Dispensa Inglese M. & M.I.

Exploring the world of digital marketing
Testo tratto integralmente dalla prova finale di Josephine Pennisi: The potential
of social media and marketing strategies for the promotion of social,
environmental and ethical causes. Davines and The Body Shop as case studies.
Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Studi
Linguistici e Culturali, Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Languages for
Communication in International Enterprises and Organizations.
Anno Accademico 2019-2020
Sommario
1 Digital marketing: an introduction .......................................................................................... 2
1.1 The history of digital marketing .................................................................................................... 2
1.2 The evolution of the marketing concept ....................................................................................... 4
1.3 Contemporary trends in the business landscape .......................................................................... 7
2 What is digital marketing? ...................................................................................................... 8
3 The components of digital marketing.................................................................................... 10
3.1 Owned, paid and earned media channels ................................................................................... 10
3.2 Content marketing ...................................................................................................................... 11
3.3 Online marketing ......................................................................................................................... 14
3.4 Social media marketing ............................................................................................................... 26
3.5 Mobile marketing ........................................................................................................................ 27
4 The characteristics of digital media ...................................................................................... 32
5 The benefits of digital marketing .......................................................................................... 35
5.1 Benefits for the consumer ........................................................................................................... 35
5.2 Benefits for the company ............................................................................................................ 36
6 The challenges of digital marketing ...................................................................................... 39
7 The impact of the Internet and digital media on the marketing mix ..................................... 43
7.1 Product ........................................................................................................................................ 43
7.2 Price ............................................................................................................................................. 43
7.3 Place ............................................................................................................................................ 44
7.4 Promotion.................................................................................................................................... 45
1
1 Digital marketing: an introduction
Starting from the second half of the 20th century the world is no longer the
same. The Digital Revolution has been bringing about significant
technological changes, which have been impacting on all domains of life. In
particular, the past 30 years have seen a significant explosion in new digital
technologies with the invention of personal computers, smartphones, and
tablets and the rise and spread of the World Wide Web and social networks
among others, which have completely revolutionised our society and the
way we do things.
Human beings have become accustomed to all these digital tools to such an
extent that they have become an integral part of their daily life. In 2020,
almost 4.54 billion people – corresponding to 60 per cent of the global
population – are actively using the internet and the average time spent
online per day amounts to 6 hours and 43 minutes. Even more people – 5.19
billion – own and use a smartphone and 3.80 billion people are active social
media users today.1
These technological advances have been playing a crucial role also for the
marketing field revolutionising the way businesses engage and
communicate with their existing and prospective customers. Marketers have
been able over time to devise new, interesting and profitable techniques to
harness this increasing dependence on digital, mobile and social media
technology. In this way, new opportunities have been opened up for
companies to reach out to their consumers in a more efficient and targeted
manner and derive higher profits from more interactive and engaging
relationships. This was the origin of digital marketing, which, for some
years now, has been successfully supplementing the traditional marketing
strategies already in use.
As defined by Kotler and Armstrong, digital marketing consists in “using
digital marketing tools such as websites, social media, mobile apps and ads,
online video, email, and blogs to engage consumers anywhere, at any time,
via their digital devices”.2 Although it can seem easy from this definition,
the digital marketing world is very complex and diversified consisting of
several tools and strategies that marketers need to master if they want to
reap the benefits while being constantly able to respond to the challenges it
can pose to a business.
1.1 The history of digital marketing

The evolution of marketing and the development of its ground-breaking
internet-based form, i.e. digital marketing, are closely intertwined with
1
Simon Kemp, “Digital 2020: global digital overview,” Datareportal, January 30, 2020,
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-global-digital-overview.
2
Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong, Principles of marketing, Global Edition, 17th ed. (Harlow: Pearson, 2018),
47.
2
advances in the internet and digital technologies. As Ryan observes,
marketing is not a matter of technology; it is instead related to people and
focused on understanding them. In such a context, technology is only
relevant to marketing when it provides channels to connect people in a
more effective way and the internet and digital tools are surely some of
these.3 As a result, the evolution of the web and progress in digital
technologies have brought considerable changes to marketing and
communication strategies and practices over the past few decades.
Before Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, the
internet and its predecessor, the ARPANET, were only used by scientists
and technologists at research institutions. With this revolutionary invention,
however, potentially everyone has become able to access the information
available online anywhere and at any time. It was between 1991 and 1997
that the web grew significantly. Websites switched away from being only
18,957 in August 1995 to being 342,081 in August 1996. Entrepreneurs and
marketers started to notice the enormous potential of this global network in
enabling them to connect with their targets.4
It was in the same period – during the 1990s – that the term “digital
marketing” emerged. However, the practices used at that time were very
different from the ones adopted today because also the Web had different
characteristics and offered diverse possibilities. Web 1.0 – corresponding to
the advent of the World Wide Web – was a “Read-Only” web characterized
by static content, unidirectional communication flows and very little
interaction, which implied that the users played only a passive role, i.e. as
recipients of the information a company wanted to deliver to them. It was in
this context that banner advertising started to be utilised and search engine
optimization (SEO) developed due to the invention of the first web
crawler.5
Starting from 1999, the first signs of change could already be seen due to
the growth of Google and the launch of its blog-publishing service called
Blogger. This considerable shift in web usage, which paved the way for the
web as we know it today, was officially defined as Web 2.0 by Tim
O’Reilly in 2004.6 Also known as “Social Web” or “Read-Write” web, this
new collaborative era has brought about a new active role for the web users
who, since this moment, have been not only consumers, but also producers
of content.
The technologies emerged at this new stage in the history of the web have
made it easier for users to collaborate with sites, thus creating user-
generated content. Furthermore, they have also fostered interaction among
users and user participation in online communities of like-minded people.
3
Damian Ryan, Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation, 3rd
ed. (London: Kogan Page, 2014), 4.
4
Ibid., 10.
5
Simon Kingsnorth, Digital marketing strategy: An integrated approach to online marketing (Philadelphia:
Kogan Page, 2016), 7.
6
Ibid.
3
This was the origin of blogs, forums and social networks like Facebook and
Twitter, to name a few. Developed in this period and still heavily used are
also the practices of rating content through online rating systems and of
uploading videos to video hosting platforms like YouTube.7
The following stage is that of Web 3.0, as it was defined by the web
designer Jeffrey Zeldman in 2006. It is characterized by cutting-edge
concepts and advanced technologies which strongly rely on high-speed
connectivity, artificial intelligence and new algorithms.8 Virtual and
augmented reality are good examples of the innovative technology trends of
this phase.
Although using similar technologies and offering both enhanced
experiences, they work differently. Virtual reality digitally simulates a real-
life setting and enables the user to interact with it through the use of a head-
mounted or hand-held controller. Instead, augmented reality overlays
virtual elements like graphics, text or sounds on the real world by simply
using mobile devices or computers.
Although some people are still sceptical about these new practices, they are
becoming increasingly popular within the marketing field. More and more
companies are introducing them in their branded apps or websites so as to
create interactive and immersive experiences for their customers, better
persuade them and influence their buying decisions.9 Moreover, Web 3.0 is
a semantic or intelligent web in which automated applications are capable
of suggesting content, such as brands, products or services, to human beings
and giving their own opinions on it.10
Still not conceptualised, the next stage will be the Web 4.0, a more
futuristic form of the web in which the main ideas are the symbiosis
between humans and machines and the smart web thanks to a more
pervasive use of artificial intelligence.11
1.2 The evolution of the marketing concept

The marketing world is ever changing. The necessity to appeal to and reach
out to customers and their variable needs and interests forces marketers to
continuously shift their approach, as it has happened with digital marketing.
Over the decades, technological advances and changes in the business and
macroeconomic environment worldwide have led to changes in consumer
behaviour and mindset too, which, in turn, have given birth to new
7
Dave Chaffey and Fiona Ellis-Chadwick, Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, 6th ed.
(Harlow: Pearson, 2016), 36.
8
Treccani, s.v. “Web 3.0,” accessed September 13, 2020, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/web-3-
0_%28Lessico-del-XXI-Secolo%29/.
9
Alan Charlesworth, Digital Marketing: A Practical Approach, 3rd ed. (Abingdon, Oxon; New York:
Routledge, 2018), 11–12.
10
Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, Digital Marketing, 36–37.
11
Tuhfatus Salisah, “World Wide Web: from Web 1.0 to Web 4.0 and Society 5.0,” Medium, March 18, 2019,
https://medium.com/@tuhfatussalisah/world-wide-web-from-web-1-0-to-web-4-0-and-society-5-0-
48690a43b776.
4
marketing concepts and practices. As Philip Kotler, the “father of modern
marketing”, pointed out, marketing has undergone a significant evolution
over time – from Marketing 1.0 to Marketing 4.0.
Marketing 1.0 dates back to the industrial age when the Industrial
Revolution introduced new industrial machinery. The objective of this first
stage was to sell the factory’s products, which were rather basic and
standardized, to a mass market. Buyers were seen by companies simply as
individuals with physical needs that had to be fulfilled through their goods
in the framework of one-to-many transactions. Marketing 1.0 was therefore
transaction-oriented and product-centric.12
The advent of today’s information age in early 2000 marked the beginning
of the second stage, that of Marketing 2.0, in which the internet and
information technology have started to pose new challenges to marketers.
Consumers could no longer be pleased by standardised product offerings,
but they required highly targeted offerings able to match their different
preferences and tastes. Furthermore, thanks to the access to the internet,
they began to have the opportunity to compare and inform themselves about
the products offered by the market, thus easily choosing the ones that better
met their needs. Consequently, it became essential for companies to put
customers at the core of their marketing activities, which now aimed to
satisfy the customers as well as establish productive and long-term
relationships with them in the form of one-to-one interactions.
In this consumer-centric and relationship-oriented marketing, consumers
were perceived as smart individuals with mind and heart and both
components needed to be touched, if a business wanted to succeed in
attracting them, but they were still implicitly seen as passive recipients of
their marketing campaigns. In such a context, modern marketing identified
by its purpose to serve consumers developed.13
Things changed again with the further development of information
technology into what Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan defined as the new
wave technology, i.e. technology enabling people to express themselves,
connect and interact with other people. The emergence of social media was
one of the driving forces of this new technological age because of their
collaborative and expressive nature.14 This was the rise of Marketing 3.0,
also referred to as human-centric and values-driven marketing. According
to Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan, it was “the more sophisticated form of
the consumer-centric era where the consumer demands more collaborative,
cultural, and spiritual marketing approaches”.15
Like in Marketing 2.0, marketers, also in this stage, aimed to please their
customers – who were now seen as whole human beings with mind, heart,
12
Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Iwan Setiawan, Marketing 3.0: From Products to Customers to the
Human Spirit (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 3.
13
Ibid., 3–4.
14
Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan, Marketing 3.0, 5–7.
15
Ibid., 21.
5
and spirit – and provide solutions to their manifold concerns for the
changing social, economic, and environmental landscape. Improving the
world was the main objective of Marketing 3.0 because it was also the main
goal of consumers in this new era.16 What allows businesses to stand out
was the ability to embrace this new spiritual sensibility and to embed it in
the corporate values, mission and vision as well as the capacity to pay
attention to and care about the issues and needs of the communities in
which they operated. This was the time when corporate social responsibility
started to play a key role in the success of businesses offsetting profitability
objectives.17
In recent years, we have begun talking about the digital economy, a concept
that refers to an economy which is centred on advanced digital technologies
because they have the power to contribute to the development of various
industries, but also to disrupt them. With the transition to the digital
economy, a new marketing concept has become necessary. This is the
origin of Marketing 4.0, which is developing nowadays. At the core of this
stage there is the blend of online and offline interactions between
businesses and their customers. Despite the increasing digitalisation of
society, establishing human-to-human offline relations is still relevant and
helps companies to set them apart from competitors.18
This integration of manifold online and offline channels – known as
omnichannel marketing – makes it possible to deliver a seamless customer
experience, which gives customers the freedom to choose where and how to
make their purchases.19 Furthermore, today’s availability of state-of-the-art
technologies, like artificial intelligence, predictive analytics tools and
machine learning, makes it easier for marketers to forecast the buying
behaviour of people and their expectations in order to increase the
productivity and effectiveness of their marketing activities.20
In this context, human-centric marketing is even more a central aspect than
in Marketing 3.0 since brands with human qualities are more able to appeal
and engage with customers by treating them as friends and establishing
close emotional relationships with them.21 Being able to attract and connect
with consumers is also related to the ability of businesses to create and
distribute superior original content that is of interest to the specific target
audience for which it has been designed, thereby unleashing the power of
storytelling. This marketing approach – called content marketing – has the
advantage of conveying the image of authentic, professional and reliable
brands.22
16
Ibid., 4.
17
Ibid., 17–20.
18
Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Iwan Setiawan, Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2017), 46.
19
Ibid., 139–140.
20
Ibid., 47.
21
Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan, Marketing 4.0, 109.
22
Ibid., 121.
6
Starting from Marketing 2.0, digital marketing tools have underpinned this
transition of the marketing concept accompanying traditional
communication channels in the development of new practices suitable to
the mutable business and macroeconomic environment.
1.3 Contemporary trends in the business landscape

