INTRODUCTION

Online Marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing,

internet marketing or E-marketing is the marketing of products or services
over the Internet. Internet market-ing is sometimes considered to be broad
in scope because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also
includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Man-agement of
digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management
(ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.

Clearly, marketers are adding on-line channels to find, reach,

communicate, and sell. I-marketing has at least five great advantages.
First, both small and large firms can afford it. Second, there is no real limit
on advertising space, in contrast to print and broadcast media. Third,
information access and retrieval are fast, compared to overnight mail and
even fax. Fourth, the site can be visited by anyone from any place in the
world. Fifth, shopping can be done privately and swiftly.

Even before the Internet there were many different ways to advertise, in
different media such as radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, as well as via
telemarketing or pamphlets. Usually the goal was to get a company- and/or
product name, a statement etc. communicated to as many people as
possible for the smallest price possible.

When the Internet arose, a number of search options became available.

Companies had the option to advertise themselves on a larger scale. Due to
advertising perception at the time, many businesses were assumed to have
great value, and thus traded on the stock exchange at extraordinary high
rates. This collapsed in 2001 at what is commonly known as the dot-com
bubble.

After the dotcom collapse, the Internet was almost disregarded because of
many failing website-based businesses that had expectations to the market
and assumptions about consumers.

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However, both consumers and companies continued exploring online
options. Soon more substantial business models emerged; search
advertising1 and e-commerce were the new possibilities. Enhancements in
targeting advertising, and understanding how websites maintain visitors,
became relevant. Researching consumer‘s behaviour and buying patterns
online began to interest scholars.

Due to the technologies available today, as well as broadband

implementations in most homes, advertisers are able to make massive
leaps and create global campaigns (be-come globalised in just a few
minutes). Leaps that will be more obvious as a new genera-tion of
professionals take control.

― (...) are likely to continue as marketing and advertising are increasingly

peopled with

individuals for whom the internet, eBay, Amazon, Google, and YouTube
were always there and which played some role in forming their
worldviews, just as television, film, radio,

And print did for prior generations.‖ (Rappaport 2007)

So, let us face the facts: The Internet is no longer a medium of ―new
economy‖, and ―E - business‖ as a term has rather been rendered obsolete.
The Internet is used in any and all industries, as a branding and marketing
tool, as an internal communication tool, and as the start of most business
transactions. Today companies use the Internet as one of the most
powerful tools in a big number of ways. The Internet has unlocked a large
number of search options and new ways of highlighting the important
aspects of any item. Thus marketing has been redefined via the Internet,
and given even small businesses a chance to promote and brand their
products on a larger scale. The Internet has there-fore experienced
enormous growth in online advertising, since its inception in the early
1990‘ies. It is still however executed in the usual one-way-communication,
as it has al-ways been done. Success stories in advertising are easy to find:

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Amazon is using their customers to market products to others via the
―other buyers, who looked at this, also looked at this‖. Coca Cola are
storytelling via the Internet, MasterCard use humorous clips, and through
that viral marketing. But are all companies aware of the possibilities, and
do they use them?
We live in a world of connectivity; the number of mobiles phone
subscriptions in Denmark outnumbers the number of inhabitants. The
number of text messages increases year-by-year, email and instant
messenger programs set records each year. All of which points out that
people are in need of being in contact with others. When the Internet
connects people across oceans and continents, dating services, networking
pages and blogs, forums and chat rooms are increasing every minute, are
the companies aware of the con-

Summers need to be connected and be part of a dialogue?

Are companies adopting the interaction approach to their advertising

concepts?

Getting the user to feel like part of the company will create not only happy
customers, but ambassadors, that will promote the company and its
products even further. Most people do not leave their home without their
mobile phone, they are scared to miss any-thing, and want people to be
able to reach them for an opinion. Customers are jumping on the chance to
be heard in large audiences.

Skill level

The topics in this guide are suitable for anyone who has
basic PC knowledge.

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Terminology

Term Explanation

Opt-in is a term used to describe a way of getting details

Opt-in from a
Potential customer to subscribe to a particular service.
They de-
cide they want to get details you offer so they Opt-in. For
example,
Sign up to a newsletter.

Inbound
Marketing You attract customer to you rather than broadcasting
your mes-
sage.

You promote your products and services directly to

potential cus-
Outbound tomers. For example, advertising is outbound marketing.
Marketing

On your website a call to action is something that

requests a visitor
Call to action
To do something. For example- Subscribe Now

Inbound versus Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing was typically the traditional approach to market your

business and this was known as interruption based marketing. This is
where you broadcast your mes-sage through advertising and other

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mediums and try to grab the attention of the user. When consumers are
bombarded with on average 3,000 messages a day you can under-stand
why this form of marketing is becoming increasingly difficult. It certainly
still works in some cases (for example, it can be very effective with
Google advertising) but there are now other ways that can be more
effective.

Inbound marketing is where you provide something of value that attracts

your customer to come to you. When you attract that customer you try to
build a relationship. After you build the relationship you develop trust and
this then allows you to sell your product or service to them. This form of
marketing although difficult to grasp is becoming increasingly effective.

A permission based approach such as this can also produce much better
results be-cause:

a. When you build a relationship within any client online or offline your
chances of a sale increase significantly. When you go into a sales meeting
and fail to build rapport with the potential customer it is difficult to get the
sale. Online is now becoming very similar.

b. It‘s generally more cost effective. It does involve more of your time but
there is less expense.

c. Performance/return is relatively easy to track so you can adjust to get

better results

Different Ways to Market your Business Online

This guide gives an overview of the different means to market your

business online. It‘s not a case of using everything in this guide for your
business as you don‘t have an en d-less amount of time and budget but this
guide will help you to identify the areas that can be effective for your
business.

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The following diagram gives an overview of the type of areas we are
talking about.

