Module 3: Digital Marketing Process

Content Writer Content Reviewer

Dr.Tejinderpal Singh Prof. Purva Kansal
Associate Professor Professor
University Business School University Business School
Panajb University Chandigarh Panajb University Chandigarh

Learning Objectives

 Understanding, how digital marketing process operates under given eco system
___________________________________________________
Digital culture is trending nowadays. But digital marketing is a tedious process. This process
could facilitate businesses to enjoy benefits from digital storytelling using various social tools
available. Integration of a good digital marketing plan could act as a bridge between traditional
resources and digital media and bring out.

In this technologically motivated environment, organizations cannot simply make profits with
adopting digital marketing strategies for the products and services offered by them. In order to
have a fully functional and effective marketing program, it is very important for any organization
to have a clearly designed marketing plan. The relationship between a marketing plan and
marketing program is that between oxygen and fire. Just as without oxygen it is impossible to lit
fire, in the same way without a clear-cut marketing plan it is impossible for an organization to set
the market on fire, obviously by its performance.

Therefore, developing an actionable digital marketing plan is critical to the success of the
business. Businesses with a good digital marketing plan have 2x the revenues per employee.
They are also 2x more likely to be growing. The real challenge with digital marketing is gaining
expertise in the field. But an organization should at no cost ignore this very significant function.

Few points that can help a business develop an effective digital marketing plan:

Thinking Beyond The Website: It's time that businesses think beyond the basic website.
Organizations should look to focus more on developing a digital marketing system, which has a
wider scope than the website. A website should merely be a part of a larger digital marketing
system. Various metrics can be used to develop an effective digital marketing system:
Traffic: It is very important for a website to measure the amount of traffic on the website on a
real-time basis. Traffic can be effectively monitored using Google Analytics. It has a free as well
as a paid feature.

Contacts: Merely ensuring traffic on the website doesn't guarantee the success of the
organization. What's most essential is converting traffic into contacts.

Customers: This metric can be effectively traced using the organization's accounting system and
customer relationship management.

Steps in the digital marketing process flow as follows:

● Making the digital strategy

● Creating the visibility of the brand
● Bringing the traffic to websites and social media platforms
● Converting traffic into the potential leads
● Lead Conversion
● Measuring and tracking
● Retention

Step 1 - Making the digital marketing strategy:

If you don't know where we are heading, we will never reach, that's why a good strategy for
digital marketing decisions developing, integrating and balancing the digital marketing strategies
is the first step of the digital marketing process. An ideal digital strategy aligns with the vision of
business or any other entity dealt with.

The key determinants for making a digital marketing strategy are:

1)Long term and short term goals

2)Challenges being faced currently
3)Challenges which are likely to arise in future
4)Futuristic prospects and mechanism to attract those prospects
5)Competitors and policies used by them
6)The budget for the digital marketing program
7)Expected ROI (Return on Investment)

Step 2 - Creating the visibility of the brand:

Visibility can be defined as the degree to which something has attracted attention or prominently
seen. Being noticed by the audience is the motive behind the application of digital marketing
tools. the Brand awareness is very necessary for the success of any business or blog. Develop the
content in such manner that the brand that visibility of brand is enhanced.

We can let masses know or see us by:

1. Websites
2. Mobile Apps(Android and Ios)
3. YouTube channels
4. Blogs
5. Accounts or pages on various social media handles like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
LinkedIn and others
6. Emails

*Note that the websites should not only have great content on desktop version but must be fully
compatible with mobile devices. The audience expects consistent and coherent data along with
smooth accessibility.

The paid, owned and owned media has to be selected according to specific needs.