As previously mentioned, the dynamic business environment has been
responsible for the changes in the marketing field over time. If companies
want to be successful in the current marketplace, they have to adapt to the
contemporary trends characterising it. According to Kotler, Kartajaya and
Setiawan, the business landscape has switched from being exclusive,
vertical and individual in the past to being inclusive, horizontal and social at
present with customer communities holding now more power.23
In our digitalised and connected world, social media represent one of the
platforms that best suit people’s desire to come together to build inclusive
communities across space and all demographics, with the aim of interacting
and communicating with like-minded individuals. These social networking
sites prove also to be useful for businesses to collaborate at the international
level to develop innovation. This is the meaning of inclusivity today.24
Customer trust is another aspect that has experienced the change in
customers’ mindset occurring in recent years by shifting from being vertical
to being horizontal. In the past, consumers believed in company-generated
marketing communications, like advertising campaigns, and could be easily
influenced by them. They also used to ask for opinions of experts about
brands and products. However, nowadays they have become suspicious of
companies and their promises of extraordinary product performance and
quality.
As a result, customers have now started to rely more on the feedbacks and
recommendations of other people from outside the business world because
perceived as more trustworthy and unbiased. In the online world, social
media prove to be the suitable place for customers to go in search of advice
from their peers together with communal rating systems, like Tripadvisor
and Yelp, where consumers give their reviews of products or services in
order to inform others of their positive or negative experiences. All this is
becoming very commonplace today. In such an environment, even the
relationship between brands and their consumers should become horizontal,
in the sense that companies should show their genuine and truthful
character and treat customers as friends.25
Finally, the buying process, which used to be individual previously, is
becoming social nowadays. Personal decisions about what products and
brands to choose are now often replaced by social decisions. Individuals
look for the suggestions of others before buying something because of their
23
Ibid., 6.
24
Ibid., 9–10.
25
7
desire to conform to social opinions. Once more, social media and the
internet are the appropriate channels for people to exchange information
about brands and companies and review the products and services they
offer.26
2 What is digital marketing?

As previously stated, the substantial advances in digital technologies and
the rapid surge in the number of people using them have been the reasons
for the rise of digital marketing as a marketing communication tool which
has been successfully supplementing the more traditional forms of
promotion. As Kotler and Armstrong pointed out, digital marketing is the
fastest-growing form of direct marketing, i.e. the marketing approach
through which companies establish a direct and personal relationship with
well-defined targets – be they individual buyers or customer communities.
The key aspects of this practice consist in customising the company’s
product offerings and communications to the specific needs and
expectations of the customer segments, while at the same time enabling
them to buy the desired products directly from the firm. Over the past few
years, this form of marketing has been experiencing significant growth to
the detriment of mass marketing. The latter is the marketing approach
which, instead, disregards customer segmentation and relies on
intermediaries for the distribution of the products as well as on standardised
messages to be delivered to masses of potential customers, for example,
through print or television advertising.27
There are several reasons behind this shift towards a more direct, personal
and engaging marketing communication strategy. First, different groups of
customers have been developing diverse interests, tastes and wants, thus
making the mass market extremely fragmented. This implies that mass
marketing communication techniques are becoming less efficient at
attracting customers and driving sales and marketers have finally become
aware of the wastage of resources associated with traditional mass media.
Second, customers have become wary of company-generated content, such
as advertisements, and this leads them to seek information about brands and
products on new channels, like the internet and social media, where they
can find customer-generated content, which is perceived as more reliable
and honest nowadays. Finally, the increasing use of digital and social media
technologies has given marketers new and more favourable opportunities to
reach out to and engage with their intended audiences in a more persuasive
way through ad hoc content that is also relevant to them.28
These factors can explain why today marketers tend to allocate a larger
portion of their marketing budget to online, social and mobile media rather
26
Ibid., 13–14.
27
Kotler and Armstrong, Principles of marketing, 512–513.
28
8
than to traditional mass media. A lot of brands are even adopting a “digital-
first” approach and some others are focusing their marketing strategy
almost completely on digital media.29 In addition to them, there are also
some organisations that have put direct and digital marketing at the core of
their entire business model. Among them there are online retailers, like
Amazon, technology and media service providers, such as Google and
Netflix, or social networking sites, as Instagram and Facebook.30
However, old media are still not destined to disappear since companies
continue to utilize them. The current trend consists more in an integration of
mass marketing and direct marketing tools and channels, which is known as
integrated marketing communications. The aim of this practice is to
produce and deliver consistent and persuasive messages about a company
and its products as well as a uniform brand image.
Today, with different departments of an enterprise responsible for different
pieces of marketing content and communication channels, there is, in fact,
the risk to convey a contradictory and inconsistent company image and
position. Hence the importance of carefully blending all marketing
communications of the business.31 Among the various promotion tools
companies rely on to engage with their targets and build relationships with
them, there are advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public
relations as well as direct marketing tools.
Even direct marketing itself is a heterogenous category consisting of several
diverse tools – both traditional and digital ones – and despite the impressive
growth in the use of online, social and mobile media, direct traditional
marketing still remains widely used. It includes tools such as direct-mail
marketing, face-to-face selling, telemarketing, direct-response TV
marketing, catalogue marketing and kiosk marketing. Once again,
companies should employ these diversified techniques in a consistent way
to gain the maximum benefit.32 However, as Kotler and Armstrong
observed, the promotion mix is only one of the elements – even though
exactly the one explicitly devoted to communicating customer value – that
carry specific messages about a brand to customers. Indeed, even the other
three components of the marketing mix – product, price and place – can
implicitly perform this task and, as such, they need to be consistently
integrated as well.33
Although traditional media still play an important role in the marketing
communications mix of an organisation, the massive surge in digital
marketing cannot be ignored. This is mainly due to the interesting
opportunities it gives to marketers to effectively achieve their marketing
goals by directly reaching out to and interacting with their intended targets
anywhere and at any time, without the limitations of traditional media.
29
Ibid., 426.
30
Ibid., 513.
31
Ibid., 427.
32
Kotler and Armstrong, Principles of marketing, 514.
33
Ibid., 425.
9
However, for digital marketing to be successful, marketers need to pursue
their digital marketing strategy correctly and understand what digital
marketing is really about.
As Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick suggest, digital marketing consists in the
practices devoted to online presence management, that is the actions
necessary to build and manage the diverse forms of online media owned
directly by the company, including its website and social media accounts.
This is accompanied by the implementation of online communication
techniques that aim to generate traffic and establish profitable customer
relationships, such as online advertising, search engine marketing, email
marketing, social media marketing and affiliate marketing.34
3 The components of digital marketing

The realm of digital marketing is extremely rich in methods, tools and
channels, which implies that a really exhaustive and comprehensive
treatment of this subject is rather difficult. However, for the purpose of this
thesis, the major elements falling under the umbrella of digital marketing
and their main features will be discussed by classifying them into three
broad areas: online marketing, social media marketing and mobile
marketing. All of them prove to be today very useful for organisations to
create and deliver value to their target markets, reach and engage with their
customers as well as establish and retain lasting and profitable customer
relationships. In turn, customers now expect to find everything they need –
from products and services to simple information and opinions – online and
on their electronic devices.
Indeed, they have got used to these new practices and increasingly demand
a “seamless cross-channel buying experience that integrates in-store, online,
and mobile shopping” – what is known as omnichannel retailing. This has
obviously encouraged more and more businesses – even the ones that have
traditionally operated offline – to create and manage their online
presences.35 However, before dealing with the components of digital
marketing, it is appropriate to describe also the three types of media
channels – owned, paid and earned – in which digital marketing tools can
be classified and the technique of content marketing on which most of them
are based.
3.1 Owned, paid and earned media channels

To implement a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that allows to
effectively engage and communicate with costumers, brands should
concentrate their efforts on all three major types of media channels that are
usually used in the online as well as offline space.
34
Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, Digital Marketing, 11.
35
10
Owned media are all the channels directly owned and controlled by a
company, such as its branded website and mobile apps, social media pages,
blogs and email newsletter. These channels usually aim to share relevant
content with the company’s existing customers and prospects that have
already a certain interest in the brand and its products.
Paid media are, instead, those channels that an enterprise pays for having its
messages displayed in the attempt to raise brand awareness, acquire new
consumers and drive visitors to its owned media. This is the case for all
different forms of online advertisements, including display, search, mobile
and social media advertising.
Finally, earned media refer to the content related to a business, brand or
product which is generated or shared by people from outside the
organisation, such as online publishers, influencers, bloggers and even
customers, who voluntarily commit themselves to spreading and making
this content go viral. Typical examples are conversations in social media
and other online communities as well as product reviews. Word of mouth
and advocacy are key concepts when dealing with earned media.36
Despite this original distinction, the separation among these three online
media has become blurred in today’s digital space because the same
channel is now able to support manifold techniques and campaign styles.
For example, even though social media is generally earned media, it also
proves to be a suitable platform to place paid advertisements and have
promotional messages delivered by influencers.37
3.2 Content marketing

