ps: These 7Ps includes McCarthy's 4 original Ps and further 3Ps as Physical Evidence, People, & Processes. With the advent of digitization, the business environment is experiencing immense challenges as there has been drastic changes in every segment of business and specifically marketing. In order to be ahead of competitors the business houses need to be highly innovative. The marketing strategies on both traditional and online platform must be concrete and must provide a solution to the client’s request and the environmental challenges. Online marketing mix helps companies to review and define key issues that affect the marketing of its products and services and is referred to as the 7Ps framework for the digital marketing mix. The 7Ps of marketing mix not only helps the companies to review and define key issues affecting the marketing of its products and services but also helps in reviewing the strategics of its competitors and in conducting a SWOT analysis. 4. PRODUCT «Design + Usefulness 7. PHYSICAL + Quality + Value Interface Like alee Digital Platform arranties 6. PROCESS How to coordinate the marketing activiies 2. PRICE = Utlity + Competitors += Pricing Policy + Company's Objective + Positioning 3. PLACE e+ Internet + Direct Selling 5, PEOPLE 4. PROMOTION + Employeos + Online PR + Customer Service + Online Partnership + Management + SEOs = Bloas‘To understand further, let us discuss all these 7Ps of online marketing one by one and try to explore what kind of questions are being targeted through these 72's — Product ‘The first P in online marketing mix is the product. A product is the item which is offered for sale. and ean be in material form ie. physical or in virtual form, Product is one of the most essential P in the marketing mix. While developing strategy related to product, the companies generally targets the solution for the following questions: Online Buyer Behaviour and Models || 3.9 1) What are our customer's needs and requirements? 2) How can we meet our customer's needs and requirements and what all additional benefits can be extended to them above the basic benefits? 3) “Isour existing product or service, or mix of products and services, appropriate and suitable for the current market and the present customers?” 4) Is our product or service superior as compared to our competitors? Online marketing strategy with reference to a product can be divided into two parts ic, decision around the elementary features meeting customer needs for which the companies go for online reviews, web survey, feedback forms etc. and additional features which are benefits above the core benefit like instruction manual, base-warranty and technical assistant etc. Price ‘The second important aspect of online marketing mix is the price, Price refers to the monetary value for which a product or a service is exchanged. Usually a company looks at three major costs i.e. the cost, of the product or services, value of the product in consumer's eyes and promotional cost and thereafter decides about the profit margins and fixes the price for a product. Online platform has added few challenges/aspects like improved price transparency and reduced overheads costs. These aspects must be considered by the companies while fixing pricing policy/strategy. ‘The following questions also require due attention while finalizing price and online pricing strategy. a) What is the utility/value of your product in the eyes of consumers? b) What is the pricing policy of your competitors/substitute products? ) What is the current market trend? d) What is the objective of the company like capturing the market, generating extra income, repositioning ete?Place Place in the online marketing mix means where and how will you provide your customers access to your products Organizations devise channels to reach widest customer base at minimized cost. The ‘emergence of internet has changed the place element in the marketing mix. The point of purchase can be divided into seller controlled sites, third party hosted scller oriented sites, third party hosted consumer- seller neutral sites, and purchaser or purchase controlled sites. Examples: ‘Social media platforms (selling directly or by referring traffic to another channel) * Dedicated online store (Shopify, WooCommerce), landing pages with purchase features, * Online marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, other niche marketplaces) Websites are also being designed to cater certain specific requirements like language, product mix and cultural difference. 3.10 || Digital Marketing Promotion ‘The promotion element of the marketing mix pertains to the marketing communication strategy used by the organization for product and company advertisement. ‘The promotion component constitutes of advertisement, sales promotion, customer contact, public relation and direct marketing ‘The promotion element mix is selected by the communication strategy of the companies. The internet serves as additional and new communication platform through which a business can connect to consumers. The various promotional techniques considered in online marketing mix are: * Online PR © Online Partnership Interactive Advertising ‘* Social media Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, You Tube etc. Search Engine Optimization ‘Search Engine Marketing * Blogs © Email marketing * Content marketing * Website optimization and many morePeople ‘The people element of the marketing mix comprises of interaction between the staff members and the consumers during pre-sale, sale and post sales activity. ‘The company must understand what kind of support system a