The Role of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing – Theory and Examples

This essay discusses the effectiveness of digital marketing and social media marketing, as well as various concepts related to marketing. It highlights the role of social media marketing and its significance in today's world.

The Role of Digital Marketing
and Social Media Marketing –
Theory and Examples

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Marketing.....................................................................................................................................3
Marketing Mix and where Communication mix fits...................................................................3
Digital Marketing.........................................................................................................................4
Social Media Marketing..............................................................................................................5
Digital and Social Media Marketing significance in Contemporary Business............................5
Part 2................................................................................................................................................6
Examples of Social Media Content.............................................................................................6
Screenshots of Effective Campaigns...........................................................................................8
Effectiveness of Social Media Content........................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Digital Marketing refers to the utilization of Internet through mobile or computers for social
media, search engines and other platforms to reach buyer. Digital Marketing is an entirely new
attempt that needs a new method of approaching customers and understanding how consumers
behave in comparison to traditional marketing.
This essay discuss and describes the effectiveness of digital marketing and various concepts
related to marketing and highlight the role the social media marketing and its significance in
today’s world.
Part 1.
Marketing
Marketing denotes to all the activities that the organisation handles to promote buying and
selling of its product and services (Chaffey, 2019). Marketing is very vast concept it can also be
defined as the process for producing, communicating through advertising, selling and delivering
products that have value to buyers (customer, clients and other businesses).
Marketing Mix and where Communication mix fits
Marketing Mix –
The general way of denoting the various kinds of choices companies or businesses have to make
in the complete process of bringing a product or a service to the market. The term marketing mix
is commonly used for the classification of four Ps: Product, Price Place and Promotion. Effective
marketing helps in reaching wider range of consumers. By keeping in mind the four Ps,
company’s marketing executives can focus on the things that really matter and make strategic
decisions for launch of the product.
Product – Product or service are designed to satisfy the customers need and wants. To market a
product or service effectively, it is essential to identify that differentiates the company’s product
to its competitor.
Price – The selling price of the product is decided on the basis of that what customers are willing
to pay for it (Alves, Fernandes and Raposo, 2016). Marketing professionals of the organisation
determine the cost of the product by considering cost- based pricing, costs related to research and
development, production or manufacturing, marketing and distribution. If the price is determined
by the consumer perceived value it is known as value-based pricing.

Place – The product sold is essential while determining areas of distribution. Consumer
products, such as paper goods are readily available in various stores and the premium products
will be available only in selective stores. In place, company also decides whether it will deliver
the products through physical stores or will sell them online or will choose both cannels.
Promotion – Promotion mix consist of activities such as advertising, public relations, sales
promotion and personal selling etc. Every company’s marketing professionals primarily
determines the budget for promotion by determining the target audience and their reach that
through what ways they can be influenced.
Communication Mix –
Communication Mix denotes to the certain methods which are used to promote the company and
its products to the targeted customers (Kannan, P.K., 2017). Communication mix could be done
through advertising, social media, direct marketing, product packaging, websites and many more
to communicate with the potential customers.
Communication Mix fits to Marketing Mix –
Company generally makes the marketing plan which includes communication mix or
communication plan, which ensures that the message and the information of the company’s
product reach the end of consumer. Without using the communication mix company will not be
able to reach the target audience or the potential customers. And the good uses of communication
mix have the great significance in the success of the product. The channels of communication
mix also add the value to the product.
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing denotes to advertising conveyed through digital channels for examples search
engines, social media, mobile apps, websites, emails etc. In other words, digital marketing can be
defined as through use of the internet servers, devices and channels to reach the potential
customers. This is the new method of approaching customers in the new era to understand about
their behaviour pattern. Company’s endorse their brands, products and services by using the
online digital media channels. Today consumers relies lot on digital means to research about the
business and their products. Companies today use digital marketing as it provides the cost-
effective solution compared to traditional marketing, give advanced targeting and personalisation
options for the accurate tracking and measurement about the customers and also continuous

feedback from the customers. Digital marketing tactics consist of: SEO, Content Marketing,
PPC, Social media marketing etc.
For example – Starbucks is one of the most successful brands using the Digital media to promote
and create its unique brands. It tries to be engaged with the customers and come up with online
campaign which attracts customers.
McDonald’s also uses the bright digital marketing techniques and ideas which help them run
influential campaigns. They introduced new technology which enables customers to customize
their orders.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media marketing refers to the use of social media platforms to connect with the potential
customers and build the brand for the business by increasing the sales and driving the traffic on
website. Company has to publish great content on the social media profiles which should be
appealing and catchy which attract audience and then business should engage with the followers,
analyse the results and run advertisement on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest and so on the list is never ending (Deepak and
Jeyakumar, 2019). Social media is the powerful tool as it enables the people to engage with each
other and businesses through videos, photos, stories and various other form of the content to
increase company’s exposure.
For example – Successful High Street Brands like Nike, Adidas, and Marks & Spencer has
formulated the successful social media strategies for the growth of its business by using the
various features and tools to promote themselves and build their brand value.
Digital and Social Media Marketing significance in Contemporary Business
Engaging Customers – Digital marketing and social media marketing are extremely essential for
the businesses because with they provide the good way to interact and engage with the customers
on the personal level. By communicating and engaging with the customers and potential
customers business can win their attention and can convey their brand messages which also help
them in winning the more customers.
Increases Traffic – One of the key benefits these marketing give is that it helps to increase the
traffic on your website. By sharing the content on social media, business provides users to click