Before deciding which methods of online marketing tools you are going to
use you need to allocate time for the following:

• Research – The initial research is to figure out what other people are
doing and what is working or not working. You will not necessarily copy
other people but you may take some guidance when coming up with your
unique plan.

• Strategy – You need to define a clear effective strategy. It‘s very easy to
waste time and money on internet marketing, a clear strategy will help
with this. How are you going to attract potential customers, how are you
going to engage them, how are you going to keep in touch with them and
how are you going to convert them.

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• Branding – Branding is becoming increasingly important in the online
world. What message are you giving out online? Are you an
approachable company? Is you information clear and compelling?
What‘s unique about your offering? Branding consistency is extremely
important in how you communicate, what you communicate and how it
looks. For example, always ensure the tools you use online to
communicate with your custom-ers have the same look and feel as your
website wherever possible.

• Content – You need to have a clear content strategy. What content are
you going to provide that will add value, what will be of interest to
potential customers.
The following gives a breakdown of the key forms of Internet Marketing
as outlined above.

Type Explanation

Search Engine This is process used to optimise your website so that it

Op- appears
timisation
(SEO) More in Google searches. For more information, see ―Search engine
Optimisation‖ on page 10.
Social media marketing is marketing yourself through
conversation
Social media And engagement with your potential customers. For
example, using
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on.

E-mail E-mail marketing is marketing yourself through delivery

marketing of e-mails
to current and potential clients. This could be in the form
of signa-
tures on the e-mails (showing your Facebook address
etc.), news- letters, mailing lists and much more.

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Online There are many forms of online advertising. Although
Advertising advertising
through the likes of newspapers is not that effective,
targeted ad-
vertising online can be very effective. For example, if you
searching
to buy a Canon camera and ad is directly relevant to this
then you
don‘t view this as a bad thing. The advertisement is directly related
to what you are you looking for?

Your Internet Marketing Questions Answered

What’s the difference between Internet Marketing and Digital

Marketing?

There is no difference between them!

Why should I consider marketing on the Internet?

As more and more people spend time on line they are spending less time
with traditional media such as newspapers, TV, and so on. So it‘s
becoming increasingly difficult to target your audience using traditional
channels. Internet Marketing is typically cheaper and a more effective
method of targeting your potential customers. Advertising online as op-
posed to offline is also easier to track to see its effectiveness.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing is where you communicate a message to someone and

they share out this message to their personal and business networks,

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who in turn share it out to their networks, and so on. The more people
that share and pass on your message the more chance your message has
of becoming viral. There are various techniques that can be used to get
this message shared out.

What is social media all about?

People are joining social networks such as Facebook. They are now
starting to use these social networks more and more to find out
recommendations about products and services from their friends, sharing
out information about their trips and experiences, and promote companies
they really like. Tapping into this can be very powerful.

What is a smart phone?

A smart phone is a phone that contains more than just call receiving and
answering functionality. It would typically have an internet browser which
allows you to get access to websites. Increasingly people have smart
phones such as an iPhone and this means you will need to make sure that
your website works on these types of devices.

Where is it all going?

This is very difficult to know because online is moving at such a fast

pace, however, one thing for sure is that the traditional methods of
broadcasting your advertising message to a consumer is going to
continue to have difficulty. That‘s why newspapers and TV will have to
change their revenue models because their advertising revenue will
continue to decline. A lot of social media is about networking online and
this will certainly increase. The tools will change but people networking
online will continue to grow.

Do I have to spend lots of time online sending messages through

Twitter, updating my Facebook page, writing blogs, etc.?

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It is true that although a lot of the tools you use online are free you still
have to invest time in engaging and communicating with your
customers and potential customers.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines such as Google and Bing (Microsoft‘s competing search

engine to Google) index content and try to display the most relevant
information to users when they per-form a search. The search engine
optimisation process is about ensuring that the search engines give priority
to your web pages over other competing pages and there are many
techniques for doing this.

For more in-depth information on Search Engine Optimisation and how to

apply it to your website, see the ―Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ‖
training guide which is part of this series of guides.

On Page Optimisation On page optimisation is the process of optimising

the content with-in the web page to ensure that Google indexes it
according to how you want to be in-dexed. Google goes through your page
to see what you have outlined what this page is about and then it goes
through all the content to figure out if it agrees with this. It‘s i m-portant
for Google to index content in a way that makes the most sense.

For example, if you had a restaurant in Dublin and you wanted it to

appear high on rankings within Google when someone typed in restaurant
Dublin then you would optimise at least one page on these keywords. This
means the name of the optimised page would contain the words restaurant
Dublin, the title of the post could include this and any details displayed
could display information related to restaurants around Dublin.

Off page optimisation when somebody links to your website, that is

like someone giving you a vote for an election. The more relevant votes
you get the better. So Google checks to see who is linking to you and
what words they are using to link to you. You need to get important

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web pages to link to you using the keywords you want to get indexed
on. It is much better to get 10 links from 10 important and relevant
websites (e.g. getting a link from faille Ireland would be an important
and relevant link) rather than links from 1,000 poor quality sites.

Social Media

Social media is very simple. It‘s really about people networking online and
how you communicate with people online. People are networking online
with a range of different tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
As people spend more time on social net-works they are starting to
recommend products and services, share out information on their holidays,
trips, products purchased and much more. There are many ways of taking
advantage of this and generating sales.

For more detailed information on Social Media and the many tools you
can use, see the range of social media training guides that are part of this
series of guides. A full list can be found in the section ―Related Guides in
the Series‖ at the end of this guide.

Twitter

Twitter is the answer to the question what are you doing now‘. It allows
you to create a text like message of up to 140 characters through a PC or
on your phone and send it to your followers. It‘s a mix of business and
social. You could be at home communicating what you are doing or in
work.

