Importance of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing for Contemporary Business

This report discusses the importance of digital marketing and social media marketing for contemporary business. It covers the marketing mix and where communication mix fits. It provides examples of successful social media content and effective digital marketing campaigns. It introduces the AIDA planning model for digital marketing. It also explains why social media content is effective in attracting and engaging customers.

Practice digital
marketing
1

CONTENTS
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1...........................................................................................................................................3
Marketing....................................................................................................................................3
Marketing mix and where communication mix fit.................................................................3
Digital marketing........................................................................................................................4
Social media marketing............................................................................................................5
Digital marketing and social media marketing importance to contemporary business..5
PART 2...........................................................................................................................................6
Example of social media content............................................................................................6
Screenshot of effective campaign and model of digital marketing....................................7
Digital marketing model:..........................................................................................................8
Social media content is effective............................................................................................8
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................10
2

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is defined as the process of interacting and then persuading the
potential customers with information about eth benefits and value that a particular
product or service is offering in market and the n persuading consumers to make
purchases. The marketing is consider to be the pillar of success for any organisation as
it help in keeping the customers engaged with brand and remain loyal toward brand that
help in achieving competitive edge at marketplace (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker and
Brennan, 2018) The current report is focused over digital marketing and its importance
for contemporary business. This report involve a discussion regarding basic
understanding about marketing, marketing mix, digital and social media marketing along
with its importance for contemporary business. Other than this it also present detail
about the social media content importance and model of digital marketing.
PART 1
Marketing
Marketing is defined as the set of actions that an organisation take in order to
promote communicate and sell its product or services to the final consumers who
demanded for it in exchange of money. It is considered to be a business process which
work toward identifying, anticipating and satisfying the consumer need by providing
them appropriate information regarding the presence of product or services offered by
company and then persuading them to make purchases. Its main role is to provide a
connection between an organisation and customers by setting up the communication
medium from where consumers get idea about the product or services that can satisfy
their need and channels through which they can get those products.
Marketing mix and where communication mix fit
Marketing mix refers to the set of actions or tactics that are undertaken by the
company in order to promote its product, services or brand within the marketplace. It
consists of seven elements that combinedly form a marketing strategy in order to
present a particular product or services in marketplace effectively (Huang and Sarigöllü,
2014). These are explained below,
 Product: - It is about the item which is actually going to be sold in market, where
it is ensured by an organisation that its product must deliver a minimum level of
3

performance otherwise it won’t be able to get positioned in marketplace and deal
with competitors.
 Price: - It refers to the monetarily value that a consumer pays on exchange of
product. The price of a product is depending on the factor such as production
cost, ability of market to pay, demand, target market and promotional cost.
 Place: - It is about the point of sale from where the consumer can access the
product or services they want. In order to get success a company must focuses
toward making the product easy to access to the consumers so that they get their
product more conveniently (Fan, Lau and Zhao, 2015).
 Promotion: - It involve set of actions taken by company in order to communicate
about product or services with customers such as advertising, press report, word
of mouth publicity, direct marketing etc.
 People: - All organisation relies on people who run the marketing activities from
front line sales staff to managing director. Therefore, hiring and retaining right
employees are crucial in order to offering the product or services in right manner.
 Process: - The delivering of products or services to final consumer must be
more efficient and convent so that consumers get their demand fulfilled in least
possible time period to make them satisfied.
 Physical evidence: - The physical evidence are actually the attribute present at
the point if sale which help in attracting and convincing the consumers to make
purchases regarding a particular product or services.
Other than this, communication mix also plays a significant role in ensuring that
customers get and interpret the information in right manner. it is a part of marketing mix
which fits under the promotional element. It supports in promoting the company or its
product to the target market. The communication mix involve elements such as
advertising element, personal selling and direct marketing, discount and promotions,
Public relation, direct marketing and event sponsorship.
Digital marketing
The digital marketing is defined as set of marketing practices that are performed
using digital channels such as mobile devices, internet, social media marketing, search
engine etc. It is mainly used to adopt most convenient way of promoting brand which
4

allows a company to approach larger number of audiences at a time and provide a
better way of developing an interaction among brand and consumer using electronic
medium (Chaffey, 2019). The inception of digital marketing has bring totally a new
scenario in marketing where it provide a two way communication in which the
consumers can respond to marketing or promotional practices of an organisation which
provide an idea about the improvement or changes to be made in product to alter it as
per the customers demand.
Social media marketing
The social media marketing is defined as the set of actions that undertaken by an
organisation for creating the content or messages and promoting the business as well
as product over several social media platform such as Facebook, twitter,. Instagram,
YouTube etc. Under this a unique content is being tailored by an organisation regarding
a specific product along with taking into consideration the platform which is being adopt
(Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017). This support in boosting up the conversation
among target market and support in increasing the brand awareness. The social media
marketing has provided with a medium where the consumers as well as brand can meet
with each other virtually and share the information in more clear manner.
Digital marketing and social media marketing importance to contemporary business
The digital marketing and social media marketing has now become one of the
important part of marketing practices of a business in this techno-driven world, where
people are more engage in gathering information from online or digital sources. The
consumers are more attracted and connected with the brand that are active in term of
updating its customers on regular basis and keep track of new trends in order to
continuously alter their products as per the consumers demand. Hence, it become
crucial for the contemporary businesses to adopt digital marketing platform for dealing
with the challenges and perform well in marketplace (Kannan, 2017). This is so because
the digital marketing platform support a business in providing more convenient and
personalised services to consumers which in turn help in providing a factor to keep the
consumers connected with brand by developing a base of loyal consumers.
On the other side the social media marketing is a part of digital marketing which
allows a business to perform a two way communication by presenting the new or
5

