Digital and Social Media Marketing (MM302)

Assignment no. 1

Q1- What is Digital Marketing?

Answer- Digital marketing is the use of the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other
channels to reach consumers. Some marketing experts consider digital marketing to be an entirely new
endeavour that requires a new way of approaching customers and new ways of understanding how customers
behave compared to traditional marketing.

Digital marketing targets a specific segment of the customer base and is interactive. Digital marketing is on the
rise and includes search result ads, email ads, and promoted tweets – anything that incorporates marketing with
customer feedback or a two-way interaction between the company and customer. Internet marketing differs from
digital marketing. Internet marketing is advertising that is solely on the Internet, whereas digital marketing can
take place through mobile devices, on a subway platform, in a video game, or via a smartphone app.

Digital Marketing Channel

Website Marketing

A website is the centrepiece of all digital marketing activities. Alone, it is a very powerful channel, but it’s also
the medium needed to execute a variety of online marketing campaigns. A website should represent a brand,
product, and service in a clear and memorable way. It should be fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to use.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC advertising enables marketers to reach Internet users on a number of digital platforms through paid ads.
Marketers can set up PPC campaigns on Google, Bing, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook and show their
ads to people searching for terms related to the products or services. PPC campaigns can segment users based on
their demographic characteristics (such as by age or gender), or even target their particular interests or location.
The most popular PPC platforms are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Content Marketing

The goal of content marketing is to reach potential customers through the use of content. Content is usually
published on a website and then promoted through social media, email marketing, SEO, or even PPC
campaigns. The tools of content marketing include blogs, eBooks, online courses, infographics, podcasts, and
webinars.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels. Many people confuse email
marketing with spam email messages, but that’s not what email marketing is all about. Email marketing is the
medium to get in touch with your potential customers or the people interested in your brand. Many digital
marketers use all other digital marketing channels to add leads to their email lists and then, through email
marketing, they create customer acquisition funnels to turn those leads into customers.

Social Media Marketing

The primary goal of a social media marketing campaign is brand awareness and establishing social trust. As you
go deeper into social media marketing, you can use it to get leads or even as a direct sales channel.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing, and the Internet has brought new life to this old
standby. With affiliate marketing, influencers promote other people’s products and get a commission every time
a sale is made or a lead is introduced. Many well-known companies like Amazon have affiliate programs that
pay out millions of dollars per month to websites that sell their products.

Video Marketing

YouTube has become the second most popular search engine and a lot of users are turning to YouTube before
they make a buying decision, to learn something, read a review, or just to relax. There are several video
marketing platforms, including Facebook Videos, Instagram, or even TikTok to use to run a video marketing
campaign. Companies find the most success with video by integrating it with SEO, content marketing, and
broader social media marketing campaigns.

SMS Messaging

Companies and non-profit organizations also use SMS or text messages to send information about their latest
promotions or giving opportunities to willing customers. Political candidates running for office also use SMS
message campaigns to spread positive information about their own platforms. As technology has advanced,
many text-to-give campaigns also allow customers to directly pay or give via a simple text message.

Q2- Explain POEM Framework.

Answer- POEM stands for Paid, Owned, and Earned Media, all of which serve as a framework for your digital
marketing strategies. Knowing more about POEM will help you come up with better marketing strategies. But
to utilise POEM for your campaign, it’s essential to understand the purpose and meaning behind each marketing
channel.
When creating a marketing campaign, don’t stick with just one strategy. To create a marketing campaign, you
need to plan several strategies that will improve your chances of success. That includes utilising excellent
marketing techniques, such as paid, owned, and earned media.
Here’s everything you need to know about POEM!