An element that the abovementioned media channels have in common is
that, despite their differences, they are all used by companies to create,
share and inspire high-quality and relevant content as well as to hold and
promote conversations about this content, the brand and its products with
and among customers. This is a marketing practice known as content
marketing.38 Although it is not new and has existed for over a century, this
technique has acquired significant importance and popularity only in recent
years thanks to the rise of digital marketing, to such an extent that – as
Charlesworth suggests – it has become a discipline in its own right. There
are several reasons contributing to this, including the changes in the
algorithms used by search engines like Google, the surge in the use of
social media as well as consumers’ changing buying behaviour. As such,
high-quality content is deemed to be the key to have visibility and customer
engagement in this dynamic digital environment.39
36
37
Mike Yao and Rhiannon Clifton, “Digital Media and Marketing Strategies,” (Urbana-Champaign: University
of Illinois. 2020), lecture recording, https://www.coursera.org/learn/marketing-plan/home/welcome.
38
39
Charlesworth, Digital Marketing, 40.
11
This new interest in the creation and distribution of content has even lead to
the establishment of organisations specialised in content marketing
education and training with the aim of teaching enterprises how to best
pursue this promising technique. The leading organisation is called Content
Marketing Institute, which has defined content marketing as a “strategic
marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant,
and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience —
and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action”.40
This marketing approach has been proving to work properly in bringing
benefits and profits to enterprises. Quality and engaging content can
efficiently contribute to brand awareness and engagement, customer
acquisition and retention, brand loyalty and advocacy as well as lead
generation and sales.41 Furthermore, as observed by Ryan, content is “one
of the few marketing channels that allows marketers to contact their
potential customers along all phases of the customer cycle, during research,
purchase and review”.42 This gives marketers more chances to persuade
their target audience by using the right type of content for each stage. In
addition to this, content marketing is also a cost-effective practice in
comparison to advertising and this is why it is increasingly taking the place
of advertising in the current digital age.
Nowadays, with customers’ suspicious attitude towards traditional
marketing messages, managing to provide them with honest, valuable and
interesting contents is an efficient way to engage and persuade them.
However, it is important for marketers to understand that content differs
from advertisements in terms of techniques, purpose and information to
convey. As such, they should avoid the unproductive practice of simply
using their advertising messages as part of their content marketing
strategy.43
Content can appear in various forms and can be distributed across different
channels, but only a combination of different content types is what enables
an enterprise to reach and engage with a significant number of customers.
First, static written content is the most obvious kind of content. It can take
the form of website copy, but also of short-form news and blog posts on
topics relating to the company’s industry, which are usually published on a
daily basis on the blog section of the corporate website. In addition to this,
the blog can also contain longer-form written content, such as guides and
interviews, especially with team members, in order to present the company,
its story, people and strengths. Another option is represented by white
papers on themes specific to the company’s business sector, where
problems and their solutions are discussed with the aim of educating
interested customers.
40
“What Is Content Marketing?,” Content Marketing Institute, accessed September 17, 2020,
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/.
41
42
Ryan, Understanding Digital Marketing, 298.
43
12
E-books are another tool on which organisations can rely to cover specific
topics. More interactive and appealing are, however, the numerous forms of
visual and rich media content, including infographics, photographs, videos
and podcasts, which have become extremely popular with the rise of social
media.44
To be able to implement a successful content marketing strategy, an
enterprise needs professionals having knowledge and competences in the
different areas falling under the umbrella of content marketing. Indeed,
content marketers should be multifaced figures able to creatively come up
with interesting ideas, to transform them into quality and compelling
content, but also to analyse and interpret statistics and data about what
themes the intended targets prefer to read and discuss online, what content
appeals more to them or what channels contribute best to achieving the
objectives set by the business.45
Alternatively, the solution would be – as defined by Kingsnorth – to break
down the walls separating the company departments concerned with the
different aspects related to the implementation of such a strategy and make
them work in symbiosis, with the purpose of reaching a common goal.46
Not only does a business need the right people, but it also needs to take the
right steps to plan and manage its content marketing campaigns. Kotler,
Kartajaya and Setiawan identify eight main steps. The first stage consists in
setting the content marketing goals by choosing between brand-related and
sales-related goals and bearing in mind that these must be in line with the
organisation’s business objectives. The second phase deals with the
identification of the specific target group and the understanding of the
customers’ needs, wants and problems that the company-generated content
must address. In the third step, marketers have to choose the theme to cover
considering that this must be relevant to the intended audience and show the
link to the brand. Moreover, they also have to select the appropriate content
formats and the overall storyline characterizing the specific campaign they
intend to implement.
The fourth and fifth stages – respectively content creation and content
distribution – represent the core of a company’s content marketing strategy.
Quality and engaging content, once created, needs to be distributed through
the right combination of owned, paid and earned media to manage to reach
the target audience. Next, in order to help the created content to go viral,
marketers should rely on influencers identified within the intended audience
group at the sixth stage, that of content amplification. Influencers are
perceived as experts by the members of their communities, which implies
that the content they spread has the potential to successfully resonate with
their followers. Evaluating the success of the content distributed is the
following step in which marketers need to use specific metrics to assess
44
Ryan, Understanding Digital Marketing, 312–314.
45
Ibid., 307–308.
46
Kingsnorth, Digital marketing strategy, 242.
13
visibility, relatability, search, action and advocacy related to that content.
Finally, the evaluation of the performance of the content marketing strategy
implemented allows marketers to understand the strengths and weaknesses
of the work done, thus allowing them, if necessary, to constantly improve
the technique.47
3.3 Online marketing