It can be a very useful tool to market your message to a lot of people at the
same time very quickly. It can also be used to find out if people are
actively looking for your services. For example, recently I searched for
recommend restaurant Dublin and within 1 hour of me submitting this
somebody was looking for a restaurant in Dublin. So it can be very useful,
however, until you master the tool it can be very time consuming to use.

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LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business networking tool with over 150 million users

worldwide and over 66% of them are considered influencers or decision
makers. You create your personal profile (similar to a CV) on the site and
then network with other people. One big ad-vantage with LinkedIn is that
when you connect with someone through the site they be-come part of
your network and you are made aware of who is in their network.

Facebook

Facebook is a social network with over 800 million users and is ideal for
companies in the tourism industry to promote their business. You can
create a personal profile to connect with your friends and a business page
to connect with your customers. By marketing through your business page
you can communicate directly to your fans of that page.

E-mail marketing

Although there is a lot of talk about social media, e-mail is still the
primary form of online communication for a lot of people. This may
change in years to come as social media be-comes more important but at
the moment e-mail marketing is still quite effective at keeping in touch.

For items such as newsletters there are many cost effective tools available
that will help manage this process and most of these tools will allow you
to customise the look of the newsletter so that it is consistent with your
brand. For example, Mail Chimp allows you to fully customise the look
and feel of the newsletter. It also lets you monitor statistics such as who is
opening your newsletter, who deleted it, who clicked on a link and went to
your website.

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This is extremely important information to monitor as you want to
continuously tweak your newsletter to make it more effective. If you find
that people are more engaged with any particular type of information you
provide then provide a lot more of it.

Your newsletters should have the following characteristics

• Branding consistency – Make sure it follows your branding guidelines.

• Clear call to action – When you send out a newsletter you want people
to take action. For example, if you have any special deal make sure you
have a clearly visible way of a potential customer availing of this offer
(e.g. Book Now!)

• Clean design – They say that people make a judgment on design in less
than 1/20th of a second. If your newsletter doesn‘t look professional you
are facing a real uphill battle.

• Relevant, short, interesting – Be considerate of the time pressures that

people are un-der. Keep the information relevant and short with very
interesting catchy titles. If they want to read more information, give them
the option but don‘t provide too much content up front. They don‘t have
time to read everything so they will skim through the content and pick out
what is relevant to them. How many people read your entire newsletter?
Very, very few.

• Regular – People like consistency to what you do, so if you decide that
you are going to send a newsletter every month make sure you deliver it
every month like clockwork.

Do not automatically subscribe anybody to a newsletter. This should be an

Opt-In process where people decide they want to see your content and opt-
in to receive it. It is just annoying for a person to be put on a newsletter

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they didn‘t subscribe to and if they con-sider this as spam (unwanted
online communication) they can report you.

There are other forms of e-mail communication such as people just

signing up to a mail-in list, however, the guidelines for a newsletter still
apply.

For more in-depth information on Email Marketing and the many tools
and techniques you can use in an effective email marketing campaign, see
the ―Email Marketing‖ training guide which is part of this series of
guides.

Online Advertising

Although permission based marketing (e.g. social media) is growing and

advertisements are not as appealing as they were, targeted online
advertising can still be very effective. The following gives an outline of
some of the most popular ways of advertising your products online.

Google Ad Words

When you do a search on Google you generally see advertisements to the

right hand side of the search and sponsored advertisements across the top.

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Companies are paying for these advertisements based on a cost per click
or cost per impression basis.

• Cost per click — this means that you pay when somebody clicks on the
advertisement but you don‘t pay for it to be displayed.

• Cost per impression — this means you pay an amount every time the
advertisement is displayed 1,000 times irrespective of whether someone
clicks on the advertisement or not.

When you create an advertisement you decide when the advertisement will
appear and this is based on matching up with keywords that people use for
searching. So if you sell boating tours on the Shannon you might want
your advertisement to appear when some-body searches boating tour
Shannon. The price of this advertisement is based on an auction so it is
more expensive if there are a lot of companies that are also interested in
these keywords and want advertisements based on this.

There are many other factors that Google also take into account when
pricing the advertisement. For example, it assigns a quality score to your
advertisement. If your quality score is high then your advertisement cost
could be lower compared to another com-petitor with a similar ad with a
lower quality score. The quality score is calculated using a variety of
factors and probably the most important is the click through rate. If your
ad is displayed and nobody clicks on it then your click through rate is 0%.
Google now thinks you ad is not relevant so penalises you for this.

Your advertisement can be displayed on Google searches but it can also be

displayed on partner websites that work with Google. This is known as the
content network.

For more in depth information on using Google Ad words, see the

―Using Google Ad words training guide which is part of this series of
guides.

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Banner Advertisements

A banner advertisement is an advertisement that appears on the website

that is clickable. When you click on the advertisement you are brought to
the website for the company that is paying for the advertisement. Here is
an example of a banner advertisement on the RTE website.

Typically the banner advertisement would be graphical and you pay on a

pay per click or pay per impression basis.

Facebook Advertising

In Facebook you can run targeted advertising based on a cost per click or
cost per impression basis. The big advantage with Facebook is that you can
target in on exactly who you want to see the advertisements. For example,
if you ran an adventure centre and the typical profile of a customer is a

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male between 30 and 45 that live in Dublin you could just advertise to
them. When they login to Facebook they see these advertisements on the
right hand part of the screen.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you use other websites to help drive traffic to
your website. The source of the traffic is called the affiliate. The affiliate
then gets payment for driving this traffic depending on the result. For
example, the affiliate may only get paid if they drive traffic to your
website and this ends up in a sale.

There are many forms of affiliate marketing and sometimes these cross
over with other forms of advertising. Here are some examples:

• You write a blog post about a hotel you stayed in and the link to the hotel
is an affiliate link. So if you go to the hotel and book a room then the
source of this traffic will get paid an amount.