updated information about the product or brand to the consumers and keep them
engaged with organisational affairs. With the help of digital and social media marketing
an organisation can track the activities and purchasing or trend pattern of consumers
which further support in improvising the product and creating better strategies.
PART 2
Example of social media content
Social media marketing has now become one of the most effective tool for
marketing their product or services at relatively larger scale which have the capacity to
approach millions of people at a time and attract them toward the offering of brand
(Constantinides, 2014) The social media marketing proves to be very much sacksful as
it help in presenting more clear and personalised information to the consumers and also
help a brand to maintain direct interaction with consumers. Some example of successful
social media content that proves to be successful marketing approach are mentioned
below:
 Marks & Spencer social media food campaign: The Marks & Spencer has
launched its food at social media platform by presenting a content where some
famous TV stars such as Rochelle Humes, Amanda Holden, Emma Willis and
Paddy McGuinness perform taste test its new launched product each month.
With this the episodes are launched over Instagram, Facebook, YouTube etc
where it shows that celebrities are debating over their favourite food from Italian
range of brand (M&S Food launches its 'biggest ever social media campaign'
starring celebrity taste tasters, 2018). This grab a huge attention toward the food
offered by M&S and also support in increasing its sales by providing a better
placement in market through social media influencer marketing approach.
 Mark & Spencer digital marketing campaign “Must haves”: - The Marks &
Spencer is well known for its digital marketing practices where it approach
customers with unique marketing strategies despite of attracting them through
traditional marketing method (Marks & Spencer launches digital-first Must-Haves
campaign, 2020). For this campaign the M&S marketing team make effective use
of digital channels where it use certain social media platforms like Instagram,
Facebook with inspirational videos and clear links for customers to make
6

purchases. Additionally, it make use of Google inventory advertising where
customers can easily search for a product regarding what is in local stores near
to them.
These two are the social media marketing campaign that really work for Marks &
Spencer as it help in influencing the consumers by providing them idea about the
availability of products in stores that are nearer to them. On the other hand, its food
range campaign allow the customers to get fair review from their favourite celebrities
whom they follow. These both the social media content help in attracting consumers
toward making purchases which in turn increase the sale of M&S in both online and
offline stores by creating awareness and presenting review about the product
offering.
Screenshot of effective campaign and model of digital marketing
The screenshots for the campaigns of Marks and Spencer which are performed
at digital platform and proves to be successful are mentioned below:
Marks & Spencer social media food campaign “Starring celebrity taste
tasters”:
Mark & Spencer digital marketing campaign “Must haves”: -
7

Digital marketing model:
The digital marketing is not an easy task to perform as it involve range of issues
and complications. Therefore in order to perform it in set standards and system manner
an organisation must make use of a digital framework or model to execute operations
step by step. One of such models is AIDA planning which act as a tool in guiding the
digital marketing activities and also contribute toward attracting the potential customers
in order to make purchases. This model mainly focuses over the stages through which a
buyer moves throughout his journey of deciding whether to make purchases or not. It
includes four stages attention, Interest, desire and action (How to speak to your
audience using AIDA and digital marketing, 2020). From them at first stage of Attention,
it suggest to impose several marketing practices to attract potential customers and
make them aware about brand. The next stage is interest where brand has to provide
customers with interesting information that they actually are seeking for to build up their
interest in product. At third stage desire, brand focuses toward converting the interest of
people to desire of achieving product by explaining them the manner in which product is
best suitable for their need and want. At last in action stage, here the brand is required
to make the product easily approachable by the customer so that they can take action
toward purchasing it.
8

Social media content is effective
The social media content is considered to be most effective tool for performing
the marketing practices effectively. This is so because it help in presenting the
information which approach millions of people at a time. Other than this it also help in
keeping people engaged with presenting real brand story that connect with the feeling
and emotions of customers which attract them toward purchasing of product or services
by building up trust among consumers toward brand (Zhu and Chen, 2015). The content
marketing also help in creating value among target market by sharing information about
products and its benefit in detailed manner it help in clearing all the doubts and support
in forming purchasing decision among consumers.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned information it can be conclude that digital marketing
plays a significant role in todays technological world by keeping a brand u[p to date
about trends in market and making it able to deliver product as per the demand of
consumers. Additionally, it also support in keeping customers engaged with brand by
providing them more detailed and clear information about its offering as well as regularly
updating them with new changes which is not possible in offline marketing.
9

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Armstrong, G.M., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2018. Marketing: an
introduction. Pearson UK.
Chaffey, D., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
Constantinides, E., 2014. Foundations of social media marketing. Procedia-Social and
behavioral sciences, 148, pp.40-57.
Fan, S., Lau, R.Y. and Zhao, J.L., 2015. Demystifying big data analytics for business
intelligence through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), pp.28-
32.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media
marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome,
brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer
Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY.
Kannan, P.K., 2017. Digital marketing: A framework, review and research
agenda. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), pp.22-45.
Zhu, Y.Q. and Chen, H.G., 2015. Social media and human need satisfaction:
Implications for social media marketing. Business horizons, 58(3), pp.335-345.
Online
Marks & Spencer launches digital-first Must-Haves campaign. 2020. [Online] Available
through: <https://uk.fashionnetwork.com/news/marks-spencer-launches-digital-
first-must-haves-campaign,1010069.html>
How to speak to your audience using AIDA and digital marketing. 2020. [Online]
Available through: <https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/01/08/how-speak-
your-audience-using-aida-and-digital-marketing>.
M&S Food launches its 'biggest ever social media campaign' starring celebrity taste
tasters. 2018. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/09/09/ms-food-launches-its-biggest-
ever-social-media-campaign-starring-celebrity-taste>.
10