The first broad area of digital marketing considered here is online
marketing, which refers to the various tactics used to promote a company,
its products and services through the internet. There are several different
techniques and tools that can be leveraged by a business in pursuing its
online marketing strategy. The most important ones will be discussed in the
following subsections.
Website
The first form of online presence that organisations usually build is their
website, which is defined by Ryan as “the single most valuable piece of
digital real-estate” a business owns. It is a type of owned media channel
because it is controlled directly by the company, which can freely choose
how to design and structure it. It also represents the final destination to
which all other digital marketing tactics used try to drive visitors because it
is the website that converts these visitors into prospects and customers.48
Kotler and Armstrong divide websites according to their function into
marketing websites and brand community websites. The former aim to
encourage customers to make online purchases from the site – as in the case
of e-commerce websites – or to perform other actions that match the
company’s marketing goals, such as subscribing to a newsletter. The latter,
instead, are intended to share various types of brand content in order to
engage consumers and build communities of like-minded people around the
brand.49
According to Ryan, enterprises always need to consider two aspects to be
able to create an effective website, i.e. their business and communicative
objectives and the specific target market that will access the website.
Understanding why the company needs a website is not enough, it is also
necessary to know the particular needs and wants of the target, namely what
the intended audience expects to see and what can appeal to it.50 In this
way, it is possible to decide on what features and pieces of content the
website must have. A pleasant and appealing design is fundamental to
amaze people, but without original, high-quality and engaging content a
website will not be able to convince people to navigate the site, spent their
time on it and come back again over time.51
47
48
49
50
51
14
Thus, to be able to design an effective and user-friendly website,
prospective users should always be borne in mind by carefully taking into
account the user experience, or UX. As observed by Yao, this involves
assuring that the created website possesses six qualities that contribute to a
good user experience. First, findability is about the easiness for users to find
the website when searching the internet and this is something linked also to
another digital marketing technique, that of search engine optimization.
Second, accessibility refers to whether the website can be equally accessed
by everybody, including people with disabilities, mobile phones and a slow
internet connection, among others. The third quality is usability and
concerns the easiness for users to use the site, find the necessary tools and
accomplish the intended goals. Fourth, desirability refers to the kind of
experience users enjoy when navigating the website and thus to whether
they desire to continue to use it or not. Then, credibility concerns the extent
to which people regard the site as being trustworthy and legitimate and
finally, usefulness is about the perceived benefits and value that can be
derived from interacting with the website.52
Search engine optimization
Once the company’s website has been created, it needs to generate traffic,
and this is possible if customers are able to find the site. This is exactly
what search engine optimization (SEO) aims at. It falls under the category
of unpaid organic search marketing because it refers to all organic efforts a
business makes, without paying, to ensure that its website ranks high on the
search engine results page (SERP), when prospective customers search for
something on the internet.53 Indeed, using the search engines when
interested in buying something is still what most people do and being able
to capture their attention immediately by appearing at the top of the page
can prove to be the right move for businesses.54
Search engines are therefore used today as a very powerful form of digital
marketing because they allow a company to make itself known by people in
the exact moment in which these people are seeking products or services in
line with those offered by the company. However, to be successful,
organisations must know how search engines and their ranking systems
work in order to develop a strategy aligned with them. To quickly deliver
relevant search results, search engines rely on automated programmes,
known as web crawlers or web spiders, that access and index the billions of
webpages existing by collecting and storing data on each website’s content
as well as its inbound and outbound links. Then, the search engine’s
ranking algorithms give a score to each indexed website on the basis of its
importance, authority and relevance to a specific search query. In this way,
every time a user types a word or strings of words on the search engine,
52
Yao and Clifton, “Digital Media and Marketing Strategies.”
53
Ibid.
54
15
only the websites that are most pertaining to that query will be displayed on
the SERP.55
To effectively optimise a website for the search engines, there are some
actions which need to be carried out. First, it is necessary to remove all
technical barriers that can prevent or make it difficult for the web crawlers
to access and index a website. These include, for example, graphics,
animations and videos, which have simply the function to make the site
appear visually more appealing to people, but that can be detrimental to site
indexation, since web crawlers only focus on written texts.56
The following step consists in the research of the keywords, that is the exact
words or phrases that people type on the search engine when looking for
products, services or information. In this regard, keyword research tools
available on the internet can be utilised to find the most frequently searched
keywords related to the specific industry in which a company operates.57
Subsequently, the obtained keyword list needs to be analysed to select only
the most appropriate and specific keywords able to generate the targeted
traffic at which the company aims. At this point, each page of the website
needs to be optimised for a small number of target keywords which must be
included in the body of the text, its headline, title, meta tag, meta
description, image tag and URL. This is what is called on-site SEO.58
A website containing the right keywords within its high-quality content is
therefore the key to success. It will be able to stand out from the crowd,
appeal to visitors and appear at the top of the SERP. However, for this to
occur – as Ryan suggests – the website copy must be really interesting,
relevant and contain the information visitors are seeking and this must be
done in a fast, concise and easily scannable way.59
As a result, SEO is closely related to content marketing and this is
particularly true of Google, the most popular and frequently used search
engine. These days, for a website to manage to appear at the top of the
results page of the famous search engine, it needs original and useful
content. In the past, instead, Google simply looked at the presence of
content on a site – regardless of its quality – as a ranking factor, which
implied that websites with a content rich in keywords but poor in quality
were ranked very high. However, algorithm updates over the years have
changed the way Google works and today only valuable, relevant and
engaging content together with a good user experience are able to assure
good visibility to a website in the search engine.60
Besides content, the other important factor contributing to reaching the top
of the organic search results is having a significant amount of valuable
55
Ibid., 106–108.
56
57
Ibid., 111.
58
59
60
Kingsnorth, Digital marketing strategy, 239–240.
16
inbound links, that is links that point back to the company’s own site and
come from authoritative websites with related subject matter. This is known
as off-site SEO. As further observed by Ryan, having high-quality content
is the best way to attract inbound links – also called backlinks – from
esteemed external sources.
The reason why these inbound links are important is that they play a crucial
role for search engine ranking mechanisms, which rely on the quantity and
quality of these links as a criterium to assess the relevance and authority of
a page and thus to rank it on the SERP. In addition to them, there are
internal and external links pointing back to individual pages of a website,
with the aim of making the single page rank higher, rather than the entire
website.61
Unlike internal links that can be managed directly by the company by
deciding which pages of their website linking together, inbound and
external links cannot be controlled. Among the ways in which other website
owners can be urged to naturally link to a website, the most effective ways
– although not the fastest – are to “create high-quality content” and “build a
reputation for excellence” in the specific field in which the business
operates. This will make other sites willing to link to a specific page or to
an entire site because of their perceived value.62
Paid search marketing
Although originally search engine marketing (SEM) was intended to
include both SEO and paid advertising on the search engines, the term is
mainly used today only as a synonym of paid search marketing, also known
as pay-per-click advertising (PPC). This technique has the same objective
as SEO, that is making a website visible to potential customers and so
driving traffic to it. However, the method employed is different because
paid search advertising implies paying the search engine to display an
advertisement in line with the search query at the top or alongside the
organic listings on the SERP, or even on affiliate sites. The advertiser can
provide the search engine with a list of the keywords pertaining to its
products and services that users have to type to be able to see the advert.
To distinguish these paid advertisements from the organic search results,
search engines usually apply them a label indicating that they are paid
search results. The prevailing payment model for search marketing ads is
pay per click (PPC) – also referred to as cost per click (CPC) – which
requires the advertiser to pay the search engine for the number of times the
advertisement is clicked by users.63
This technique can be beneficial to both search engines and advertisers. For
search engines, PPC represents the best way to yield revenue. For
advertisers, it is, first, a quick way to make their website known and
61
62
Ibid., 123.
63
Ibid., 128–129.
17
generate visitors, while waiting for the organic SEO efforts to start to bring
their benefits. Furthermore, unlike other forms of traditional and online
advertising, search marketing advertisements are highly targeted because
shown only to the specific group of potential customers that has typed the
keywords in line with the ad. In addition to this, major search engines, like
Google, offer advertisers useful tools to monitor the traffic to their websites
as well as to manage, track and optimise their paid search advertising
campaigns, thereby helping them achieve effective results.64
Online advertising
Besides paid search marketing, online advertising can take several other
forms. With the significant increase in the use of the internet, enterprises
have started to invest more in online advertising to reach potential
customers more effectively, make them learn about the enterprise and try to
persuade them to buy its products or services. One of the major advantages
of online advertising is its specific targeting.
Differently from traditional advertising which is generally targeted at broad
market segments, online advertisements are designed to target specific
groups or individual customers. This is possible due to advanced
technologies, such as machine learning and Big Data, which give
advertisers information about customers’ previous online behaviour, such
as, for example, what products they sought and bought or what websites
they visited. In this way, advertisers can choose a more suitable target for
their adverts. Moreover, the Web makes analytics tools available to
advertisers to monitor their advertising campaigns and collect data on the
number of times their adverts have been displayed and by which publisher
along with the number of clicks by users. This is extremely useful to
companies because they are so able to measure the degree of success of
their campaigns and learn from the results obtained.
Another important aspect of online advertising is its high level of
interactivity and immediacy of response. If the aim of an advertisement is to
draw a response from the target audience, this response is immediate in the
case of online ads because they give interested consumers the possibility to
be directly and instantly driven to the website of the company by simply
clicking the ad.65
Like traditional advertising, also online advertising can be divided into two
broad categories on the basis of its purpose. The first one is direct response
advertising whose objective is to encourage potential customers to take the
action that the company wishes from them, such as a purchase of the
company’s products or services or a subscription to its newsletter. In the
digital space, these are the advertisements falling under search engine
marketing, which, as explained before, are displayed on search engines,
usually in the form of written messages, and are paid on a pay-per-click
basis.
64
65
18
The second category, that of brand advertising, usually aims more to
develop brand awareness or exposure on the long term, rather than eliciting
an immediate response and, in terms of online advertising, it corresponds to
the so-called display ads. These take mainly the form of images, but also of
videos and animations, and are often paid for the number of times they are
shown on the publisher’s site, what is defined as impressions or views.
Since impressions are sold in blocks of one thousand, this payment model is
called cost per thousand impressions, where M stands for “mille”, the Latin
translation of thousand (CPM).66 Although traditionally more typical of
paid search advertising, pay per click is used today also for display ads,
especially when their function is to boost traffic and conversions.67
Display advertisements are themselves a very heterogeneous group. The
most used type are banners, i.e. image-based ads, which can come in
different sizes according to the different screens and devices on which they
are displayed and can appear in different positions of a publisher’s page.
Their cost depends on the location on the page and its likelihood of
capturing the visitors’ attention. For example, the upper left section of a
website tends to be more effective because it is the point where the user
starts to look at the content on the page. However, an increasingly common
trend, known as banner blindness, has emerged in the last years. It refers to
the fact that people tend to intentionally, or unintentionally, overlook some
sections on a webpage, like the top banner position, and this makes them
blind to the advertising messages displayed on the page.
Differently from banners which can be easily ignored, overlay ads appear
on top of the primary content that the user is viewing, such as streamed
videos on YouTube, which is the reason why overlays may be perceived as
annoying. Even more intrusive are interstitial ads, which cover the entire
interface of their host app or website. Similar are also pop-up ads, which
suddenly appear on top of the viewed content interrupting the user’s
viewing experience. With static banner ads becoming less effective at
awakening the interest of potential customers, more interactive and
animated types of advertising messages are becoming more and more a
commonplace. Combining text with images, animations, video and sound,
rich media ads tend to be more successful at catching users’ attention.68 The
remarkable surge in popularity of streaming services and video hosting
sites, like YouTube, have also encouraged many companies to deliver their
online advertising messages in the form of video ads on these platforms.
This type of online advertising is similar to TV advertising in content and
form and, in many cases, even the same commercials aired on TV are
displayed online. Video ads can take the form of in-stream ads and
depending on whether they appear before, during or at the end of a video or
66
67
Rob Stokes, “12.6: Payment Models for Display Advertising,” LibreTexts, last modified July 6, 2020,
https://biz.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Marketing/Book%3A_eMarketing__The_Essential_Guide_to_Marketing_i
n_a_Digital_World_(Stokes)/12%3A_Online_advertising/12.06%3A_Payment_models_for_display_advertising.
68
19
a film, they are divided into pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll. Another form of
video advertising are skippable videos, which give users the possibility to
skip the ad immediately or after a few seconds, if not interested. The
positive aspects of this kind of ads are that they have to be paid only when
users do not skip the ad and that watching the entire advert can be regarded
as a sign of interest from a potential customer.69
Since advertisements are often perceived as annoying and disruptive, more
and more people have begun using some types of software, the so-called
adblockers, which enable them to block any kind of advert on the websites
they visit. This is, obviously, detrimental to advertisers, who have
consequently devised a new technique, called native advertising, which
allows them to embed promotional messages in interesting content in a
natural environment. Not overtly appearing as advertising, the adblocker
considers the native ad as content and so does not filter it out. With the
increasing use of adblockers and the great emphasis put on high-quality
content, native advertising is becoming extremely popular these days.70
As Ryan observes, native ads should consist of three elements. First, they
must be fully branded messages. Second, even if labelled as sponsored
content, they have to appear within the editorial of the host site rather than
in the typical positions for display ads, in order to create a seamless user
experience. Finally, they are user-initiated, which means that it is the user
who decides to view the advertisement by clicking on it.71
Affiliate or performance marketing
As suggested by Ryan, affiliate marketing is a form of performance-based
advertising carried out by an affiliate or publisher, who promotes, on its
own site, the products or services offered by the merchant, also referred to
as brand or retailer. Affiliates are rewarded by the merchant through a
commission each time a referred customer viewing the advertisement on the
publishers’ website clicks on it and performs the specific action desired by
the brand. As such, the most commonly used payment model in affiliate
marketing is the cost per action or cost per acquisition (CPA).
The required action is not necessarily a purchase of the retailer’s products
or services, but it may take different forms on the basis of the campaign or
type of site. It can also consist, for example, in providing contact
information, signing up for a trial or downloading a file. Although existing
since the beginning of the internet, performance marketing has been
growing in popularity especially in the past few years attracting both small
and big companies. A major example is the e-tailer Amazon, which
launched its Associates programme in 1996 and still uses it with successful
results.72
69
70
71
72
20
Performance marketing can bring considerable benefits to brands adopting
it. First, having affiliates promoting a brand and its products or services is a
way to significantly increase the reach into different markets. 73 Second,
performance marketing activities are cost-effective because they reduce the
wastage of the ad budget and the risks run by the merchant in terms of
budget expenditure.
Online advertising which is based on the pay-per-click or pay-per-thousand-
impressions payment models requires the brand to pay the publisher for the
promotion before the conversion occurs. In performance marketing, instead,
the publisher is paid only if customers successfully respond to the
company’s call to action by taking the desired action. It follows that this
technique can be advantageous for the retailer, but detrimental to the
publishers who fail to bring the expected results because they would receive
no compensation for their work.
Furthermore, performance marketing proves to be useful to companies even
when the conversion does not take place. This because this kind of
advertising gives the retailer the advantage of getting free brand exposure,
unlike any other form of advertisement. Indeed, even if customers are not
ready to perform the action the brand would like to, promotion through
affiliates is nevertheless a way to make customers aware of the brand and
expose them to its message without having to pay for it. Finally, the
possibility to promote their brand without having to pay for each view or
click on the ad allows advertisers to be more creative in designing their
advertising campaigns. They can thus try new and less conventional ideas
and tactics that they would otherwise not have tried.74
However, entering into a performance programme could also have some
drawbacks. According to Charlesworth, the brand “can easily lose control
of its marketing efforts”, such as when affiliates use over-aggressive
methods, which can convey a wrong image of the brand to its customers. In
other cases, affiliates might decide, for example, to offer the company’s
products at a lower price, which could lead to competition even against the
company itself.75 These and other similar situations may discourage
businesses from including this channel into their digital marketing mix.
Nonetheless, if implemented in an appropriate way, it can prove highly
beneficial.
Email marketing
Although emails have already existed for 50 years and can seem less trendy
than newer digital marketing tools, they still play a crucial role in
companies’ digital marketing mix. Indeed, if executed correctly, they can be
extremely powerful and effective in engaging and keeping in contact with
73
74
75
21
customers, while at the same time persuading them to perform the desired
actions.76
Being a direct marketing medium, emails allow organisations to build a
personal and direct relationship with each single customer. However, given
the enormous amount of emails each individual receives every day, it is
fundamental for companies to be able to deliver relevant messages able to
capture the attention of the recipients. If they fail to do so, their emails will
end up directly in the virtual recycling bin or worse still, customers will
unsubscribe from their mailing list. Hence the importance of implementing
a well-designed email marketing strategy.77
Email marketing communications can have different goals, but they mostly
aim at customer acquisition, customer retention and prospect conversion, as
Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick suggest. In order to drive visitors to the
corporate website and acquire new potential customers, businesses can rely
on three types of email campaigns. First, cold emails are so- called because
an organisation, which has rented a mailing list, sends an email to
individuals who have no relationship with the brand and with whom it has
had no previous contact. Second, co-branded emails are sent out by an
enterprise to its partner company’s customers, who have accepted to receive
emails from third parties. Here, there is usually strong affinity between the
enterprise sending the email and the recipients.
Finally, the third option consists in a brand promoting itself in a third-party
e-newsletter, for example, through an advert, a sponsorship or an editorial.
To convert prospects into actual customers and maintain an enduring and
profitable relationship with them, businesses can rely on other types of
email campaigns which all share the fact that this time the business uses its
own opt-in house list. This means that, instead of renting an email list, the
organisation builds its own list of names, email addresses and profile details
of potential and existing customers who have accepted to be contacted by
the company via email.
The first type are conversion emails, which are automated follow-ups sent
out to people who have visited the corporate website without buying
anything, but that have showed some form of interest and have shared their
email address with the company. Their aim is to convince these potential
consumers to complete their purchase. Another example are house-list
campaigns, which are used periodically to encourage customers to take
certain actions – such as trying a new product or service or making repeated
purchases – and try to reactivate inactive customers. More sporadically
employed are event-triggered or behavioural emails, which are send to
customers on the occasion of the launch of a new product or a special
offer.78 Lastly, e-newsletters – similarly to their traditional counterpart – are
distributed on a regular basis, be it weekly, monthly or quarterly, to keep
76
77
Ibid., 179.
78
22
consumers informed of the newest promotions, activities and events related
to the enterprise. However, unlike the printed version, e-newsletters have
the advantage of containing a hyperlink which, if clicked, drives the
recipients directly to the company’s webpage, thus facilitating a possible
action like a purchase.79
With the surge in the number of emails sent and received each day,
marketers find it convenient to rely on email service providers, or
marketing automation services as they are also known, which help them
handle their email marketing communications and activities.80
These systems prove very useful since they provide a great variety of
functions. Marketers, for example, can easily create their design templates
and manage their mailing list. They also find personalisation tools to
customise the content to the recipients’ preferences as well as tools to trial
their messages before sending them in order for these emails to be able to
avoid spam filters. Even more helpful are the tracking tools to monitor the
success of the email marketing campaigns, which provide information
about the number of people who have disregarded, opened or replied to the
email.81
The extensive use of emails has given rise, however, to the phenomenon of
spam, what Kotler and Armstrong define as “unsolicited, unwanted
commercial email messages”. Receiving these spam emails is usually very
annoying to customers, so that rarely will these messages manage to
persuade their recipients to read them and in the vast majority of cases they
are directly deleted without having been opened at all. This is why most
businesses today prefer to use permission-based email marketing, i.e. the
practice of sending emails only to the consumers who have decided to “opt
in” by giving the company the permission to be contacted.82
The concept of permission marketing was introduced by the marketing
expert Seth Godin in 1999 as opposed to interruption marketing. While the
latter refers to traditional forms of marketing communications that disrupt
customers’ activities, such as a TV commercial aired during a TV
programme, the former is more characteristic of some digital marketing
tools, such as opt-in email marketing, but also social networks and video
sharing sites, which utilize the subscribing feature.83 Although interruption
marketing continues to be used also as part of the digital marketing strategy
through, for example, several types of advertisements, – pop-ups,
interstitials or in-stream video ads, among others – this approach is no
longer successful and can trigger, instead, a hostile reaction from potential
customers. Furthermore, several companies implementing permission-based
email marketing also give their customers the opportunity to choose
personally about what kind of content they want to be informed in the
79
80
81
82
83
23
emails. This form of personalization along with the opt-in mechanism help
marketers to deliver more relevant and interesting messages, which are
more likely to receive a favourable response from the recipients and lead to
a higher return on investment.84
Online public relations
These days, if companies want to reach out to and communicate with
consumers or other stakeholders, the most obvious place where to find them
is online. However, the internet is so vast and crowded that businesses need
to make considerable efforts to stand out from the crowd, not to mention the
fact that the amount of online conversations about a brand and its products
is so huge that companies may find it difficult to keep track of all of them.
As a result, it proves to be extremely helpful for businesses to undertake
public relations activities also online. Like its offline counterpart, online
public relations, or e-PR, has the function of raising awareness, creating and
maintaining a positive public image and improving perceptions of the
enterprise among potential customers and stakeholders in general.
The other fundamental component of PR activities, i.e. reputation
management, is, instead, committed to protecting the company’s reputation
by monitoring and influencing conversations that have as central topic the
company, its actions or products. Closely connected with content
marketing, online PR is also very useful for bolstering other
communications techniques frequently used in the digital space, such as
SEO and social media marketing.85
Digital technologies and the internet have revolutionised the way public
relations works today providing it with new techniques and tools. As stated
by Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, “e-PR leverages the network effect of the
Internet” placing great emphasis on the role of mentions. Mentions of a
business online play a crucial role in influencing potential customers and
persuading them to give a chance – or not – to an enterprise. Therefore, like
in traditional PR, the monitoring of these mentions is fundamental in the
online space too.
Numerous monitoring software and tools have been developed to help
digital marketers keep track of what is being said about their company and
its products and services both on the internet and on social media.86 Besides
monitoring mentions, the goal of online PR is also to increase the number
of positive mentions on third-party sites while reducing that of negative
mentions. To do so, a company can rely on online influencers – whether
journalists, bloggers or celebrities – for their potential to influence and
spread the word among their usually numerous followers. Manifold are the
digital tools available to public relations specialists today. Typical of online
84
85
86
24
PR are especially Web 2.0 tools like blogs, social networks, podcasts, photo
and video sharing sites.87
Blogs are online platforms used by a single individual or a group of people
to regularly publish their posts, mainly written in a personal and informal
diary-style, on a great variety of topics. These blog posts blend written
content with photographs and contain hyperlinks to other websites relevant
to the theme in question. They are published on a regular basis, even if
frequency can freely vary according to the blogger’s preferences, and the
order in which the posts are displayed on the blog can change too. They can
be delivered by topic, specific tags or author, but, in any case, they typically
appear in reverse chronological order. Reader engagement and interaction
are important aspects of blogs. This is why blog posts often offer visitors
the possibility to leave a comment expressing their own thoughts.88
With the surge in popularity of social networks, more and more bloggers
manage to attract followers for their blogs by publicising them on their
profiles on social networking sites. Today, there a lot of famous blogs with
a large and loyal following, which prove very successful in influencing
people’s ideas and attitudes towards specific themes, but also towards
companies and their products. As a result, these influential bloggers can
turn out to be very helpful as part of companies’ PR activities. Furthermore,
increasingly more enterprises have also chosen to create their own brand-
related blogs to directly engage with their target audience and exchange
opinions about various topics. These conversations can be really interesting
for marketers, who can obtain useful and real insights into what consumers
value and then adapt their marketing and PR strategies accordingly.89
Similar to blogs, social networking sites play a central role in a company’s
PR programme because they give businesses a way to enter into real
customer conversations. However, differently from blogs where it is the PR
specialist to choose the subject matter of the blog posts, social networks are
largely consumer controlled. This implies that companies can gain an
understanding of current impressions and tendencies by observing what
people talk about on social media and, also in this case, this can be
subsequently translated into their PR and marketing campaigns. On social
networks, individuals also frequently share their feedbacks and
recommendations about brands and products with their peers, thus often
influencing their choices. On a PR perspective, these comments, if positive,
can significantly improve a brand reputation, but, if negative, they can have
the opposite effect.90
Photo and video sharing sites together with podcasts are also widely used
by businesses as part of their PR strategies because they make it possible to
share content in a more engaging and appealing form. They also allow to
87
Ibid.
88
89
90
25
establish a more emotional relationship between the brand and its
stakeholders, not to mention the fact that, containing links pointing back to
the company’s own site or blog, they contribute to bringing in visitors and
improving the search engine optimisation.
These new techniques offer new exciting opportunities, but they can also
pose new serious challenges. As Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick observe, these
tools give companies “more options to create their own stories” since they
can now rely on their own website, blog, or even social media newsroom so
that the dependence on paid media decreases. It follows that online PR
tends to be cost-effective not having to pay for media placement. Moreover,
e-PR can be beneficial for the SEO strategy because mentions of the brand
on third-party sites, which point back to the brand’s own site through a
hyperlink, contribute positively to acquiring a higher ranking in the search
engine results page.
Although specific digital tools make it easier to monitor mentions of an
organisation online, the internet offers, however, many more places where
to talk about a brand – compared to traditional media – and this can make
online PR quite challenging because of the difficulty for marketers to
control and be constantly alert to what is going on online. Furthermore, the
characteristics of the Web allow information to spread at a very fast pace.
While this can be beneficial when it comes to favourable comments and
opinions, the same is not true for unfavourable ones.
When an enterprise starts drawing criticism for its actions online, a quick
response from the enterprise itself is key to saving its reputation. Therefore,
many organisations have created their teams devoted specifically to this
task. In addition, some marketers seem to be unenthusiastic about the use of
blogs on the corporate website because these may attract negative
comments that might impact on the reputation of the company. However, it
is also true that controlling and responding to this criticism on the
company’s site is surely easier than on third-party sites.91
3.4 Social media marketing