• You send an e-mail newsletter and include an affiliate link in this

content.

Website

Your website is a key internet marketing tool where you can promote your
business and sell your products and services. When you do all your work
with other forms of online promotion and drive traffic back to your
website you want to convert this traffic. If this is not a sale then at a
minimum you need to capture their details so that you can continue to
market to them.

So the design of your website is very important. You want it to look

professional to fol-low all the appropriate usability guidelines and you

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want it to produce business. A key term on a website is a ―call to action‖
and this is what you want the visitor to do.
For ex-ample Book Now is a call to action to make a booking. If they are
not ready to book now maybe you‘ll provide another call to action to sign
up to a newsletter or become a fan on Facebook. At least then you‘ll have
another opportunity to market to them.

There are many websites out there that are just brochure websites. They
tell us how good the company is and all the great services they provide but
that is not enough any-more. You need to provide some value to people
arriving at your site. Think about what information you can provide that
will help them make a decision about booking a room at your hotel, a table
at your restaurant, or an activity at your adventure centre. Don‘t think
about how you can promote your business. If they are booking a hotel let
them know what other people have said about the hotel, let them know all
the facilities nearby and provide them with a video where they really get a
feel for what the place is like. Recommendations from other people are
extremely important online.

For more information on how to get the most out of your website through
the use of an effective layout and design, calls to action, and many more,
see the training guide ―Get-ting the Most from Your Website‖ which is
part of this series of guides.

Online PR

PR is a very effective tool for promoting your business and there are many
ways of achieving this. The following gives some examples:

• Irishpressreleases.com – This is a site that the press monitor for any

Irish press re-leases so if you‘ve got something interesting to say, say it
here!

• Guest Blog Post – Instead of you writing a blog post (article online) on
your own web-site, why not find another popular blog that is related to

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your business and write a post for them. That is good PR for you and you
can also provide a link back to your website that helps with your rankings
on the search engines.

• Article writing – There are many sites online that allow you to write
articles and these articles are read and distributed by many people.

The Future of Internet Marketing

Where this is all going is hard to predict because it is moving so quickly

but we can see that broadband access is increasing, mobile device usage is
increasing and social net-working is increasing. So that just means more
people spending more time online and everybody having access to the
internet.

17 Prediction about the future of internet marketing

I‘ve listed 17 trends I‘m seeing in the internet marketing‖ world. Internet
marketing (also called make money online‖) is one of the more monies
niches online, and as a result it‘s also one of the most innovative. Many
products in niches like productivity‖ or passion or blogging or lifestyle
design‖ and countless others are, at the core, internet market-ing products
as well.

1. Your customer’s track record will become more important than

yours. More than ever before, you need to have a home run answer
to the question how much money do you make and what have you
done? That‘s just the beginning, in the coming years it‘ll matter even
more how your customers are faring.

2. Niche specific tool sets will be huge. Suites of online tools that
empower entre-pruners will no longer require massive scale to
develop, so it‘ll be much easier
(And more profitable) to create custom or white labelled tools to fit
niche com-munities.

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3. Expensive eBooks are dead. I‘m sorry. Stop writing that $97 eBook
right now. It‘s not going to work out. Build a real product, then
consider the eBook as a mar-keting tool, if necessary.

4. Cultivated and proctored communities will start popping up

everywhere. The readers of the TMBA often cite ―100 True
Customers‖ as one of our most useful articles. There you‘ll find a
pretty clear plan for making $40,000 a year as a con-tent producer. I
think this approach will get utilized a lot more in the coming years.

5. $2,000 DVD training courses are dead. You know what I mean–
they aren‘t dead, they are like ―Microsoft dead.‖ they‘ll continue to
work for people with deep pockets and for those who are in the
game. If something like this is your idea of how you are going to get
a foothold in a market, I‘m on my way to bet against you.

6. Podcasting is the new blogging. Instead of starting a blog, start a

podcast. Re-cently, Pat Flynn reported the number of unique visitors
to his blog was surpassed by the number of podcast enclosure
downloads of his podcast. (Balla Pat!) I‘m not surprised…

7. Blogs will continue to be the most powerful brand building force

new online ventures have. They’ll also continue to be the most
resource intensive. So it goes. It‘s no wonder solo-preneuers who
use blog-marketing as a customer acquisition strategy end up just
being full time blog-marketers.

8. The market value of chops has never been higher. Podcasts as

such powerful marketing tools because even on the 3rd episode of a
new podcast, you‘ll have an immediate idea of how much you trust
the speaker. You‘ll also have a clear idea of how knowledgeable
they are. If you don‘t have chops, don‘t worry, you‘ll just have to
buckle down and do some real work.

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9. Personal freedom is slowly starting to be articulated as
“personal sovereignty.” That space will explode in the next 5 years.
Get in while the getting is good.

10. Your customers will need to use your product and be successful
for you to have a sustainable online marketing business. I always
thought it was dip-shitty when internet marketers feigned complaint that
their customers never―implemented their product.‖ those conversations
will go the way of the dodo. If your customers ―don‘t implement your
product‖ you‘ll ―go out of business.

11. In-person events and training will explode. Events provide a ton
of value, it‘s cheaper to move around, and your target market has a more
flexible income. Easy call.

12. The daily podcast format will become prominent. James Shremko
is already testing it out (take a walk, listen to this episode, and tell me
you don‘t run back home looking for a notepad!). People will write me
one year from now and ―hey you were right about that daily podcast
thing! ‖

13. More and more, content will need to be delivered with high-level
consult-ing. No more $2,000 DVDs, instead I‘ll get on the phone with
you once a week and walk you through a deliverable. This is way better
than some worksheet or video. Even Frank Kern is doing it.

14. More 4th wave internet marketers will emerge. They will be
selling you blog networks, software suites, audiences, ad campaigns, e-
commerce sites, niche websites, blogs– you name it.