and visit their websites for the more information. The more quality content shared on social
media, the more traffic will generate making conversion opportunities for the business.
Enhances SEO Ranking – The functionality that secure and successful ranking keeps developing.
Successful brands and business tends to have healthy presence on the emerging social media
platform. The presence of business on social media platforms act as signal to the SE that
business is credible, trustworthy and valuable.
Part 2.
Examples of Social Media Content
Social Media content basically means that something that someone has posted and shared with
others. Social Media Content denotes to the link between social media and sharing of content
online on various social media platform to attract and retain followers and gain customers.
Instagram Stories – Instagram is the famous and powerful Social Media Platform and provides
the popular feature, with millions of stories being post every day. Marks and Spencer gets
creative and use this feature by posting the visual videos of its products and add stickers, texts
and gifs on the photos. Marks and Spencer also share feed post of their clothing to their stories,
which gives the company even wider audience. Instagram stories uploaded can be saved and
shown on the account page as highlights (Shareef, M.A., and et.al., 2019). So company also does
the same by posting every launch as stories and making them as highlight on their account.
Marks & Spencer use social media platforms to engage with its customers and had have gained
significant increase in its sales. Marks & Spencer has increased posting about M&S food, on
their stories to maximise the organic reach beyond the main feed. On Instagram if someone has
watched few of your stories then they have feature through which company’s post are shown to
them in their feeds, that attract the audience.
Influencer Content – Content today can be developed by the brand using the tags or quotes or
contribution from and an influence. Companies these days collaborate with the famous
influencers who have huge following and it is not the easy task to select an influencer company
needs to consider the various other factors for eg. Influencer engagement with the audience, for
baby clothing promotion company has to select the Mommy influencer etc. Marks & Spencer
pairs up with the influencers and celebrities, who fits well with their brand, who help them in
promoting their products through their social media accounts. These influencers help the

company in reaching the new potential followers or customers. Sometimes, collaborating with
the influencer is heavy in terms of the cost but Marks & Spencer is able to manage this because it
has faced success by choosing influencer content, as it is the established company so generally it
does not face any such challenges.
Figure 1: Content influencer
Source: Instagram shopping blog, 2018

Screenshots of Effective Campaigns
Figure 2: Effective Campaign
Source: Shubham Sachdeva, 2020
Tesco used the demand generator digital marketing model which spotlight on driving online
traffic and converting as many sales it can to increase marketing efficiency and grow their share
of slip. Demand generators use the all elements of digital marketing strategy - SEO, engagement
in social communities, website designing to boost sales and increase loyalty. Social media is
platform where Tesco saw people craving likes, comments and reach. It took such numbers
seriously and sees the followers on social media as their potential customers. Thus to boost the
demand and lure the online customers it offered exciting discounts and free products with
contests. This clever strategy of Tesco by offering free meals to online audience for getting zero
likes, comments and retweets helped brand to get good reach on social media with result of
increase in sales and increase in followers.
Effectiveness of Social Media Content
Consumer in Control – Social Media sites enables the brands to observe their customers on
social media, this information can be used by the brands to align their content and attract users.
To keep the track of brand’s customers, cookies help in tracking the online activities by storing

the information about the user’s browsing habits, that what page they are visiting. In short,
brands can track the customers and gather the valuable information which can help them in
coming up with something new.
Convenience of Information – Social Media content is the best and the simplest way of keeping
the customers and audience updated about the company’s new launch of the products, discounts,
offers, events etc (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). Now-a-days brands make huge and catchy
announcement about their products, an exciting events which makes the consumers more excited.
Builds Brand Loyalty – Social Media marketing plays a significant role in paid and organic
search. CTR (Click through rates) maximised by 50% when the customers are exposed to
company’s social media profile. When the online users are presented with the Brand’s social
media campaign they are more likely to click on organic links to company’s site. From this
research, brand can see how social media has contributed in building the loyalty and recognition
of brand.
Reduced Cost – Social Media is significantly cheaper in comparison to traditional advertising
methods, which did not allowed feedback from people regarding their personal experience.
Internet facility has made it easier to read and see review about anything; brands, place before
going or making commitment to purchase. Online advertising on social media is more cost
effective as it allows more targeted reach.
CONCLUSION
The essay above discuss in detail about the concept of marketing, marketing mix,
communication mix. It also explains the concept of digital marketing, social media marketing
and why these both marketing are today essential for the contemporary business. Further, this
essay gives the examples of social media content which really works, give screenshot of
effective campaign with reference to established model and standard of digital marketing and
give reasons that why social media content is effective.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Alves, H., Fernandes, C. and Raposo, M., 2016. Social media marketing: a literature review and
implications. Psychology & Marketing. 33(12). pp.1029-1038.
Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R., 2017. Digital marketing excellence: planning, optimizing and
integrating online marketing. Taylor & Francis.
Chaffey, D., 2019. Digital marketing. Pearson UK.
Deepak, R.K.A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Kannan, P.K., 2017. Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda. International
Journal of Research in Marketing. 34(1). pp.22-45.
Shareef, M.A., and et.al., 2019. Social media marketing: Comparative effect of advertisement
sources. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 46. pp.58-69.
Online
Sachdeva, S., 2020 [Online]. Available through: <https://www.marketingmind.in/supermarket-
brand-tesco-goes-viral-on-twitter-by-offering-free-meal-for-zero-likes/>
Influencer Content., 2018 [Online]. Avaliable through:
<https://shoppinglinks.com/blog/blog_detail/heres-why-you-need-to-incorporate-
instagram-storie>
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