Social media marketing is dealt with in this thesis separately from the
online marketing techniques because, even though it also leverages the
power of the internet, it is characterized by distinctive features. As stated by
Yao and Clifton, “social media is not just one media channel, it is a virtual
society in which all sorts of human activities take place”. It follows that
these platforms are characterised by their “own set of rules, norms and
cultures”, which differentiate them from the other media channels.92 Social
media marketing, which will form the subject of the second chapter, will be
here only briefly outlined.
From a marketing perspective, although social media are a type of earned
media hosting, in particular, customer-generated content, they prove to be
91
92
26
versatile channels capable of supporting various digital marketing
techniques and campaign styles. Companies can rely on the technique of
content marketing to create and publish their own original and high-quality
content on their social media accounts, with the aim of informing, educating
and entertaining their followers. Given the peculiar functioning of these
platforms, social media prove also suitable for word-of-mouth marketing.
This refers to the good chances that company-generated content has to be
spread by satisfied and loyal customers also outside the company’s
following, thus having the possibility to reach and influence more people.
Furthermore, it also refers to all the situations in which these customers
spontaneously express their positive opinions about a brand, its products or
services and recommend them to other social media users. In addition to
this free and voluntary promotion, businesses can also rely on social media
influencers to have their brand messages, products and services promoted to
the larger market in exchange for a reward.
Aiming also at publicising a brand’s product offering, social media buzz
campaigns are another strategy frequently employed by companies. Social
media, indeed, are platforms extremely appropriate for generating buzz
around a company and its products. Finally, social-media based advertising
is another successful technique, especially when an enterprise pursues the
goals of increasing conversion rates and boosting revenue in the short run.93
The strengths of social media lie in their being channels allowing for
“personalised marketing on a massive scale in a many-to-many
communication system”, as Yao and Clifton point out. This means that they
bring the advantages of personal, customised and interactive
communication and relationships typical of direct digital marketing, while
at the same time ensuring the wide reach characteristic of traditional mass
media. This makes them extremely useful in helping organisations to
successfully discover, reach out to, engage with and influence their targets.
As regards their weaknesses, it can be rather challenging for marketers to
correctly measure the success of their campaigns on social media, which
entails that several key performance indicators (KPIs) should be assessed to
have a picture that is as complete as possible. Furthermore, many followers
on social media tend to be only interested in the content a company
distributes and are not so willing to answer to its calls to action. As a
consequence, the return on investment (ROI) may be lower than expected.94
3.5 Mobile marketing