15. University educations will start to look more like internet

marketing train-ing, and internet marketing training will start to
look more like university educations. They‘ll converge and find a
middle ground in the coming decade.

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 16. If you want to start a blog about entrepreneurship or personal
development and you don’t have an angle that gets everyone in the
room FREAKING PUMPED and saying they’d buy products from
such a publisher… don‘t do it. It‘s getting harder. The good news is
that it‘s easier to spend your energy on cr e-ating a great premise than it
is publishing blog posts into the inter-nether world.

17. Apprenticeship is back. We aren‘t all about internships anymore,

but this next decade will be.

Website Conversions

Once you have decided which site-wide processes to measure and how to
measure them, the following metrics can help you understand visitor
success or failure:

 Home to purchase – abandonment rate for visitors going through

sales path.
 Search to purchase – abandonment rate for visitors coming from site
search.
 Special offer to purchase – effect of various merchandising and
pricing options.

 Lead generation –abandonment rate when personal data is requested.

Marketing Campaign Conversions

It is important to measure the effect of marketing campaigns on your

website traffic. The following metrics are specific to marketing campaigns
aimed at driving traffic to your site.

 Campaign conversion rate – effect of traffic from specific

campaigns.
 Cost-per-conversion – cost effectiveness for specific campaigns.

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  Campaign ROI -- cost effectiveness for specific campaigns.
 Segment conversion rates – track conversion progress over time.

 Percent of orders from new and repeat customers – determines

effectiveness of marketing or customer retention programs.

 New and repeat customer conversion rates – helps understand

barriers to online purchases.

 Sales per visitor – measures marketing efficiency.

Below are the key indicators you should track regardless of business
model:

 Conversion rates for any process that makes or saves money, or is

critical to the customer experience.

 Campaign conversion rate for current campaigns, or the most

expensive cam-paigns if too numerous.
 Cost-per-conversion for the campaigns you selected to monitor.
 Segment conversion rates for key or critical group conversions.

Below are the key indicators e-commerce sites should track:

 Site-wide conversion rate (all purchases to all visits or visitors)

 New and repeat site-wide customer conversion rates
 Percent of orders from new and returning customers
 Average order value, site-wide and for new and returning customers
 Sales per visitor (compare to site-wide conversion rate)

List of Top Online e-commerce Shopping Sites in India

With people becoming busy with their work and commitments, they are
left out with only a little spare time. In addition, with wide availability and
usage of smart devices, people find internet as the easiest medium to meet

23
their requirements. This has given immense popularity to online shopping
sites in India, numerous online shopping websites are flaunting best deals
to lure buyers.

According to a recent survey, India ranks at position number three for

shopping online and using credit card for online transaction. Indian
netizens are now third biggest users of credit cards for making online
purchases globally and they are next only to the netizens of Turkey and
Ireland. If you also want to make online purchases and want to know about
the best sources, you have visited the right place. Here you will find
information about top online shopping sites in India. The best list of
online shopping sites along with brief reviews is mentioned below:

Flipkart.com

Flipkart.com is the most popular of all Indian online shopping

companies, offering genuine products to people. They have huge stock of
innumerable products like clothes, music, electronics, books, health
products, kid‘s toys and accessories, perfumes, games, movies, home
appliances, shoes, stationeries and many more things.

The shopping website offers great advantage of faster product delivery and
free shipping on ordered products for more than Rs.500. Customers also
enjoy the privilege of exceptional services like payment on delivery or
‗cash on delivery‘. They can also pay on a monthly basis, as EMIs. In case
any customer is not satisfied with the products, he or she can even return
them and get entire payment back. As one of the notable online shop-ping

24
companies in India, Flipkart also offers 30-day replacement policy. All
types of Visa and Master Debit or Credit cards are accepted to initiate the
online transaction system.
Dedicated delivery partners of Flipkart take the responsibility for timely
product delivery at mentioned addresses.

Jabong.com

Jabong.com is certainly in the acclaimed list of online shopping websites

in India. One of the best customer support services I found in India. The
online shopping website is highly popular in offering best quality products
of reputed brands. Customers can cater to a wide variety of fashion
apparel, footwear, accessories and even jewelleries. They have huge
collection of all mentioned items for women, kids and men.

The online shopping website strives best to offer highest shopping

satisfaction over the internet to all customers from a wide region. They
even use cutting-edge technology on their online shopping platform to
make it swift for surfing through various product pages. In addition, highly
experienced support team provides exclusive service for consumers and
tries to solve almost all problems, if any situation demands.

Jabong.com is one of the fastest growing online shopping portals offering

reliable, trendy and stylish products according to taste of reigning period
and fashion concerns of people. They are highly popular as an online
shopping portal offering best prices with ex-clusive discount offers.

25
Myntra.com

A one-stop online shopping portal, myntra.com caters to fulfil all

requirements pertaining to lifestyle and fashion products. The company is
counted in the list of online shopping sites raging the country recently.
They even offer variety of branded products through the online shopping
portal. They are primarily reasonable to make online consumers conscious
about brand value of different products of daily utility.
From its introduction into the online business world, myntra is dealing in
exclusive choices of accessories, footwear, cosmetics and apparel from
more than 500 reputed inter-national and Indian brands. Notable among
them are Biba, Adidas, Inc5, Puma, Nike, United Colours of Benetton etc.
The online shopping portal is reputed to offer more than 3000 styles of
products, fitting requirements of all valued consumers.

The customer support service and process of home delivery are one of the
swiftest in the business world. They are also one of the leading Indian
online shopping companies offering guaranteed 30-day free return of
goods from doorsteps of consumers in case of unsatisfactory service.