● Owned Visibility: Websites, Blogs, Videos, Social MediaProfiles(Facebook, Twitter,

Instagram, LinkedIn etc.
● Paid Visibility: Paid Ads, paid search, paid content, paid links
● Earned Visibility: Viral marketing, SERP(Search Engine Results Page), Word of Mouth

But the choice must be very judiciously. One study found that 18-34-year-olds mostly ignore
online banner and digital ads. As per estimates, 54% of internet users are most likely don't click
on banner ads as they don't trust them (eMarketer, 2014)
"When building a brand online, too many people rush to buy ads and acquire traffic to drive
revenues by brute force. Small efficiency improvements in conversion rates, email capture and
retargeting can pay huge dividends-tighten up the mouse trap first, then buy eyeballs. You'll
acquire and retain customers more cost-efficiently and keep money in your coffers for higher risk
marketing strategies." Tony Delmercado, co-founder and COO of Hawke Media

Step 3 - Bringing traffic to your business's websites and social media platforms:
Digital marketing could only be used to fullest when we could use the strategies towards getting
traffic. Check what drives traffic for you and what not. Quality traffic could be further converted
to leads and final conversions. Some crucial tools for this are:
 ● Display Advertising: Display advertisements are definitely an eye-catching mechanism
for getting prospective customers. Display Ads are two types: 1) Retargeted Ads 2)
Informative Ads
● Pay Per Click Advertising: Pay Per Click Advertising is a good mechanism to generate
traffic. Pay Per Click advertisements should be optimized. Be on top of the minds.
● Email Marketing: Emails work better than mobile notifications as they are free of cost for
consumer class and some mobiles have space constraints for text messages. Rates of
● The number of email users worldwide is forecasted to rise to 2.9 billion by 2019 (Word
Stream,2018). Businesses should expand and refine their email distribution to reach out
audience on a larger level.
● Search Engine Optimization: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is has a tremendous
effect on the reach of targeted audience. On a monthly basis, 20% of Google searches are
for local business and 46% are for products or services. Industry experts state that Google
updates its algorithm,500 times a year. It is very important to check for keywords which
gain or lose traction in search engine operations. Keep updating and auditing SEO
regularly to stay searchable and discoverable consistently.
● Social Media Optimization: Most excellent venue to reach masses is social media. People
are more responsive when others like or comment positively on your businesses. Out of
every 4, 3 are active users of social media platforms. Edelman Trust Barometer (2018)
found that 63% of businesses' marketing improved with help of social media. 67% of
people use social media for customer service inquiries (JD Power, 2015) . So we can say
that social media is the best way for online presence. Facebook is good for B2C
businesses and twitter is great platform to share ideas and giving new content. It is always
advisable to schedule your posts according to best times reflected in insights to engage
more people.
● Blogging: Blogging gives a marketing standing to the brand. In other words, blogging
gives a voice to the brand it is associated with. 91% of masses said that they are likely to
purchase from a brand with authenticity rather than a generic one. Blogs are estimated to
attract 42% more of what normal traffic a website has. 300% more indexed pages are
produced as an outcome of blogging.
● High-quality webinars and live events: Working on a bigger picture, webinars and live
events play an advantageous role.

Source for estimates: emarkable.ie

Step 4 - Engaging the audience:

After identifying the target audience, next step is to engage the audience. Use the data got from
the business houses, social media platforms, websites and other sources in targeting audience in
the digital marketing campaigns. According to Nielsen Norman Group, the majority of the
people who visit any website, stick only if their interest gets generated in first 59 seconds. In
simple words, online engagement is when the audience does any desired activity, buy a product,
download a PDF or any other media file, browse information, sign up for membership or
newsletter, read a free case study and various other actions. Engagement is not only crucial for
current customers, but also past customers so that they could be retained.

Step 5 - Converting the traffic into leads:

Converting traffic into potential needs is a basic requirement of companies targeting a large
customer base. We need to use digital to make customers search, review, engage, buy and do
other desired actions. The transition of traffic to leads could be done by incorporating the
appropriate call to action and appealing offers.
*Call to Action is the activity which we desire from our visitor or audience when a person visits
the landing page.