Like social media marketing, also mobile marketing will be covered in a
separate paragraph because it relies on manifold digital marketing tools –
some of which have developed to be used first on computers like websites
and online advertising and some of which are, instead, distinctive like apps
– and adapts them to a new context, that of mobile devices. These are small,
93
Ibid.
94
27
smart and handy devices designed to be used while held in the hand and be
ever-present in people’s daily lives. Mobile media usage has been
experiencing an explosive growth over the past few years. The reasons lie
in the particular way of functioning and the distinctive features of mobile
devices, which make them extremely convenient and suitable for
performing a great variety of daily activities, such as learning, watching
films, connecting with the own network of contacts or even shopping.
Although computers are still widely used to go online, 92 per cent of
current global internet users have internet access from their handheld
devices too and exactly these mobile media accounted for more than half of
all the time spent online at the end of 2019.
Moreover, mobile phones were the first device for number of web page
requests – amounting to 53.3 per cent of total web traffic – at the end of last
year, compared with computers, tablets and other devices recording each
one a lower percentage.95 These figures have grown rapidly over the years
making the burgeoning mobile industry extremely attractive to marketers
and mobile marketing a must for most brands. Indeed, mobile marketing
provides fertile ground for companies to reach out to their targets by
delivering them marketing messages, advertisements and other content
everywhere and at any time through their mobile devices.96
The internet has drastically changed how people shop by allowing them to
buy products in an easy and convenient way directly from their houses or
wherever they are, without having to personally go to physical stores.
People’s shopping experience, however, has been further revolutionised
with the introduction of smartphones and other mobile devices, which have
given birth to mobile commerce – or m-commerce for short.
These mobile media not only simplify and accelerate the buying process,
but also offer additional services and more sophisticated functions, which
improve the brand experience, including “on-the-go product information,
price comparisons, advice and reviews from other consumers, and access to
instant deals and digital coupons”.97 These are all new opportunities
marketers can use today for engaging their consumers, especially younger
ones, accompanying them through the entire purchasing process with the
help of tools like mobile websites, apps, mobile ads and SMS. 98 Today,
mobile commerce is a flourishing activity and is even expected to grow
further in the next years.
Statistics predict that sales on mobile devices, which accounted for 52.4 per
cent of the world’s total e-commerce sales in 2016 and for 58.9 per cent in
2017, will account for 70.4 per cent in 2020 and for 72.9 per cent in 2021.99
In addition to the enormous mobile-enabled sales volume, it is worth
95
Kemp, “Digital 2020.”
96
97
Ibid., 525–526.
98
Ibid.
99
“Global Mobile eCommerce Statistics, Trends & Forecasts,” Merchant Savvy, last modified February 2020,
https://www.merchantsavvy.co.uk/mobile-ecommerce-statistics/.
28
mentioning that a strength of mobile devices is their capacity to lead people
to action in a very short time. Indeed, 70 per cent of mobile searches are
also completed with a purchase within an hour, whereas desktop searches
require an entire month to achieve the same percentage. 100 This because –
as Kotler and Armstrong suggest – mobile marketing is very effective at
providing people with useful information, carefully targeted and customised
promotions, incentives and special offers, which can prove particularly
enticing when people are willing to make a purchase or show an interest.101
With the exponential growth of businesses engaging in m-commerce, it is
fundamental for mobile marketers to develop the right strategy that can help
their enterprise to stand out. To do so, they must first understand what their
customers want by directly asking them and then they must deliver
experiences, offers and services that live up to customers’ desires and
expectations.
According to some pieces of research conducted, mobile consumers
generally want well-designed mobile websites and apps, which make it
possible to have a flawless user experience and an intuitive and quick
purchasing as well as to easily find all useful information. Efficiency and
page loading speed are also decisive factors for mobile users, who usually
leave a page which requires too many seconds to load, thus not completing
the purchase. Furthermore, consumers are more likely to buy from websites
and apps with personalised, relevant and appealing content. Therefore,
many mobile sites and apps have started to offer them services and
promotions customised to their location and preferences.102 Since mobile
devices are also very personal and can tell a lot about their owners,
marketers should bear in mind that respecting mobile users’ privacy, which
is something people value a lot today, is a key aspect to win their trust.103
Equally important is using mobile marketing responsibly without being too
invasive or annoying because the majority of people do not like being
constantly interrupted by notifications or mobile ads or, worse still, being
contacted on their mobile devices by a company without having explicitly
given permission. This is why several mobile marketers today only direct
their marketing communications at mobile users that have opted in or
downloaded an app and try to engage with them in a more interactive way
rather than simply delivering them one-way advertisement messages.104
Among the mobile marketing tools, the website is the channel most
frequently used by companies to reach prospect and current customers. As a
matter of fact, the high web traffic coming from handheld devices makes
websites, especially the ones well optimised for search engines, still a
profitable opportunity. However, for these sites to be attractive to
100
“22 must-know mobile ecommerce stats for 2020,” Pixel Union Shop (blog), December 11, 2019,
https://pixelunion.net/blogs/state-of-the-union/mobile-ecommerce-stats.
101
102
Pixel Union Shop, “22 must-know mobile ecommerce stats for 2020.”
103
104
29
consumers visiting them from their small screens, they must be fast,
responsive and optimised for mobile devices while ensuring smooth and
frictionless mobile interactions. This means, for example, focussing on
touch-driven and mobile display controls, such as swipe or zoom, instead of
mouse clicks and keyboard controls as well as designing navigation and
interaction buttons that are big enough to be touched with a finger and easy
to find within the page.105 These days, the great variety of existing mobile
devices coming in different screen sizes and characteristics can pose
technical challenges for companies, but making sure that their websites
have a responsive web design is today absolutely necessary.106
The same is true for mobile applications, or simply apps, which are another
powerful channel on which marketers rely to engage with customers though
their mobile devices. During the last few years, there has been a true
explosion in the number of available apps. Launched in 2008, Apple App
Store and Google Play Store are the largest app stores existing today with
millions of apps each. In such an environment, many organisations find it
advantageous to create their own branded apps, which tend to resonate well
with users today. In doing so, they need to make some choices and consider
everything carefully. First, it is important to understand what issue the app
addresses and at whom it is targeted. Subsequently, companies can choose
what kind of app they want to build among the numerous existing
categories, but what is important is that this app offers something really
useful and engaging.107
According to the industry in which it operates, an enterprise can choose
whether to opt, for example, for a utility app that people generally use on a
daily basis, or for a productivity app, which help them accomplish tasks in
an easy and fast way, or a news, information or educational app to inform
and educate them. Another popular option today are lifestyle apps, which
cover various human activities and interests ranging from health and fitness,
shopping and travel to dating, music and food. Equally successful are
entertainment and gaming apps conceived to amuse individuals by offering
them opportunities to be involved in leisure activities, such as playing
games, streaming or searching events.108
Besides the category, other decisions to take concern whether to offer a free
or paid app, how to market and promote this app and what parameters to
use to measure its success. Download number can be an option, but since it
does not give a complete picture, it is necessary to supplement it with other
metrics that focuses more on assessing user engagement, like the number of
total app users.109 In particular, with the rise of e-commerce, several
manufacturers and retailers have built their own shopping apps to deliver
105
106
107
108
Daniella Rosul, “What are the popular types and categories of apps,” ThinkMobiles (blog), accessed
September 29, 2020, https://thinkmobiles.com/blog/popular-types-of-apps/.
109
30
consumers relevant information they may be interested in and make their
shopping experiences fast, convenient and simple. According to a survey
conducted by GlobalWebIndex in 2019, shopping apps are among the ten
apps most used by people aged 16 to 64. With a percentage of 66 per cent,
they come only after chat apps and social networking apps, each one
reaching 89 per cent. Entertainment and video apps as well as map apps
follow with 65 per cent each. Lower percentages are shown, instead, by
music apps (52%), games (47%), banking apps (35%), health and fitness
apps (26%) and dating apps (11%).110
Mobile devices offer valuable opportunities for advertisers too because
through mobile advertising they can reach, influence and persuade people
wherever they are and whenever they use their smartphones or other mobile
media. For many companies, indeed, promoting their brands and products
on third-party apps or mobile websites can be more cost-effective than
building their own apps.111 Like online advertisements on computers,
mobile adverts can take different forms. Interactive rich media ads prove
really effective at creating impact and encouraging user involvement by
combining text, audio, images, animations and video. Often personalised to
target distinct audiences, they usually appear in expandable formats that
take over the entire screen or most of it, thus offering more space for details
and better visibility to the call to action.112
Another successful type of mobile advertising are video ads, which harness
the power of moving pictures and audio to deliver promotional messages in
an engaging and appealing way. An innovative option able to generate high
conversion rates is gamified advertising, which relies on interactive videos
or rich media to awaken user interest. Although less trendy, banner ads
continue to be heavily utilized by being embedded in web host pages or
applications.
Similar to banners, native ads have, however, the advantage of being
displayed within the natural environment of a site or app, which allows
them to be perceived as content and thus not to cause interruptions to the
viewing experience. Totally different are interstitial mobile ads, which
come, instead, in the form of videos or graphics covering the entire screen
of a device and appearing only at transition points in order not to interrupt
the usage of an application. A typical example are gaming apps, which,
thanks to their high number of users, prove suitable places to deliver
promotional messages.113
Although less frequently employed, text messages are also a mobile
marketing tool that allows marketers to interact and communicate with their
consumers. However, if marketers decide to include them in their mobile
marketing mix, they need to use them responsibly. The reason is that SMS
110
Kemp, “Digital 2020.”
111
112
113
Alvin Koay, “What is Mobile Advertising and How Does it Work?,” MobileAds (blog), last modified April
22, 2020, https://www.mobileads.com/blog/mobile-advertising#Types_of_Mobile_Advertising.
31
tend to be considered as intrusive by consumers who often feel annoyed by
marketers’ frequent attempts to invade their personal space.114
As suggested by Yao and Clifton, a comprehensive mobile marketing
strategy should also involve the other communication techniques and digital
marketing tools falling under the umbrella of online and social media
marketing, such as paid search marketing, search engine optimisation or
influencer marketing. However, for these to be able to effectively work,
they need to be specifically adjusted – from a technical and strategic point
of view – to the mobile environment before. Today, several professionals
are calling for a mobile-first approach. In Yao and Clifton’s words, “this
means that marketers should develop their content and strategy for the
mobile context before moving on to other online and offline
environments”.115
4 The characteristics of digital media