consumer wish to get at the time of taking purchase decision for instance and the expectations of the buyer afier the purchase has been made. Therefore customer services are extremely important in online marketing. Some of the options available for the company to cater to the needs of consumers specifically are auto-email response to queries, e-mail notification on purchase status, call back facility, online chats, frequently asked questions section, site search section, online purchase assistance, customer feedback, return option etc. Process ‘The process element of the marketing mix comprises of process adapted by the companies to co-ordinate all the marketing activities which are covered under price, place, promotion and people. The internet has rendered variety of choices within the marketing mix to formulate current and long term internet marketing strategies. Designing better customer support systems where customers and employees can interact with each other seamlessly and scalably, enables to produce a more consistent experience for both. Online Buyer Behaviour and Models || 3.11 Physical Evidence ‘The presence of business on digital platform where internet users are aware about the existence of your business ensures your physical evidence. For ensuring the online presence, businesses uses multiple channels such as use of various social media platforms, website development, etc. ‘The social media platform helps in expanding service experiences by various means like through the number of followers, likes, and other social engagement metrics. Similarly, website design is an essential online evidence of your presence, A carefully planned multi-channel online experience results in enliancing online evidence of a business. Conclusion In the present context, the companies are facing a higher consensus due to the viral spread of information and environmental problems and therefore the companies have to adopt new strategies as to answer the client's request and the environmental challenges. By including the model of 7 P’ of online marketing into a company's marketing decisions, the companies will develop a better marketing strategy.Online Buyer Behaviour and Models || 3.11 Physical Evidence ‘The presence of business on digital pletform where internet users are aware about the existence of your business ensures your physical evidence. For ensuring the online presence, businesses uses multiple channels such as use of various social media platforms, website development, etc. ‘The social media platform helps in expanding service experiences by various means like through the number of followers, likes, and other social engagement metrics. Similarly, website design is an essential online evidence of your presence. A carefully planned multi-channel online experience results in enhancing online evidence of a business. Conclusion In the present context, the companies are facing a higher consensus due to the viral spread of information and environmental problems and therefore the companies have to adopt new strategies as to answer the client’s request and the environmental challenges. By including the model of 7 P’s of online marketing into a company’s marketing decisions, the companies will develop a better marketing strategy. An example of a company using the 7Ps strategy HubSpot, founded in 2006, is a software company that sells software in more that 56 countries. The following are the various aspects of marketing mix of the company: 1. Products/Services: Integrated toolset for SEO, blogging, social media, website, email and lead intelligence tools. 2. Prices/Fees: Subscription-based monthly, Software-As-Service model based on number of contacts in database and number of users of the service Place/ Access: Online! Network of Partners, Country User Groups. Promotion; Directors speak at events, webinars, useful guides that are amplified by SEO and effective with SEO. PPC Social media advertising, e.g. LinkedIn. Physical Evidence: Consistent branding across communications. Processes: More sales staff are now involved in conversion. People: Investment in online services. Partners: Hubspot looks to form partnerships with major media companies such as Facebook and Google plus local partners including Smart Insights who it is collaborating with on research in Europe. (Source: Anmmarie Hanlon, smartsight.com) aN5.4. Integrated Internet Marketing Communications Internet has now become the necessity Its very important for the organizations to ensure their presence ‘over internet. It is believed that the company does not exist if it does not exist on online platform. Digitalization has also increased the demand for online presence for all brands. By ensuring company’s presence over internet, the companies can easily enhance its sales and. marketing efforts. ‘The brands can further reach out and communicate with its potential clients and the public, Marketers also believe in the importance of internet as a valuable addition to the toolbox of advertising media, Internet marketing has become popular over traditional marketing 10 || Digital Marketing ‘The internet has emerged as a new and a wider market place where the people and companies can connect to each other in a much convenient and quick way. With the growth in the number of internet users, the popularity of internet is continuously increasing, There are various ways in which internet can be used and combined with various elements of marketing mix so that new technological capabilities can enhance the growth of established organizations. Email marketing, online public relations, interactive advertising, online partnership, viral