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Snapdeal.com

Snapdeal.com started their online business platform in 2010 under the

leadership of Ro-hit Bansal and Kunal Bahl. Presently, they are placed at
favourable positions on the list of online shopping sites in India. They
offer widest range of products – lifestyle, fashion apparel, accessories,
electronics, games, eateries, chocolates, grooming, books etc., for both
men and women.

The online shopping platform has their service in more than 50 cities
across India and also has a record 15 million registered users in the
country. The website features more than 3000 brands – national,
international and even less famous yet offering quality products. The
online store has more than 200 categories featuring more than 250000
products listed with them. More than 25000 products are sold every day.

Snapdeal has close ties with reputed courier services that help in faster
home delivery process. They even offer free return policy of products, if
they fail to meet the expectations of customers. Unlike other Indian online
shopping companies, they initiate com-plete refund and even additional
courier charges that the consumer bears, if any, while returning the
products in an undamaged and unused condition.

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Amazon.in

Amazon is one of the most reputed name in the world of online shopping
for products like eBooks, electronics and others items. The Amazon India
website and it services are being tweaked for India and its hugely growing
online shoppers. Amazon.in is operated by Amazon Seller Services Private
Ltd, an affiliate of Amazon.com, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company based in
Seattle, which opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995; and today
offers Earth‘s Biggest Selection.

They are committed to ensure 100% Purchase Protection for your

shopping done on Am-azon.in so that you can benefit from a safe and
secure online ordering experience, con-venient electronic payments and
cash on delivery, easy returns, Amazon‘s customer ser-vice with 24×7
support, and a globally recognized and comprehensive purchase protection
provided by Amazon‘s A-to-Z Guarantee.

You can find this Fulfilled by Amazon badge on many product pages.
This specifies that the Orders are eligible for FREE Delivery and can be
placed using Cash on Delivery. It is being mentioned by Amazon India
that the orders which contains products worth Rs 499 or more are only
eligible for FREE delivery. In my opinion Amazon have introduced almost
all the practical, useful and cool facilities and features on its Indian
counterpart. If you have purchased from Amazon India, please share your
experiences. You can also share your feedback on the website.

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Homeshop18.com

Homeshop18.com is a popular online merchandise catering to fulfil major

electronics and household items for online consumers across major
locations of the country. One of the most popular online shopping
companies in India, Homeshop18 even offers wide collection of fashion
apparel at high discounts. They showcase more than 1500 products under
Indian and even international brands. The company has close contractual
ties with major courier service providers to deliver ordered products across
3000 locations.

The online retail store has been a major attraction for consumers across the
country due to authenticity of products. They even offer pleasant visuals of
products – including detailed video graphic demonstrations and images
from a wide range of angles.

The online shopping website even offers a wide range of payment option,
including net banking, online credit or debit card transaction and facility of
cash-on-delivery. Homeshop18.com, like most reputed Indian online
shopping companies, even guarantee 100% money back offer, in case of
consumer dissatisfaction and if the product is re-turned unused and
undamaged within 2-days of delivery.

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ShopClues.com

A reputed online shopping retail website having headquarter in Gurgaon,

Shopclues.com maintains more than 12,000 merchants who are registered
with the company. It is one of the top ecommerce websites in India, which
deals in more than 2 million products.
They guarantee authenticity of products, warranty and even ensure lowest
price. They even have a record of catering to more than 42 million online
visitors. The company has even more than 350 registered employees across
the country. They offer wide range of branded products to consumers from
every corner of the country.

Shopclues.com initiate free delivery services at the doorsteps of customers

through re-puted courier services to nearly 10,000 cities across the
country. They even initiate a 30-day return guarantee if unable to meet
customer satisfaction. One of the leading online shopping companies in
India, Shopclues.com accepts online payment through major credit and
debit cards, including net banking services. The online shopping website
service employs more than 400 personnel for effective handling of the
business and is even funded by national institutional investors.

30
Pepperfry.com

Pepperfry.com is one of the top online shopping websites in India. They

have abundant stocks of various products associated to lifestyle
enhancement, home care, appliances, home décor, furnishing, kitchen,
dining and many more. All products are authentic and guaranteed. The
online merchandize offers exclusive payment services like pre-payment,
easy monthly instalments and even cash on delivery.

The company offers fastest shipping and delivery of all products ordered.
They even offer huge discount on various festive seasons throughout the
year. New customers are also entitled to various shopping discount
vouchers amounting to Rs.2000.

Pepperfry.com started operations since 2012 to deliver online shopping

experience that customers are bereft of till now. They have even partnered
with thousands of merchant partners who showcase their craftsmanship,
service orientation and design skills across India.

Pepperfry.com is also one of the renowned online shopping companies that

showcases a number of branded products and also offers them on special
price that is otherwise not available at open market. The online marketing
platform also offers favourable and dedicated customer care support
service.

31
Fashionara.com

Fashionara.com is one of the emerging online shopping portals reputed to

deal with ex-clusive fashion clothing, apparel and accessories. The online
merchandise initiates fast-est product delivery across 8 cities of India, with
guaranteed shipping right on the next day of placing orders. They even gift
wrap the products as a gesture of effective custom-er service, which is
certainly exclusive.

The online merchandize portal deals with world reputed brands like
Espirit, FCUK, Fossil, Calvin Klein, Adidas, Lee, Steve Madden,
Wildcraft, Roxy, Van Heusen, Manchester United, Arrow, Gini&Jony and
much more.

Fashionara.com also offers an effective service through which the

customers can track their ordered products once those are shipped. As
most reputed online shopping portals, Fashionara.com accepts financial
transactions through online mode with the help of credit and debit cards.
Payment through Net banking service is also accepted. They offer
exclusive customer support and look into every problem of customer
related to online shopping experience over the portal. Customer queries
are entertained from 6 am to 12 midnight.