Paid Media
Whenever you think about advertising, what comes to mind? Perhaps you’ll think of ads and commercials. In
digital marketing, these are examples of paid media, a form of advertising that utilises different channels, such
as social media and search engines.
In short, the goal of paid media marketing is to deliver paid or sponsored ads to reach the right audience. In
many ways, it’s similar to traditional advertising, wherein you’ll place ads in different media, such as
newspapers, billboards, television, and radio. However, the difference is that paid media usually involves digital
marketing platforms—like social media platforms and websites, for instance.
How can you boost the effectiveness of your paid media campaign, anyway? Check out these effective
marketing strategies:
1. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to reach your target audience. Once you deliver your ads on
social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you’ll reach your target audience as soon as
possible.
Deliver your paid ads on networking sites that will benefit you the most. For instance, Facebook offers a variety
of marketing tools that will let you define your target market, analyse your performance, and share links to your
website. On the other hand, Instagram is perfect for publishing images and videos to showcase your brand and
increase brand awareness.
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing has made its return this 2020, and it remains to be one of the most effective digital marketing
strategies to date. The goal is to send emails to your customers. However, to do so, you must create a list of
subscribers who’ll receive your emails. These subscribers can be existing customers, people who’ve subscribed
to your website, or followers on your social media page.
While building your email list, you should also utilise efficient pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Your PPC ads will help
you target and reach the right audience so your email list can grow.
3. Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC)
As mentioned earlier, incorporating PPC ads in your email marketing is a tried-and-tested formula. But PPC
marketing is also excellent for boosting your site’s search engine rankings in an instant. By using a paid search
ad, Google will display a link to your website on the search results page, depending on the user’s queries and
keywords.
Owned Media
As the name suggests, owned media refers to your possessions and assets. Examples include your website,
social media page, blog posts, articles, case studies, and many more.
With the freedom to control your content, the possibilities are endless. The goal is to provide quality content for
your audience. Videos, images, articles—utilise these to your advantage so you can establish your reputation
and grow your customer base. Not to mention, doing so is much more cost-effective compared to acquiring new
customers, which can be costly in the long run.
What are some examples of owned media channels?
 Website
 Blog page
 Social media page
 Emails
 Online forums and communities

Earned Media
While owned media is the organisation of your assets, earned media refers to the activities involving such
possessions. In short, utilising your owned media channels—website, blog page, social media account—is the
definition of earned media.
Know More: The POEM Framework: How To Optimise Your Marketing Strategies?
With earned media, your objective is to create content that you can use for your website. As such, one of the
perfect ways to generate leads is to build a blog page. On your blog, you can post articles and infographics
related to your line of work. Afterwards, you can share your posts on social media to attract new customers and
engage with existing ones. That way, you can increase your customer base while expanding your audience
reach.
Some examples of earned media tactics include:
 Content marketing
 SEO
 Influencer marketing
 Social media marketing

Q3- Explain the difference between online marketing and offline marketing.
Answer- Difference between online marketing and offline marketing :

Online marketing Offline marketing

Online marketing are generally focus on content. Offline marketing are generally focus on product.

Online marketing includes third party like media, web Offline marketing includes mass media, phone
content, search e-mail, social media. center, telephone.

Online marketing communicates customers with e-mails, Offline marketing communicates with customer with
chat, social media . their mobile number and staff.

Target audience met at one place. Target audience is scattered.

It is cost effective. It is high marketing cost.

It helps in directly reaches out to the professionals of the It do not directly reaches out to the professionals due
industry and market. to some barriers.

Prospective buyer cannot visible. It directly visible to their prospective buyer.

Less people to manage. Large people to manage.

Q4- Explain SOSTAC.

Answer- The SOSTAC marketing model, created by PR Smith, is a popular and widely used model for
marketing and business planning. Whether you're creating an overall marketing or digital marketing strategy or
improving individual channel tactics like SEO or email marketing, this is the tool to use.

SOSTAC stands for;

 Situation – where are we now?

 ‍Objectives – where do we want to be?
 ‍Strategy – how do we get there?
 ‍Tactics – how exactly do we get there?
 ‍Action – what is our plan?
 ‍Control – did we get there?
The model offers a logical order for tackling your plan, and you can use it to assess your processes critically. I
guess the reason for its popularity is that it is simple and easy to understand and use. I use it a lot, and I think it
offers a perfect approach.

It is important to point out that though the SOSTAC model seems short and sweet, once you unpack it you’ll see
it requires a lot of time, effort and data to design and execute. So though following this model is certainly
rewarding, you must be mentally prepared to put in a considerable amount of work. 

To understand the effort involved, let’s go a little in depth into each of these steps.

SITUATION ANALYSIS – Where Are We Now?

This is an important first step for anyone drawing up any kind of a marketing plan – be it digital or overall. 
A situation analysis is an overview of your business. It helps you determine where your business stands at the
moment so that you can draft your strategy for the future.

A situation analysis has been defined as: A set of methods used to understand an organisation’s capabilities,
customers, potential customers and business environment by analysing internal and external factors that can
affect the business.