marketing, social media marketing, blogs, mobile marketing are the examples of marketing efforts being performed over internet. Internet is a very popular and an essential tool of marketing before an organization that ensures, communication at any time and in any location. The 24°7 availability is one of the major benefit which is being offered by the internet for a customer and which is being en-cashed by the marketers. The interactive nature of the internet that allows the customers to search and quickly locate any information anytime makes its more popular and highly appealing. The global accessibility also adds to its popularity. Information can be updated and expanded ata very low cost enabling availability of real-time information. Therefore itis quite important and advisable for the marketers that they must combine the various ‘marketing efforts and serve their customers on internet, The internet is the only medium that allows people to communicate in an easier and quick way and also allows the sender to communicate with a large number of people at the same time, ‘An integrated approach in terms of marketing communications particularly emphasis on the elements such as understanding consumer needs and behaviour, use database, customers integrated media and communication with stakeholders. The practitioner’s must understand thoroughly the role of information and communication technologies and become aware of their strengths and weaknesses and ‘marketing objectives that can be reached by means of the new online tools. Thus, it can be concluded that the internet becomes more effective if it is integrated with other marketing communications of the company. The various ways where marketing efforts are integrated on online mode are: Blogs: Blogs also known as weblogs are the informational journals or online websites which present information in a reverse chronological manner. It is @ system that allows an individual writer or a group of writers to publish their content on specific topics. The purpose of blogs is to connect writers to interested audiences and to boost the former’ traffic. Businesses use blogs to reach potential customers and increase brand awareness Search Engine Marketing: SEM is a practice of marketing where a business pays for advertisements ‘hich then appear on search engine results pages (or SERPs). Generally the advertisers bid on keywords that users usually enter on any search engine like google, yahoo etc while searching for certain products or services and such searches provides an opportunity to the advertiser for showing their ads alongside results for the search queries of the users. These ads are generally known as pay-per-click ads. In order to grow your business and to increase awareness about your business one has to adopt various means to ensure trafic toa website as by merely developing website does not guarantee that you will be appearing ina large number of searches and therefore SEM is recommended as it will also help in optimizing your site to rank well, and keep up with search trends. Online PR: Online public relations and reputation management is all about “increasing positive ‘word of mouth and decreasing or managing negative word of mouth” In other words, it refers to the variety of activities organized and conducted by the companies to promote and protect the image ofIntegrated Internet Marketing Communication || 5.11 themselves, their products and policies in the eyes of the public, The most important objective is to manage public opinion of the organization. In the present context wherein we have extremely large segment of population who have access to internet and have presence on digital domain, it becomes extremely important for the companies to look out at each and every single piece of information which is available online about the company as the outreach and speed with which the information is spread is very high and the impact of each information could be beyond imagination. ‘The companies needs to be attentive 24*7 specifically when it comes to public reputation/relations. Online Partnership: Online partnerships is a way where the companies improve their online presence. In other words, it refers to the combination of various methods adopted by the companies for promoting their online services on third-party websites or through email etc. Different forms of partnerships include sponsorship and co-branding, link building, affiliate marketing, aggregators, widget marketers. Interactive Advertising: Interactive advertisement is one of the new form of engaging the audience wherein one can transform the marketing efforts from flat, one-dimensional ad campaigns into singular, dynamic and enriching experiences. Itis believed that ifa consumer is provided with an opportunity to participate with the advertisement than a consumer would have engaging, innovative, and illuminating experience. Email Marketing: “Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy where emails are shared with prospects and customers. Effective marketing emails have the potential of converting prospects into loyal customers” According to a survey, email marketing is still ranked as the topmost effective marketing channel, beating out other popular domains of digital marketing such as social media and affiliate marketing, Viral Marketing: If you want your contents i.e. videos, blogs, pictures, to go viral and you want people to talk about you, then you must go for viral marketing. “Viral marketing seeks to outspread information for a product or service from one person to another person by word of mouth or sharing via internet or