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SURVEY & OPENION

33
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35
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37
UNDERSTAND THE CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF
INDIANS

As part of this internship, I have done a research to understand the

consumer buying be-haviour of Indians in the digital era. First, we can
understand consumer buying behaviour, Kotler and Keller defined
consumer buying behaviour as ―the study of the ways of buying and
disposing of goods, services, ideas or experiences of the individuals,
groups and organizations in order to satisfy their needs and wants‖.

The main motive behind this research is zero moments of truth (ZMOT) of
Google. In 2012 Google done a research to understand the change in
consumer buying behaviour, for that they have taken samples from U.S,
Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Russia, France, Nether-lands, Australia,
Poland, Turkey and Brazil. After the research they arrived at a new con-
cept called ZMOT‘, which showing the big change in consumer buying
behaviour in the digital era.

In past years marketer believed that consumer get two moments to

understand a brand. Marketing efforts at that period will try to create
stimulus in customers through advertisements and this stimulus will lead
customers toward two moments. At that period one model was coined by
P&G in 2005 and CEO said "The best brands consistently win two
moments of truth. The first moment occurs at the store shelf, when a
consumer decides whether to buy one brand or another. The second occurs
at home, when she us-es the brand — and is delighted, or isn‘t."

38
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research

problem. It may be under stood as a science of studying how research is
done scientifically. It is a system and in-depth study for any particular
subject. Its purpose is to find out answer to questions through the
application of scientific methods. It involves collection, analysis and in-
terpretation of data. It deals with the application and utilization of data.

Topic

The selected topic for the research is ―Understands the consumer buying
behaviour of Indian in digital era

Period of study

The study is conducted during the 1sh December 2021 to 20th March 2022

Objectives of the study

Primary objective


The main objective of the study is to understand the
consumer buying journey in Digital era.

Secondary objectives


To know affinity in customers for collecting information
before pur-chase.


To determine out the media, which is most important in
creating stimulus in Indians?


To understand the media consumption of Indians.

To figure out how Indian will purchase a product.
39
 
To understand post purchase behaviour of Indian
Scope

This study is useful for determining the consumer buying behaviour

of Indians. It can able to help brands to reach their target group through
appropriate media. It will present an idea to brands, based on where to
invest in achieve their marketing objectives.

Universe

Universe means the total population available for the study. In this study,
the universe constitutes all Indian, who have online presences.

Sample

Sample means a representation of the whole universe by a small

population. Samples for this research are under Indian youth and young
Indians, who come under 17 to 45 year age groups and who have online
presences.

Sample size

The number of sample units selected from the total population is called
sample size. Sample size selected for this study is 200. Among them 146
are males and 54 are fe-males.

Tools

Tools used for this research is an online questionnaire, which consist of 21

questions.

40
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS

1) Do you Collect information before purchasing the products?

5%

Yes

95% No

2) Did you ever purchase from an online site?

19%

Yes

81% No

41
3) If yes, then what type of product / services did you purchase online?

Interpretations for 1 and 5: 81% of the sample will make online

purchases also; mostly they purchase electronic products, followed by
fashion and travel accessories through online.
Product through advertisements, 30% get to know from friends and 10%
from family. 32% of samples are collecting information about quality of
product the and 26% about price and 21% about customer experience

4) Did you ever purchase from an online site?

19%

Yes

81% No

5) If yes, then what type of product / services did you purchase online?

Electronic 22%
Books 11%
Travel products 17%
Fashion
accessories 19%
Kitchen an
home items 2%
Toys 2%

42
 Sport equipment 11%
Gifts 13%
Automotive 3%

6) Do you watch television?

7%

YES

NO

93%

43
7) Do you watch television programs through online?

47
% Yes

53% No

8) Do you read Newspapers?

7%

YES

NO
93%

Interpretation 6 to 9:

93% of the samples are watching T.V. 53% of the samples is watching
T.V programs through online portals. 93% are reading newspapers and
74% are reading newspapers through online portals.

44
10) Do you have mobile phone or smartphones?

1%

YES

99%

11) Do you have a laptop or PC?

45
12) Do you have a tablet?

30%

YES

NO
70%

13) Do you have an internet connection in any of the above

mentioned gadgets?

4%

NO
96%

46
Interpretation 10 to 13:


More than 90% of the sample have can mobile or Smartphone and
laptops or PC.

While coming to tablets it is low, but it doesn‘t mean no one is using

tabs. Still, 30% of samples have a tablet. 96% of samples have an
internet connection is any of these gadgets, this showing the
penetration of internet in India.

47
FINDINGS


Indian customers are highly information seekers. They collect more
information about quality, price and refer customer‘s experiences
before purchasing a prod-uct.


Advertisements have high impact for creating stimulus in Indian
customers. But this stimulus will get in to action only through
opinion leaders.


Indian consumers have high tendency to go for online purchase.
They have high affinity to go online for electronic products and
apparels.


One of the current trends in Indian youth and young Indians are
watching the T.V programs via online portals. May be the main
reason is convenience of time, they can watch programs which they
had skipped due to some reasons.


The same thing is happening for the newspaper also, people have
more affinity towards online news portals. Here's the reason may be
they can get news updates very early; they don‘t need to wait for
daily newspapers.


In both of these cases, one opportunity is lost for marketer and one
opportunity is emerging for them to reach their T.G.


More than 90% of the samples have a mobile or Smartphone and
laptops or PC. 96% of samples have an internet connection is any of
these gadgets, this showing the penetration of internet in India.


If we take tablet, penetration in Indian is low. But it doesn‘t mean
that no one is using tabs. More than 30% of samples have tablet. For

48
 brands they are getting three more platforms to reach their T.G and
engage them.


33% of the samples are using these gadgets while they are with their
friends, so just think about the reach. If one person noticed
something which is cool and aw e-some they will surely
communicate to others.