There are many different tools to help you do this type of analysis. My favourite is the Business Model Canvas
from Strategized. This tool is free and contains really good questions that you can ask to better understand the
situation. 

Below are some other suggestions for the components of your situation analysis:

a. Customer analysis: If you don’t know who your customers are or what they want, you cannot offer them
products or services that meet their needs or add value to their lives.

A customer analysis helps you to get a good sense of who your customers are so that you can decide which
segment you want to target as part of your marketing plan. Among other things, you need to know what is their
demographic, their location, how they found you, how they buy from you, what are the perceptions they have of
your brand, how do they interact with your brand, and what are their opinions about your competitors? 

To learn more about tools to understand customers you can have a look at my article about Customer Profiles /
Buyer personas. 

b. Product analysis: Evaluate your product or service in terms of how it delivers value to your customers. What
we are looking for is a product-market fit perspective. A tool you can use for this is the Strategized Value
Proposition Canvas that is also used to draw up a customer profile. 

c. Competitor analysis: Who are your competitors? How do they have a competitive advantage over you in
terms of price, reputation, customer service and size? How do you have a competitive advantage over them?

d. Look at the environment you operate in: These include external factors such as economic, political, social,
technological and environmental trends and their possible impact on your business.
e. SWOT analysis: You can use the findings from your environmental analysis to then conduct a Swot analysis
where you look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that may affect your business and
performance. Here you also look at internal factors such as whether you have the human capabilities and
financial resources for your new marketing plans.

OBJECTIVES – Where Are We Going

The second step in drawing up a marketing plan is to be very clear about your long-term objectives such as the
vision and mission of your marketing strategy as well as short-term objectives such as the 5S goals defined by
PR Smith as:
Sell – Grow sales and market share.
Serve – Add value to what you offer the customer.
Sizzle – Stickiness and the wow factor.           
Speak – Two-way communication with customers.
Save – Quantified efficiency gains.
Experts have suggested that each of the 5S goals must be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Relevant, Time-bound – to be effective.
Here’s one SMART example for the first 5S goal: Sell: Increase sales by 10% by the end of next quarter.

STRATEGY – How Do We Get There?

The strategy is the big picture of how you plan to achieve the objectives you have set. It also happens to be one
of the more difficult parts of the SOSTAC marketing plan, according to PR Smith.
Here, you need to make clear things like how you plan to divide the market, which segment of customers you
should focus on, what message should you use to target each segment, and how your plan compares to that of
your competitors.
PR Smith suggests using a popular marketing model called Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning or STP to
help with strategy. In this model you first identify on what basis you want to segment your customers
(demographics or lifestyle, for instance), you then pick one or more segments that you think may be the most
viable and valuable and then start developing marketing material to position your product or service in such a
way that you can target each segment separately.
Segmentation is useful because it helps you identify potential customers you may have not thought of before
such as those with specific needs. You can then design marketing messages that are targeted specifically at
them.

TACTICS – How Exactly Do We Get There.

According to PR Smith, this section outlines details of strategy such as the methods you use to achieve your
objectives. In the context of digital marketing, you need to ask questions like: What data on customers do you
have, what do you need? What methods are you going to use to reach them? Advertising, emails, content
marketing, SEO or social media? What tools and techniques will you use?
The tactics could include details of the marketing and communications mix, digital mix etc, and when each of
them must roll out and so on.

ACTION – What Is The Plan?

Here, you talk about the details of tactics. You determine who does what. You need to assess whether you have
the human resources internally or whether you need to hire new staff with the required skill sets. You must
determine whether you need the help of any external agencies or consultants. You must see if you have the
systems and processes that you need in place, and work towards organising them if they aren’t.
According to PR Smith, this step is often an afterthought, but that is a big mistake. There is no point drafting a
fantastic strategy and tactics only to slack off on action. You simply won’t achieve your objectives if that
happens.

CONTROL – How Do We Monitor Performance?

How do you know you are on track to achieving your targets? Monitoring progress is also an important step.
You must put in place systems that help you assess progress periodically – daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly.
This will ensure that at the end of the project time period, you don’t suddenly find out that things haven’t gone
as planned.
You can use web analytics, KPIs, site visitor profiles, usability testing, customer satisfaction surveys, frequency
of reporting, and who reports to whom and what happens to that feedback as part of this monitoring process,
says PR Smith.

Ashish Tripathi
ST Code- 20012
Sec-A
MBA-24