email’. The objective behind viral marketing is to encourage individuals to share a marketing message to their friends, family and other individuals and help brands to create exponential growth since cach person receiving the message is expected to spread it to multiple others Companies have limited resources in terms of capital, It needs to develop communication plans considering the cost benefit analysis. Every communication techniques has its own merits and demerits Companies needs to identify, evaluate and choose the communication plans that support its overall marketing objectives. Objective for Interactive Marketing Communications ‘The interactive marketing communication must support the overall marketing objectives of the company. ‘The objectives of interactive marketing communications must include: 1) Online techniques such as online partnership, online PR, Viral Marketing, Email marketing ete and offline promotion techniques such as TV, Radio, Posters, and Print should be used to atiract visitors to the website. ‘This technique must be specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound5.12 || Digital Marketing 2) ‘The on-site communications should be able to deliver the message that builds a certain perception of the company. These messages should be relevant to the company’s product and services. 3) All marketing communications should be able to generate pre-determined online and offline sales. Measurement of Interactive Marketing Communication Marketing teams must measure and track the performance of their marketing campaigns, There are various ways to measure the performance of marketing efforts like: 1) Lead Conversion Rate: It is the percentage of visitors who visit your website and are captured as leads. This is one of the most important top-of-the-funnel conversion metrics. It is an indicator of your ability to attract the right audience and reflects the efficiency at which a website turns target audience into leads. Lead Conversion Rate = Number of leads/number of visitors For instance: A website generates an average of 1,00,000 visitors each month. Out of these, you capture a total of 5,000 leads. Lead Conversion Rate = 5,000 leads / 1,00,000 visitors = 5% 2) Bounce Rates: The bounce rate method can be used to help in determining the effectiveness or performance of an entry page at generating the interest of visitors. For instance if an entry page has a low bounce rate, it means that the page has effectively causes visitors to view more pages ‘The high bounce rates indicate that the website is not doing a good job of attracting the interest of visitors, A website's bounce rate can be calculated by dividing the number of single-page sessions with the number of total sessions on the site. For example, if 200 users land on your website (total sessions) and 10 of them exit without triggering another request (single-page sessions), your website’s bounce rate will be 5%. 3) Cost per Lead: It measures how cost-effective is your marketing campaign when it comes to creating new leads for your sales team. A lead refers to individual who has shown interest in your product or service by completing a desired action or a goal. The objective is to provide your marketing team with an idea about how much money would be appropriate to spend on acquiring new leads Cost per Lead = Cost of Generating Leads / Total Leads Acquired For instance your company spent %2,000 on your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and 20 users converted to leads, then the cost per lead will be: Cost per lead = 2,000/20 = 7100 4) Click Through Rate: Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of the number of clicks on a specific link or call to action (CTA) to the number of times people were exposed to the link Click Through Rate = (click-throughs / impressions) x 100 For example, if 200 people see an online ad and 10 people click to learn more about the product, that ad has a CTR of 5%.Integrated Internet Marketing Communication || 5.13 5) Landing Page Performance: A landing page is an extremely powerful tool for any business. One must assess the performance of the landing page in order to identify the areas that needs to be improved. Google analytics provides a lot of information to know the behaviour of traffic like landing page visits, source of traffic, bounce rate, session duration, conversion rate and many more, For instance landing page visit informs us number of users visiting your landing page, or on which particular day the number of users are more or is there any increase in he number of visitors on your landing page when you provide certain offer or discounts, In the same way source of traffic also plays a very important role. The visitors to your landing page comes from various sources including; direct traffic referral traffic, email traffic, search traffic, ete. Understanding this data will help you utilize that what works the best. 6) Email Engagement: Measuring audience engagement involves carefully monitoring your email insights and analytics not only to see how well an email performs but you'll also want to analyze how often your subscribers complete certain actions. 