1)Building of landing page

2)CRM Integration
3)Placing "Call to Action"

Step 6 - Lead Conversion:

Lead conversion is of two kinds:

● Micro Conversion
● Macro Conversion

Micro Conversion:Micro conversions refers to various activities through which audience engages
before final purchase of any goods or services. Examples of micro conversions are PDF
download, subscription of any newsletter, signup for membership or email, browsing extensive
information or creation of an account.

Macro Conversion: Macro conversions are primarily ascribed to the product or service of the
website. Example sales transactions

Step 7 - Measuring and tracking:

The next step is to design measurement and analytics. There are tools and testings available for
measurement of the effectiveness of the digital marketing strategies to achieve the goals.
Improvisation is impossible unless the performance is tracked and reviewed.

Key factors to be tested and measured are:

● Behaviour of traffic
● SEO Success
 ● Social Media campaign performance
● Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign performance
● Return on investment

Traditionally, this was a challenge. But nowadays but now there are various tools to gather data
and measure the impact of the initiatives taken while the digital marketing process.

Google Analytics gives all the information from the number of visitors, time spent, the source of
arrival on the landing page, demographic details and other data relevant for evaluating the results
of strategies used.

Step 8- Retention:
Retention can only make sure that digital marketing stays fruitful to your businesses. If
customers or visitors leave, all step by step efforts of digital marketing strategy will go in vain.
Retention is of two basic types:

● Horizontal Retention:When a consumer goes up and down the range of products for
purchases, it is called horizontal retention.
● Vertical Retention: When a consumer purchases the same chain of goods and services
offered, it is called vertical retention.

A research showed that 5% increase in customers retained, could generate up to 125%of profits.
According to Bain and Co. (a global management consultancy), the cost of attracting new
customers amounts 7 times of what it costs to retain the old ones. Therefore, if retention plan is
set well in digital marketing or digital communications process, revenues will increase leading to
the long-term profitability of the business. Also, referral marketing strategy is not just relevant to
the scope of new business, but every business.

Now let’s have a look at case of Cisco’s digital marketing funnel for better understanding.

―It‘s no longer digital marketing, it‘s marketing in a digital world,‖ says Joseph Puthussery, vice
president, digital marketing at Cisco. ―The world has transformed, and every marketer has to
think about how expectations have changed.‖

This comment comes at a time when Cisco is in the middle of a digital transformation.
Puthussery further stresses the changing environment how this change is disrupting various
business models, by citing examples of the hotel and taxi industry.

―The best customer experience anywhere sets the bar for customer experience everywhere,‖ says
Puthussery, speaking at the ANA‘s Masters of B2B Marketing conference in Chicago. It is quite
clear that the global giant is taking the process of digitizing its marketing program very seriously
and rightly so.

Next week, the company is going to host 30,000 people at Cisco Live. But, as Puthussery notes,
he has 30,000 people visiting Cisco.com every day. ―We might have 30,000 people in the room
[in Orlando], but we might have more than 100,000 online at any given time watching the
keynotes, and we need to make that experience come together.‖

Puthussery has further outlined 5 pillars of digital transformation for Cisco:

Customer Experience:Puthussery highlights the importance of connecting with the customer at

every touch point and not only through the website. Social, advertising and digital all have to
work together with live events. ―We need to combine data and keep the journey going in an
omnichannel experience,‖ he says.

Content Marketing: With the change in both business and marketing environment the job of
content writers has also evolved. Rather than concentrating on 30-page white papers, writers
should be focused on content that will create a social conversation and create engagement. ―You
need to identify personas and create the content that will take the customer on the desired
journey,‖ he says.

Analytics and Insights: ―We have 30 billion records of data,‖ he says. It should be noted that
there is no point to having huge amounts of data unless it cannot be used. It has been one of the
biggest investments of Cisco to be able to connect every single touchpoint back to data to
understand the overall customer experience.

Performance Marketing: ―We‘re good at looking at the bottom of the funnel—it‘s easy to look at
pipeline and bookings, but the real question is what do you do at the top of the funnel,‖
Puthussery notes. Cisco is aiming to study harder metrics to improve its marketing operations
through an engagement score that takes different touch points into account to score each
customer interaction.