Digital media have taken the marketing world by storm thanks to their
revolutionary characteristics, which have offered marketers new and more
effective ways of communicating with their existing and prospective
customers in the current digital age. It is this set of characteristics that
distinguishes digital media from traditional ones.
As suggested by Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, while all traditional media
can be defined as push media, many digital media are, instead, pull media.
The former enable mainly unidirectional communications that flow from
the company to customers, who thus have only a passive role. Since people
are not actively looking for a specific brand, it is the company that pushes
its products by promoting them to potential customers. However, it is also
important to specify that some digital media – like online advertising and
email marketing – have to be considered as push media too because they
have the same function and features as their traditional counterparts, i.e.
offline advertising and direct-mail marketing.
On the contrary, pull media, falling under the strategy of inbound
marketing, aim at pulling, i.e. attracting, customers to the company, for
example to its website and social media presences. Customers have a
proactive role in the framework of pull media because they are searching on
their own for relevant information and specific products or services to
satisfy their needs. In order for customers to actively initiate interaction
with a brand, pull media – such as search engine optimisation, content,
search engine and social media marketing – have to appeal to and positively
influence them before. For example, having a high ranking in the organic
results of search engines is a good way to give visibility to an enterprise in
the eyes of a potential customer in the moment when he or she is interested
in buying products. However, in such a context, push media – be they
114
115
32
traditional or digital – are still useful for encouraging online interactions
between brands and customers.116
Another distinctive feature of digital media is interactivity, i.e. their
capacity to create a dialogue between the company and its consumers. With
traditional media, instead, individuals have very few opportunities to
interact with brands. Indeed, interaction is only limited to those situations in
which direct response elements are made available by the media, as it is the
case of direct-response TV advertising, but in general interactivity is not
typical of traditional communication tools. In the new digital age, people
seek this interaction with brands. As such, interactivity has become
absolutely essential and it is therefore seen as a strength of digital
marketing channels.
Over the years, the development of newer digital communication tools has
also made it possible to create not only a dialogue, but also a trialogue, that
is an interaction not simply between a business and a customer, but also
among customers themselves. This is possible today thanks to social
networking sites, online communities and online review sites, among
others, where the focus is on user-generated content.117
As further pointed out by Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, with the advent of
digital media there has been a shift from one-to-many communication –
typical of push media – to one-to-some or even one-to-one communication
– characteristic of digital marketing tools. This refers to the fact that
traditional media allow mass communication, i.e. communication between
an organisation and many customers, usually broadcasting the same
standardised message to the general public or several different groups of
customers.
However, since the rise of digital media and the internet, micro-targeting
has become possible and companies have begun leveraging the new
opportunities offered by these new marketing tools. They enable to
personalise enterprises’ marketing messages as well as product offerings
and to distribute this highly customised content to narrowly defined
segments or even to individual customers, with the aim of improving
consumers’ online experience and transforming them into loyal brand
advocates.118 These processes are known as mass customisation and
personalisation. Specifically, mass customisation focuses on targeting
groups of customers with similar needs and interests – what was defined
before as one-to-some communication – whereas personalisation is about
the single individual in a one-to-one communication model. To be able to
tailor messages and products, companies need to collect real information
about customers.
While for mass customisation basic information, such as demographic
factors, is sufficient, personalisation requires more specific data on the
116
117
118
Ibid., 425.
33
single individual’s interests.119 In this regard – according to Kingsnorth – it
is important not to confuse personalisation with segmentation. Indeed,
segmentation involves grouping people with similar attitudes, demographic
aspects, buying behaviour and other factors to ensure more accurate and
relevant targeting and messaging.120 Personalisation, instead, goes one step
further by targeting the individual customer. This is possible today thanks
to the two data collection methods outlined by Kingsnorth.
On the one hand, there is user-defined personalization and, on the other,
behavioural personalisation. The former is based on the information each
person is willing to share about themselves, their wants and preferences
with marketers in order to allow them to tailor their communications
accordingly. This information can be requested by companies through any
channel like online forms or phone calls. Although this method can be
really advantageous and seem the ideal model, it also poses some
challenges. Sometimes, people are wary of marketers and prefer not to
disclose their true data. In these cases, messages tailored to fake data will
not be effective. In other cases, the information people give about
themselves is based on their own aspirations, judgements and perceptions of
themselves, which not always correspond to reality, thus compromising the
objective of personalisation. The latter, i.e. the behavioural personalisation
method, is a modern approach relying on the extraordinary availability of
data on the web – the so-called Big Data – which enables marketers to
study their target audiences’ behaviours at the granular level. Individuals’
behavioural patterns are inferred from different factors, such as websites
visited, emails opened or articles read, among others. These insights can be
subsequently applied to personalising communications to each individual
and offering them only the relevant content in line with their behaviour.
However, it is important to remember that in this model it is the marketer
who makes assumptions about customers’ behavioural patterns from the
data collected and this personal interpretation of the data involves a certain
degree of uncertainty as to whether it reflects reality correctly. Considering
their strengths and weaknesses, marketers should opt to employ both
methods simultaneously letting them complement one another, instead of
selecting only one or the other.121
Although digital media mainly offer opportunities for personalised
communications, some digital marketing channels still allow for one-to-
many advertising. This is, for example, the case for websites and social
networks, which – like a conventional advertisement – “can inform,
persuade and remind customers about the offering”, but – differently from it
– they do not require any payment and do not place particular constraints.122
119
Ibid., 322–323.
120
121
122
34
5 The benefits of digital marketing
When executed properly, a digital marketing strategy can bring
considerable advantages to a business, but also to its consumers.
5.1 Benefits for the consumer

From the perspective of customers, digital marketing is helpful in delivering
them a simple and convenient purchasing experience. Thanks to e-
commerce websites and shopping apps, interested buyers have access to
companies’ products at any time and wherever they are, thus avoiding the
inconveniences of a physical shopping experience. They often even find an
assortment of products which is wider on the internet than in brick-and-
mortar shops. Online it is even easier for people to find all the relevant
information which can help them in the choice of the goods or services that
best satisfy their specific needs and tastes. Product reviews and ratings from
other users together with recommendations based on previous searches or
purchases are examples of additional online functionalities, which can make
online shopping more efficient. Besides being time-saving, buying goods
over the internet can also prove more affordable because of the discounts
that e-tailers and marketers often offer to attract more people to their
channels.123
As further suggested by Kotler, the benefits that digital marketing provides
to consumers are not only purely related to the buying experience. A
company’s online presences, such as its social media accounts and blogs,
enable loyal and enthusiastic brand fans to come together in online brand
communities. This allows them to establish close relationships with other
customers, share their own brand experiences and exchange information
relevant also to the other members of the community. But this is also a way
for them to actively engage with their beloved brand, better discover the
brand universe and keep themselves constantly updated on all the news
about it. In other words, an online brand community is a way for consumers
to feel part of the brand.124
Furthermore, the content published by a company on its online channels –
especially if high-quality and interesting – is a successful tool to increase
the sense of belonging and loyalty of existing customers and inspire belief
in the brand. It is also a powerful vehicle for attracting potential customers
who come across new brands on the Internet, for example through online
ads or recommendations on social media platforms. Indeed, even people
who are still not consumers may gradually develop this sense of emotional
connection with a brand that can encourage them to finally try out the
company’s products or services. As such, digital marketing channels prove
123
124
Ibid.
35
really useful for offering people more chances to discover new
organisations in line with their tastes, interests and values.125
5.2 Benefits for the company

From the perspective of businesses, numerous are the benefits of a properly
implemented digital marketing strategy. Today, digital media channels are
an essential part of most marketing campaigns because they effectively help
companies to meet their various objectives. These may include building and
raising brand awareness among the target audience, acquiring new
customers while retaining current ones, expanding the reach of marketing
communications as well as facilitating and encouraging customer
engagement and interaction by increasing the touchpoints between the
company and its customers across the buyer journey. New media also prove
to be useful for establishing lasting customer relationships, building a brand
community, but also in increasing customer satisfaction, generating brand
loyalty and transforming loyal and satisfied customers into brand advocates,
who voluntarily commit to supporting and promoting the brand in the
online as well as offline space. Last but not least, online communications
techniques are able to successfully influence people’s purchase intention
and, ultimately, improve conversion rates as well as the company’s bottom
line.126
All this becomes possible in the digital age because – as Yao and Clifton
observe – “digital marketers have the advantage of direct access to
individual consumers at anytime, anywhere”.127 The absence of any
limitation of space and time together with the other characteristics of digital
media discussed previously are the strengths of these new communication
channels, that is what enables them to bring companies the benefits outlined
before.
This topic can be covered more extensively by reviewing some of the
frameworks developed by marketing and business experts over the years.
The first to be dealt with are the 5Ss of Chaffey and Smith, who identify
five broad benefits of digital marketing.
 Sell – digital marketing tools have the potential to boost sales by making
online channels available to customers to make purchases or influencing
sales from offline channels. In this respect, the strengths of digital
marketing lie in reaching a wider target market than the one that can be
normally reached in the offline space, offering larger assortments of
products and/or charging lower prices compared to the offline ones.
 Serve – digital marketing adds value to the online experience, for
example, by providing customers with extra benefits or letting them
125
“Impact of Digital Marketing on Businesses,” SRV Media (blog), last modified March 3, 2020,
https://www.srvmedia.com/blog/impact-digital-marketing-businesses/.
126
127
36
know when new products are brought on the market and asking them for
feedback.
 Speak – digital marketing offers marketers valuable opportunities to
approach their customers and learn about their needs, wants and tastes.
To do so, they can rely on web analytics and social media monitoring
tools, surveys and direct conversations, for example, in online customer
communities.
 Save – digital marketing allows companies to save money by cutting the
costs related to sales transactions, customer service, administration and
some kinds of advertising. For example, emails as well as online sales
and services allow to reduce postage, print and staff costs.
 Sizzle – this last point refers to the opportunities that digital technologies
give to companies to extend their brand online. This can be achieved by
delivering new value propositions, offerings and experiences specifically
conceived for the online space. An example are online brand
communities.128
The second framework to be discussed here is the strategic marketing grid
of Ansoff, a model that helps businesses understand which is the strategy
that, at a particular moment, may best contribute to their growth and the
achievement of the planned marketing goals. Also known as the
product/market expansion grid, this matrix can be described taking into
account how the use of the internet and digital marketing tools enables a
company to achieve each of the following four strategic directions:
 Market penetration – this approach consists in leveraging digital
channels to increase the sales of existing products into existing markets.
In this regard, well implemented digital marketing communication
techniques prove helpful in growing the market share of a business by
allowing it to better compete and stand out in the online environment. In
addition, the internet can contribute positively to improving customer
loyalty by delivering higher value to customers online. Another benefit
of the web consists in enhancing, this time, the value customers deliver
to the company. This can be done by increasing the purchase frequency
of customers, the quantity of products they buy or their profitability
through lower cost to serve.
 Market development – here the usage of direct internet channels aims to
enter new geographical markets where to sell the existing products of a
company, benefiting from the low costs deriving from using the internet
and digital technologies to support this market expansion. The other
alternative falling under this strategy consists in selling existing products
online to a market segment or a clientele that differ from the ones
normally targeted in the offline context.
128
37
 Product development – this refers to the development of new or modified
products and services to be sold in existing markets. The internet can add
value to existing products. However, as regards new products, the ones
that can be delivered exclusively by the internet are mostly digital or
information products, such as online magazines. Moreover, the Digital
Revolution has led many industries to develop new ways to deliver their
products, for example, by introducing new usage models like
subscription or pay-per-use in the book and music industries.
 Diversification – it is based on the development of new products to be
sold in new markets. The internet contributes to making lower costs
possible for enterprises deciding to adopt this high-risk approach.
Companies can choose among four different options to develop this
strategy. The first two enable a company to start new businesses or
acquiring existing ones with the aim of diversifying its product offering.
The difference lies in the kind of products or services offered by the new
businesses. In the first and more frequently selected option, the company
opts for businesses offering related products or services, such as hotel
booking and car rental offered as additional services by an airline when
booking a flight. Instead, in the second and more infrequent option, the
businesses produce less related products or services. In both cases, the
company can use its digital channels, such as its website, to cost-
effectively promote these new product lines. The last two alternatives,
i.e. upstream integration with suppliers and downstream integration with
intermediaries, can be attained through an exchange of data, respectively,
between the company and its suppliers and between the company and its
distributors.129
Customers are an essential part of each business because without them the
business could not reach its primary goals of increasing sales and revenues.
As such, customers should always be put at the heart of the business’s
marketing activities and communications.130 In this respect, digital
marketing has provided marketers with new useful techniques and tools that
help them to successfully accomplish their challenging but fundamental
tasks of identifying, satisfying and retaining customers. Indeed, the one-to-
one nature of direct digital marketing gives companies important
advantages. Unlike with mass marketing, they can now establish more
personal relationships and direct interactions with individual buyers, better
understand their preferences, needs and interests and personalise
communications and products accordingly.131
Furthermore, the different digital media channels described in previous
sections of this chapter prove to be extremely useful in all the four steps of
the RACE framework devised by Smart Insights to help companies plan,
manage and improve their marketing activities in the digital context. This
129
130
131
38
model shows how digital marketing tools – integrated with traditional ones,
when necessary – contribute to creating engagement between a company
and its customers throughout the customer lifecycle. RACE is the acronym
for the following four stages.
 Reach – this first step focuses on those digital activities that build
awareness of the brand, its products and services and drive traffic to the
company’s online presences. Traditional media can also be used to
enhance the visibility of these online presences.
 Act as the short form of Interact – when people have become aware of a
company and its offering, the next step consists in fostering customer
engagement and interaction on the company’s web and social media
presences.
 Convert – once the interaction has been established, it is important for
companies to manage to turn prospects into customers, regardless of
whether sales occur online or offline.
 Engage – a single purchase by a customer is not profitable, therefore
companies engage in communication activities, both online and offline,
that help them establish long-lasting relationships with these new
customers. The aims of these relationships are to build customer loyalty,
encourage repeated purchases and foster brand advocacy.
6 The challenges of digital marketing