7) Key performance indicators (KPIs) include: © Open rate © Click-through rate * Click-to-open rate ‘These KPIs will help in knowing who all are interacting with each of your emails by opening them and clicking on various links, images, videos, and CTAs. 8) Social Media Insights: This gives an insight into number of engagement, fans/follower counts, CIR’ etc. Some of these numbers will depend upon your brand or product, but you may also find that when integration goes well, these statistics rise, regardless of the environment,Website Planning Website planning is extremely important as it can help in ensuring you produce a top-performing website and will also ensure saving of both time and money. A poor website will permanently leave a bad impression in the mind of target audience and there are very minimal chances of bringing such traffic to your website again. According to a survey more than 80% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after having a bad experience. Therefore, it is recommended that one needs to put lot of efforts, patience and time to develop a website. Let us understand the basic steps in website planning and development. Steps in website planning and development: 1) Prerequisites Defining the purpose and goals of website Deciding budget Understand your target audience and finalize keywords ) ) ) 5) Create a content strategy ) Designing of blueprint and layout of your website }) Testing and launching of website 8) Maintenance Let us discuss these steps one by one: 1) Prerequisite: For developing a website one need a domain name and a server where one can buy space for its website. Let us understand these two terms one by one: Website Planning and Development || 4.5 A) Domain name Itrefers to the address of a website which is unique to every website that means no two websites have the same domain name. It is the function of the domain name system (DNS) to check and avoid duplicity in the name of a domain. Domain name is similar to our postal address which is unique and we know that no two houses have the same address. For example www.ebay.com. There are two types of domain name: 1) Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) - They work as a top-level domain category in the domain name system. At present, there are 21 top-level generic domains, Few of the most popular top level domains are: + net + edu © og + com © mil + gov 2) Country Code Top Level Domain - ccTLD: Country code top-level domain are country specific domain names which end with country code extension like .uk for the United Kingdom, in for India Domain name must be carefully selected as it creates an impression in the mind of traffic and also helps in achieving the objective of search engine optimization. A website ending with .com domain name is quite popular and easy to remember. One must consider few things while selecting the domain name viz it must be shorter and easier to remember, pronounce and spell and must be a reflection of your business type. (nature)After finalizing the domain name, one has to buy it. There are many domain registrar from where wwe can buy a domain name like Godaddy.com, Namecheap.com, etc. Just visit the website as shown and. search for a perfect and unique domain name by paying a nominal amount of charges. @codaddy omin Hose ety nian ene anc! te in Bi“ Fd your pests domain Hwee wee ee Source: GoDaddy:com oficial website Figure 4.2 B) Webhosting After buying a domain name, one has to buy the space on the server so that if anyone types the name of | ‘your website in the search engine, the website is visible. It means without buying space on the server no done can locate and reach your website. There are many webhosting service providers from whom we can buy hosting service for example Hostgator, Godaddy and ete: 4.6 || Digital Marketing $HostGator See Powerful Web Hosting Web Hosting Macle Easy And Affordable SPST... 700 ono Source: HostGator official website igure 4.3 By clicking on get started on hostgator, one has to choose the location like India, There are various ans like starter, business, hatching, baby etc., select a plan as per your requirement and go for buy now. his is how one may buy a space on the server. we The most reliable Shared Web Hosting SeThe most reliable Shared Web Hosting STARTER HATCHLING. easy BUSINESS 21M9/m0 + 212490 + ££299/m0 + a1 9°899ine Source: HostGator offical website Figure 4.4 Website Planning and Development || 4.7 €) Defining the purpose and goals of website A website isa way to reach potential clients and customers locally and around the globe. Before planning the website development, it is very important to define the objectives behind developing a website For example the objective behind developing an e-commerce website is to provide a platform to the consumers where selling of products and services can be done, similarly the objective of a business website is to create brand awareness and to contribute towards expansion and growth, and hence an increase in profits. Every kind of a website like an educational website, a banking website, a school ‘website, a blog have all different objectives and therefore one needs to define the purpose of the website development D) Deciding budget A professional website requires efforts, time and money. Though website development is not very expensive but a creative and professional website requires creativity and for which business may consider to take help of professionals. Therefore, itis recommended that one must always set a budget for meeting website expenses which may include funds for web designing and layout, buying a domain name, programming, and web hosting etc. E) Understand your target audience and finalize keywords Different age groups may be sensing for something different and unique when they visit any website. For example one may visit a website for gaining insights about a brand Le. merely for information purpose, hile others may visit your website for buying a product. Understanding your audience wants, behavioral pattern and expectations therefore becomes very crucial and important for