Automation: Cisco has built a strong technological foundation comprising of systems to manage
the video, search and other marketing strategies. The company is also focusing heavily on
machine learning. ―We‘ll augment as we go," Puthussery added.

Some essentials to keep in mind while creating a digital marketing process in 2018:

Targeting the Right Customers with the Right Option: This is the first step in process of
development of an effective marketing plan. The marketing plan should focus on the target
audience. The organization should look to deliver more value to this target group of consumers.
There are a number of ways by which an organization can select their target audience:

Segmentation: This is the most popular way of selecting the target group of customers, in order
to achieve the desired results. Factors like a number of competitors, average profitability of the
segment should be considered before selecting a segment. The market (consumers) can be
divided into segments on the basis of behavior, demographics, company-specific information,
psychology, and geography.

Personas: Personas somewhat aim at creating a fictional picture of the target consumer by
identifying how they act, their goals, skills, attitudes and environment. This helps the
organization to engage with the consumers at a more personal level.

Jobs or Work To Be Done: This method of dividing the consumers not only helps the
organization is assessing their needs and preferences but also helps them to know which job is
hardest and most important.

Ensuring that it is Easier for the Customers to Find the Business: All the marketing efforts of
the organization shall reap no result unless the consumer is able to find and reach the business
easily. It is the responsibility of the organization to ensure that prospective consumers don't find
any difficulty in reaching the business. In order to connect well with the customers, the business
needs to be a part of their world. This can be done in many ways by using techniques like
influencer marketing, social media marketing, retargeting, advertising etc.

Using Right Technology: It is very crucial for the organization to select the right technology.
This selection depends on the maturity of the marketing program of the organization. For a new
organization that is just getting started, it is logical to use simple and low-cost tools like
Squarespace, whereas large and more established organizations having higher budget can opt for
a more integrated platform like HubSpot.

Digital Storytelling : The Next Big Thing?

A story is the most interesting thing that one person can say to the other provided it is worth
hearing. It can be told in a variety of ways and it is up to the brands to create the story so that
people can interpret it the way they want to. Roping in a traditional storyline for promoting a
brand with the conventional sequence of introduction, rising action and climax is going to be
inefficient because the people online have much shorter attention spans. Any video which says a
story must grab the attention of the audience within three seconds else it is a fail. It may be noted
that the channel or medium through which you say the story also plays a role in grabbing the
interest of the audience. It is much different to view a video on YouTube as compared to one on
Instagram. More time must be devoted to develop the essential elements of video storytelling
that grabs the different senses of people. Interestingly, an effective story is a collective effort on
developing each of the following elements to its mature maximum:

Humor

Humor is as contagious as it can get. Most of the viral videos nowadays are content which are
funny, and thus are shared amongst friends and peers. If a dark matter is brought to light through
humor, it plays a greater impact to create a positive image of the brand on the viewer.
Essentially, an effective story must combine humor, a great social message and explain how the
brand is influencing it; all these with the greatest executional skills.

Morals

Arguably, connecting with audience by plugging in with their emotions and morals is the best
thing ever a brand can do. Developing common feels of issues, odds facing against you, a sense
of un-fulfillment and making it relatable with the audience can actually make them ‗become
friends‘ with your brand. This in turn results in deeper reach and more leads.

Food for thought

Another dimension in which a good story operates is providing something for the audience to
think about, discuss about and perhaps even debate about. The best brands play with your
mindsets and make you alter the way you have been thinking about something. Storytelling is the
art of grabbing the common pulse of thought amongst the viewers and synthesizing them for a
thought which can ultimately force them to connect with your brand.

What’s the right amount for the companies to spend on Digital Marketing?

Finding published data about company budgets for digital marketing is not a big task with the
advent of Internet. But it is essential to know in a nutshell the patterns of investment by
companies so as to predict the areas of digital marketing a future company will need to invest in.
Note that the following information is specifically for B2B marketing.