25% of the samples are using these gadgets while watching T.V; it‘s
again a bar-rier for brands which use TVC only. 21% of the samples
are using this gadget for chatting and 16% are using for surfing.
What they are surfing? It can be about a product, local events or
locations...etc.


In this situation, one opportunity is again losing to brands and one
opportunity is emerging for brands to reach their T.G.


More than 90% of samples are noticing ads, among them 35% of
samples noticed ads through online media, followed by TVC and
Newspapers.


48% of samples are telling they give more importance to online ads
and 34 % of samples give importance to T.V.C.


From the first part of this research itself, we know that customers are
highly in-formation seeker. It may be the reason for high trust in
online ads. They can search for more information after seeing an ad
or online is the only two way communication channel for customers.


22% of the samples do research through their lap or PC before
purchasing a product from the retail shop and 21% do research via
mobile.


Most of the Indians prefer to purchase from a retail shop only, but
before going to retail shop they will seek information about the

49
 product through an online plat-form. Here is actually change
happens in consumer buying journey, early times consumer belief a
product only after seeing the product in a retail shop.


But now Indian customers want to get conviction about a product
before going to retail shop. So from a marketers view they want to
convince their customers be-fore going to a retail shop.


Brands want to build a cool presence over digital platforms because
the customer will do research about the product after seeing an ad or
after getting stimulated.


Brands are getting more touch points to reach target group in a cost
effective manner.

50
CONCLUSION

The successful completion of this internship indicates that the future of

marketing is in the hands of digital. Digital marketing is not only
concerned with placing ads in portals, it consists of integrated services and
integrated channels. Marketers want to use these components in an
effective way to reach target groups and to build a brand. In this digital era
marketer is not the custodian for a brand, people who are connected across
the digital platforms are the custodians.

Brands want to build their presence over digital platform, because

customers have high affinity towards digital media than other media‘s.
More than that customers are highly information seekers and digital media
is the only platform for two way communication between brands and
customers.

Digital media is the best platform to convert a product to a brand. Because

it is more cost effective and it provide lot of touch points to marketer.
Brands can able to engage their target group in an effective way through
digital platforms. Digital media is not only for engagement, brands can
increase their customers or they can retain their existing customers. Digital
platforms help to increase the impact of brand recall in target groups.

The research focused on the consumer buying behaviour shows that,

Indian consumers are highly information seeker and they will do research
about a product before going to a retail shop. So brands want to give
platforms to consumers to understand their product or to get a really feel
of that brand.

I honestly believe that this project report will be at most useful for
marketers to under-stand the digital marketing and also to plan for future
strategies.
I conclude my research by quoting again that ―Brands can‘t sustain
without digital presence

51
LEARNING POINTS

 “Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a

lifetime to master” by Philip Kotler

Before leaving from IBS, I believed that I am will become a good

marketer because I know all the concepts which I learned from my
classrooms. But from the begin-ning of second week itself, I
understood, marketing is not about concepts it‘s all about the
experience.

 Strategy is not a rock science

After induction my first assignment was to create pitch presentation

for amante lingerie. I start working on my first assignment, but I
don‘t know how to create strategy part. I tried my best, but I am
completely blank. After two days I went to talk with my company
guide. He told me this strategy is not a rock science you will take
some time to create an excellent strategy. But in the last week of my
in-ternship, I accomplished my mission for the 3M Health care &
Safety. I made B2B online strategy for 3M.
 Every day same task, but the situations are different

It‘s not only from my experience, but also from my observation. All
colleagues are doing the same type of work, but the situation is
different. Sometime they have problem with a client, but on the next
day they problems with vendors or with creative team. While
coming to me, my first month was more concentrated with pitch
presentation. Industry or clients are different or requirements of the
client are different, but contents or the flow of pitch presentations
are same.
 “I don’t know” short sentence, but difficult to tell

52
 Agilent is an American company that designs and manufactures
electronic and bio-analytical measurement instruments and
equipment for measurement and evaluation. Once my guide told me
make a presentation based on their products, mainly on Gas
chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC & GC/MS Columns). Ba-
sically, he wants details about application and component of this
product. This was one of the biggest challenges which I faced in my
internship. Because I am a Commerce background student and I
don‘t understand the technical usage of this product and component
used to manufacture this product. But I can‘t refuse to do this
because it will affect my image and mark. I took 3 days to study the
whole things, before making the presentation. Finally, I learned you
can‘t tell ―I don‘t know in your corporate life.

 Observation is the best teacher

There are lots of situations where I am completely blank and I don‘t

know how to do some task. In those situations I observed my
colleagues to know how they are doing it and I understood the
importance of observation.
 Go and ask for work

In beginning stage of my SIP, I don‘t have any work to do or they

are not giving.

First week full of induction and in second week, first two days I sat
idly. I felt that they will not give any work and my internship is
gone. But in next day I went and ask for work. From that moment to
last day, I enjoyed my internship and learned a lot of stuffs.
 Work life balancing

This is the most important learning for me. This SIP thought me how
to balance your personal responsibility and professional
responsibility together and how to enjoy life even after getting a job.
Working in an agency is not an easy task; the person wants to face a

53
lot of stress and challenges. I am the only person in my of-fice
leaving early, while comparing with others. Because my colleagues
have lots of work, sometime they will leave by late night only. But
they are really enjoying all the moments in their life. They don‘t
have any difference between professional life and personal life.

54
REFERENCES

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.html

Social media marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/14/study-digital-marketing-
industry-worth-62-billion/

SEOPressor – Best SEO Wrft.html

https://www.google.co.in

https://www.facebook.com

https://www.bing.com/

https://twitter.com/?lang=en

www.amazon.in/

www.india.alibaba.com/

www.flipkart.com/

www.homeshop18.com/

www.snapdeal.com/

https://www.youtube.com/?gl=IN

www.myntra.com/

www.jsabusiness.co

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