planning your website. It is equally important for a website developer to research keywords for a website as it helps in achieving the objective of generating maximum traffic to your website and hence in realizing the objective of search engine optimization. One can take help of keyword planner tools to identify keywords for a website like google keyword planner, keyword shitter and many more. F) Create a content strategy Content is what information are you producing through your website. The content has your voice and can be presented in different ways like in the form of videos, images, ebooks, case studies and many more. While developing contents for your website you must under your audience persona and goals‘while others may visit your website for buying a product. Understanding your audience wants, behavioral pattern and expectations therefore becomes very crucial and important for planning your website. It is equally important for a website developer to research keywords for a website as it helps in achieving the objective of generating maximum traffic to your website and hence in realizing the objective of search engine optimization, One can take help of keyword planner tools to identify keywords for a website like google keyword planner, keyword shitter and many more. F) Create a content strategy Content is what information are you producing through your website. The content has your voice and can be presented in different ways like in the form of videos, images, ebooks, case studies and many more. While developing contents for your website you must under your audience persona and goals behind website development. Quality contents generates lot of traffic and leads to higher conversions which further provides lot of associated advantages as well. Therefore, it is always advisable to do market research before developing and finalizing contents, G) Designing of blueprint and layout of your website A good website design will always drive traffic to your website where as a poorly designed website may drive away traffic from your website permanently. The ideal website layout must consider a user friendly approach, The following things must be kept in mind while deciding the layout and structure of your website like: (a) make your website easy to navigate, 4.8 || Digital Marketing (b) font size and style should be such as easy-to-read, (©) use responsive design to make it adaptable on every device and fit on all screen types, (d) keep your website light so that it loads quickly, (e) keep styles and colors consistent across the website, ete. H) Testing and launching of website Before finally launching a website it is always recommended to test your website to avoid any kind of inconvenience on the part of users and to avoid leaving a bad impression in case if itis not functioning properly. Various types of testing can be done like performance test, loading test, capacity test and etc. Many companies are providing testing service such as Soasta, Neustar, BTC Technologies etc, You can always go for re-testing and until you are confident about the functioning and operationality of your website you must wait. You may launch the website for public accessibility after being satisfied from the different tests results, 1) Maintenance Maintaining a website is a continuons process and one must need to be very particular in maintaining a website and updating as per the changes that are taking place in environment. We must constantly check for errors, monitoring user experience and meeting up to their expectations, ensuring content updation, deleting outdated information which is no longer relevant are some of the aspects which requires regular attention.4.3. Understanding Site user Requirement Website users refers to all those web users who visit your website. Website user is also known as web traffic and is measured in visits, often known as “sessions.” and is a popular way to measure an online business effectiveness. It is believed that if you are successful in meeting the expectations of users then you will have large visitors on your website which in turn will offer various beneiits. Your website is indeed a magnet for forming an opinion—and this opinion isn't restricted to the website itself, rather it would result in forming an opinion about the the company as a whole. A poorly designed website can damage a company’s credibility significantly and therefore itis very important for a business to understand user's requirement from a website and to develop the website accordingly. A user friendly website can result in increasing its influence and a higher conversion rates, User's Requirement Different types of users can be found exploring your website, Success on the Web comes when a company understands the expectations of people that visit their website and by developing a website that meets, 4.14 || Digital Marketing user requirements, This helps in improving usability and helps in achieving the objective of a website. The various kind of user’s requirements can be: Mobile Fiandly Website Engoging Visuals t Loading Speed Quality Content _-¥ Complete Information a ™ YN cts Colour and Contrast Contact Page Navigation Figure 4.8 1) Mobile friendly website: It is projected that in India by the end of 2023, 500 million smartphone users out of 875.38 smart phone users will have access to the internet via mobile phones (source: statista). 57% of internet users prefer a website that is mobile friendly and therefore the companies must plan and develop a highly responsive website which adjusts according to the screen size of any device like laptop, desktop, mobile, tab and any other. 