Clearly, digital marketing is fast becoming the major sector in the overall pie of digital marketing
expenditure. In fact it is predicted by eMarketer that, digital marketing spending will account for
45% of the total amount spent on marketing strategies.

In digital marketing, according to Hanapin Marketing, Adwords and Mobile is a key area which
businesses want to increase their budgets in. Out of the number of companies interviewed, the
stats revealed that 75% of them wanted to amp up their budget on Adwords and Mobile thanks to
the every sustaining power of Google and the increase consumption of portable media on the go.
Also, a CMO survey has reported that the spending on mobile digital marketing will increase by
118% in the period of the next three years. As of today, the mobile may not really be the
dominating source of traffic but the rate at which it is growing, it is set to surpass any desktop
and web traffic within the next half a decade.

Another CMO Survey has reported that companies (B2B) spend on an average 6% - 9% of their
annual budgeting on marketing. Service providing businesses usually form the lower regions of
that scale whereas companies inclined to produce products dominate the higher ends of that
scale.

The biggest issue though, that B2B companies face is garnering the expected ROI from the
marketing expenses. After reviewing hundreds of companies worldwide, the issues which stem
this are two – fold

One, companies fail to ensure that the marketing staff is strong and efficient. They often do not
stress on goals and deadlines making marketing a more flexible undertaking than what are
necessary.

Two, companies fail to allocate the right amount of money towards marketing. This can arise
from having incomplete data and skilled personnel on board who fail to either understand the
necessity of marketing or have simply no clue on how to handle any amount of budget allocated.

In short, for any B2B business to work, it has to seamlessly move from the traditional methods of
marketing by getting the right power on board to guide through the different strategies and tricks
involved in digital marketing.

How is Digital Marketing Evolving as a Culture?

Digital Marketing is all about riding the wave at the right time. Companies, who catch it at the
perfect time and the perfect spot, reap rich rewards. But here are the major drivers for digital
marketing which are continually shaping it every single day:

 Companies have got more exposure to real time data. Earlier, they had to wait for months
to get an estimate of the revenues, the sell – in and targeted analysis results corresponding
to a marketing trend. But companies now have more number of parameters and greater
data available at hand. Having the right skill set to make sense of the data is one thing
which all companies tirelessly look for in its hires.
  Marketing is no longer a one-time relationship. Brands nowadays, have started to connect
morally with its consumers and aim to provide benefits for lifetime to them in return for
staying loyal with their brand. For instance, purchasing a pizza through the Domino‘s
store will entitle you to receive discounts and other offers, sometimes personalized all for
years together.

 Marketing processes are quick. It is now easier for companies to implement the A/B
strategy while marketing since it has become incredible simple to create digital products
for the same. Also the route to implementation of them have become extremely user –
friendly and companies now no longer have to wait for days to have their ad or poster
printed on a newspaper or telecasted on the TV.

Digital Marketing : Another Case Study

A simple loyalty program helped a brewing brand connect better with customers. A global
brewing company through its smartphone app launched a loyalty program wherein any customer
that purchases a beer is given credits which can be utilized at bars, pubs and even restaurants.

The benefits of this turned out to be two fold. One, the company knows its most loyal customers,
their behaviors and methods of spending and redeeming and now the company can create
consumer specific marketing plans. Two, it also knows the outlets which now accept their
credits; as a result, they can target location – specific for promoting their brand.

Using the continuous amount of data supplied to them and testing and retesting the marketing
strategies, the company finally adopted the near perfect parameters to ensure the maximum
leads. Through this, the company managed to cut – off the 20% customer drop off through the
application and overall reduce the ratio of consumer inactiveness.

Conclusion

The process of Digital Marketing is a complex one and it is certainly not something that works
on a trial and error principle. Although, this error can be undertaken if the proper amounts of
data is available at the disposal. Every company who aspires to excel in marketing has to follow
a systematic series of steps to first identify the parameters essential to creating the right plan and
must ensure a near – perfect team to execute that.