2) Loading speed: Web users expect your site to load at lightning speed on any kind of device. Half of the users prefer those websites where the loading speed is high, as high as two to three seconds and abandon those website where the loading time is more than three seconds. By increasing your website speed one can increase conversions and search engine rankings, that’s why its one of the popular way for website optimization techniques. Poor performing websites can be a very major issue at times and you may loose potential customers. Low speed leaves ‘majority of visitors to your website highly disappointed 3) Complete information: When site users land on your page, they want to get detailed information to arrive at a decision. Insufficient and incomplete information may create doubts in the mind of users and may leave a ba4) Navigation: When a user lands on a website, they often look to the navigation bar to orient themselves with the page. The navigation bar is essential because it allows the site visitor throughout their visit on your site and serves as a tool to go ack to the landing page. Your ‘websites navigation structure has an immense impact on conversions, sales, and bounce rates. If user can't figure out where to find what they want, they'll leave a website and no one wants the user to do so, Therefore, users expectations with respect to clarity, hierarchical website navigations should be planned that allows them to find what they want instantly should be designed. 5) Color and contrast: As per users color and contrast of your website also matters and therefore ‘one must carefully select an attractive and appealing combinations of colour for a website. It ‘Website Planning and Development || 4.15, ‘must be soothing to the eyes of the users and also must add beauty to your website. Not only does your color need to make sense for your brand, but the contrast between the background and text also need to be perfect so that the user can read text easily without any difficulty. 6) CTAs: Site users who decide to perform any action on your website such as registration, buying, or any other must know how to take the next step. Call to action therefore needs to be simple and easy to locate. You must add appropriate CTA button with easy label for allowing users to perform the desired action, 7) Contact page: Approximately 51% of the people believe that complete contact information is something many websites are missing, Therefore as per users the website must provide complete contact information such as registered office address, email, contact number, customer care number, toll free number, live chat option etc, This information promotes credibility and trust among site user. 8) Great content: Users are always interested in information that is timely, appropriate, relevant, complete and appealing, All the content on your site should be customized according to your user. Content helps in creating brand awareness, maintaining long-term relationships with the users and in acquiring new customers. If planned and executed carefully, content will boost the traffic to your business website, increase the social following and even force out market competition, 9) Engaging visuals: Users not only expect your site to include quality content but must also features a range of visual information. Videos, images, infographics and photos can be used with text to ensure users satisfaction and engagement, Now a days the average time span has nificantly dropped to 3-4 seconds, so your website must ensure to appeal the user within such a short span of time. Beside the above expectations of a user, users also expects from you to regularly update your website, font size should be appropriate and one must keep a regular interaction and collect feedback on what all improvements can be done on a website. Methods to Determine Site users Requirement ‘There are various methods that can be employed to know about site users requirement. Let us now discuss some of the most common methods to find out users requirement. 1) Survey: An online survey is one of the best, easy and quick way to collect the users response, ‘The questions to be asked need to be carefully planned and selected in order to ensure the coverage of every possible aspect. It is also recommended to give a space at the end of the survey ‘where the user can add additional inputs in case if they wish. By doing this we can ensure that, ‘any aspect in case has been missed out will be covered in this way. Also ask the participants about their willingness to be the part of such surveys in future. There are many survey tools that may be considered such as: © SurveyMonkey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/ ~ easy to set up, but has no mobile survey interface © SurveyMe: http://www survey-me.co.uk/Methods fo Determine Site users Requirement There are various methods that can be employed to know about site users requirement. Let us now discuss some of the most common methods to find out users requirement. 1) Survey: An online survey is one of the best, easy and quick way to collect the users response. ‘The questions to be asked need to be carefully planned and selected in order to ensure the coverage of every possible aspect. It is also recommended to give a space at the end of the survey where the user can add additional inputs in case if they wish. By doing this we can ensure that any aspect in case has been missed out will be covered in this way. Also ask the participants about their willingness to be the part of such surveys in future. There are many survey tools that may be considered such as: © SurveyMonkey: htip://www.surveymonkey.com/ ~ easy to set up, but has no mobile survey interface © SurveyMe: http://www.survey-me.co.uk/ 2) Focus Group: Focus group (online or offline) is suitable when one needs to collect a rich insight. ‘The objective of a focus group is to generate a discussion between a number of participants 4.16 || Digital Marketing and unlike one-to-one interview, focus groups allow members of a group to interact with one another and influence each other. It is very beneficial to provide an initial hands-on testing of a prototype of your app, website or tool and to collect user stories. 3) Diary study: A diary study allows users to try out a prototype interface in their own preferred time and locations where they often use their mobile device. In order to get adequate feedback, it is recommended to send users regular reminders to use the interface and make the feedback process quick. The various feedback techniques can include mobile-optimised feedback form , link to a mobile survey providing a phone number where participants can call to record verbal feedback via voicemail ete. 4) User stories: User stories technique is used as a part of fast and active development and are suited for providing direction to development being completed in a short timescale with the intention to develop further iterations and enhancements. Here selected users are asked to fill in the blanks in a statement that provides information such as what type of user they are, what they want to be able to do through their mobile interface and why? 5) Interviews: This is a method where one meets with participants or may contact telephonically one-on-one basis and discuss in depth what the participant thinks about the topic in question. Such a method could be very tiring and time consuming. 6) Byetracking: In this method, an eyetracking device is configured to precisely monitor where participants look as they perform tasks or interact naturally with websites, applications, physical products, or environments. This is the best way to identify which corner is mostly preferred by the users and such space can be best explored for gaining maximum benefit. Techniques for validating and refining user’s requirement: After collecting the feedback from the users on various inputs, the next step is to analyse the inputs in depth and take appropriate action. A number of useful techniques can be employed in the process of validating and refining user requirements such as: 1) Brainstorming: It is a group creativity technique where efforts are made to arrive at a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by the4.4 Developing and Testing Content Content development is one of the most important and crucial step for ensuring the online presence and getting more leads conversions. For ensuring success in content development, you must create content according to the needs and goals of the overall marketing strategy. For most of the businesses, producing great content on a regular basis isa big challenge. 64% of the marketers believe that building a scalable content strategy is one of the biggest challenge before them. (Content Marketing Institute). Stages in Content Development To develop the contents, one may follow the following steps: 1) Defining Goals: The process of content development begins with defining goals that we want to achieve with our content and that could be driving more traffic, generating leads, increasing lead conversions or boosting brand awareness ete. 2) Identifying the Target Audience: The next step must be to know and understand the audience persona for whom we are creating content like the demographic and psychographic details of our target audience, preferences, pain points, where do they spend their time online most?, what persuades their buying decisions? etc. 3) Keyword Research: ‘The next step is to find out the most preferred keywords for a business ‘This is extremely important to identify and select the keywords as it is the keywords only that would help your business to appear in maximum searches on search engines. There are various keyword planner tools as well that can be used to finalize the keyword for our business like google keyword planner, keyword shitter and many more. 4) Outline Preparation: ‘The next step after defining the topic and identifying the target audience and keywords is to prepare the outline of content. This step is very important as it helps in keeping your contents more organized and will also ensure that the piece of content flows in a logical manner. It is equally important when the organiza planning to outsource the content development. Outline of content includes the following heads: * The topic including the main and sub headings. The target audience. * Content length. ‘+ Formatting guidelines like font size, type, line spacing, colour contrast and combination, etc ‘* Use of multimedia like images, videos, graphics ete 4.18 || Digital Marketing Content Testing “Content testing” refers to the practice of testing whether or not your content is suitable for the audience for whom the contents have been designed and whether or not they are able to understand and comprehend it. For good content, testing it is very important to know your audience as we have discussed above. Usability, readability and understanding of contents is very important from both audience and business perspective and is influenced by the choice of words, length of sentences, grammar, and sentence structure, ele. Therefore in content testing more attention is assigned to the way how the content developer has designed and expressed the contents.