Despite the numerous benefits it brings, digital marketing also poses new
challenges to marketers and businesses.
First, as regards companies that want to go digital, they may face difficulty
in initiating and successfully carrying out the digital transformation of their
business. This process consists in “the integration of digital technology into
all areas of a business resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses
operate and how they deliver value to customers”.132
Over the years, new technology has brought significant changes also to
consumers’ behaviours and for companies it has become important to be
able to adapt to this new business landscape. It is true that not all the digital
marketing techniques and tools require an enterprise to make considerable
investments in new technologies. Indeed, SEO or paid search advertising,
for example, do not need specific technologies to be implemented.
However, other tools may need some technology to be purchased by the
enterprise, as in the case of email marketing with email service providers or
social media marketing with monitoring tools. Companies require also
different types of resources for this process of digitalization to take place
and sometimes these resources are deficient. A lack of workforce with
132
“What is digital transformation?,” The Enterprisers Project, accessed October 04, 2020,
https://enterprisersproject.com/what-is-digital-transformation#q1.
39
proper skills within the organisation may be the first obstacle. But
companies can choose between two alternatives to overcome this skill gap.
The first option consists in relying on specialists to train the current
employees so that they will acquire the new skills required. Instead, the
second alternative is the recruitment of new employees who possess the
abilities and know-how requested and bring with them fresh ideas. Another
barrier may be the availability of a limited budget, which makes it difficult
for a company to adopt a wide range of new technologies or to
simultaneously run several IT projects. Finally, another resource that
companies need is time. Embracing digital marketing and becoming
comfortable with these new channels and techniques takes considerable
time.133
Even when a company is already familiar with digital marketing strategies,
it faces the challenge of keeping up with innovations and changes in tools
and procedures. For example, Google often introduces new updates to its
systems and platforms, such as the algorithms used to rank webpages on the
SERP, in order to respond to the evolving business and macroeconomic
environment. Hence, the need for marketers to keep up to date with the
current trends in the technology and marketing fields and to constantly
improve their knowledge in order for their efforts to continue to be
successful.134
Another challenge presented by digital media concerns brand safety. Over
the years, marketers have been realising the dangers posed to brand image
and reputation by the content circulating on the internet. Therefore, it has
become absolutely necessary for them to frequently monitor their online
presences, mentions of their brand as well as how and where company-
generated content is displayed on the web. Being able to immediately react
to potential threats is fundamental to protect the brand reputation and to
ensure that the brand image is not damaged. This kind of problem can
occur, for example, in the context of online advertising. When a company
pays for having its promotional messages displayed on different channels, it
cannot choose the content next to which its ads will be shown. For example,
harmful or inappropriate content appearing next to a company’s
advertisement might cause a loss of credibility to the company and affect
public perception about it. Brand safety can also be compromised by user-
generated content on social media sites.
Today, web users constantly exchange their experiences and views on all
various aspects of a company, such as its products, services, business and
employment practices, leaving an enormous number of comments on
several different platforms. This is why user conversations are the most
difficult thing to monitor for marketers. However, given the detrimental
impact of negative comments on corporate reputation, enterprises should
have their public relations and crisis communication teams committed to
133
134
40
keeping track of what is being said about the company online and
remedying these unpleasant situations.135
People’s lack of response to enterprises’ online communications also
presents barriers to the success of digital marketing campaigns. As
previously mentioned, banner blindness – i.e. web users’ tendency to ignore
online advertisements displayed in specific positions of a webpage – is a
widespread phenomenon these days. Capturing potential customers’
attention through online ads has become very challenging also on social
networking and other publisher sites. This difficulty of engaging people
may have as consequence for companies the reduction in the effectiveness
of their online advertising campaigns.136
Sometimes people, instead, react negatively to direct digital marketing
communications. This is particularly the case when marketers’ aggressive
and invasive tactics cause irritation to these people. Examples may be
unsolicited emails and phone calls from marketers trying to win new
customers, but also intrusive advertisements like pop-ups, interstitials or in-
stream video ads, which interrupt people’s viewing experience. In all these
cases, the individuals who feel annoyed by these marketing excesses are
unlikely to respond to the call to action of these campaigns. Furthermore,
over the years some tools have been developed and legislations have been
passed to protect consumers against these excessive marketing practices.
Examples include do-not-call lists, do-not-email lists and the CAN-SPAM
Act enacted in the USA in 2003. 137
Some people are still wary of carrying out digital transactions like online
purchases and disclosing their data, including credit and debit card details
or other personal information, on the web. The reason lies in the
proliferation of different forms of internet frauds, such as identity thefts,
financial scams and phishing. In particular, phishing has become very
frequent these days. It consists in deceiving individuals by sending them a
misleading email with false information and a hyperlink that, if clicked,
drives them to a fraudulent website where the sensitive personal data
entered by the victims will be immediately disclosed to the unscrupulous
fraudsters. These fraudulent practices are detrimental not only to the people
having been fooled, but also to the companies whose identity has been used
by the fraudsters to deceive their customers. Once more, this is something
that can damage companies’ credibility and make them lose the trust of
their customers.138
In addition to these cyber security issues, marketers have also to face
consumers’ growing online privacy concerns. Since the development of the
web in the 1990s, public concerns about internet users’ privacy violations
have been emerging and they are still the focus of attention for single
135
136
137
138
41
companies, industries and governments. As Yao and Clifton suggest, the
first forms of online privacy concerns were mainly related to unauthorized
data collection from websites and data sharing with third parties as well as
online surveillance. Subsequently, the development of social and mobile
media has caused worries also about the loss of control over sensitive
personal data, social media monitoring and location tracking.
Also new marketing techniques, which are based on predictive analytics
and behavioural personalisation, have raised further privacy concerns.
Indeed, by relying on Big Data, marketers today are capable of accurately
predicting the behaviour of individual customers and customising
marketing communications and product offerings to their specific needs,
interests and preferences. Although consumers usually benefit from this
personalisation, they may also feel that marketers invade too much their
privacy. As a result, manifold privacy protection strategies have been
developed, including Ad Blockers, cookie policy and the right to be
forgotten, and many governments have also introduced strict privacy
regulations. An example is the General Data Protection Regulation passed
by the European Union in 2016 and entered into force in 2018 in all EU
member states. Instead, the USA has still not a single and comprehensive
legislation on data privacy, but rather several laws at the federal and state
levels. Although these measures may seem counter-productive to
companies, it has been shown that businesses that better protect consumer
privacy are also the ones that gain higher consumer trust and more
favourable consumer attitudes.139
For companies that trade in several countries and want to design a global
digital marketing strategy, it is fundamental to take into account not only
the regulations that govern marketing practices, such as data protection
laws, existing in each country, but also cultural and linguistic specificities
and diversities. For marketers, understanding the cultural aspects of the
territories they are targeting is key to the success of their campaigns.
Therefore, before designing their strategies, they should conduct research
on elements like people’s attitudes towards online purchases, degree of
penetration of mobile devices, broadband coverage and speed, payment
methods used as well as the social media used and the ones instead banned.
All these aspects determine the marketing tools and techniques to employ in
each specific region. Also lifestyles, customs and habits influence digital
marketing choices, for example, in terms of targeting. Moreover, language
is another important element to consider. Obviously, the company’s online
presences should be translated in the language spoken in each specific area
to ensure that potential customers can engage with the brand. However,
foreign languages with different characters may also create further
difficulties with the design of the company’s website and the other online
presences.140
139
140
42
7 The impact of the Internet and digital media on the
marketing mix
With their innovative features and functions, the internet and digital media
have revolutionised well-established marketing strategy models like the
marketing mix. Also known as the four Ps of Product, Price, Place and
Promotion, this traditional framework was established by Jerome McCarthy
in 1960 and continues to be widely employed by marketers today to
develop and pursue their marketing strategy. In the context of digital
marketing, it is important to understand how new digital tools and channels
have transformed this model. Indeed, they have given marketers interesting
opportunities to diversify the mix and its application.141
7.1 Product
With the rise of the internet and digital media, it has become necessary for
companies to consider several elements relating to their product offerings,
including whether their products or services can be sold and delivered
online, through what channels or whether specific characteristics should be
added to or removed from them to ensure that they are appropriate for the
digital landscape.142 These days, companies have many opportunities to
modify their product offerings for the online space. However, any product
decision should always be dictated by thorough market research aiming at
understanding customers’ preferences and wants and at collecting their
feedbacks to be then used to make adjustments to current products or to
create new ones.
As suggested by Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, the internet has exerted its
biggest impact on industries whose products prove suitable for being
transformed into digital products or services, such as music, software,
books, magazines and newspapers. Companies operating in these markets
also benefit from new internet-based options for offering their digital
products, such as subscription, bundling or pay-per-view. For them, being
able to offer their products in a digital version proves really advantageous
because of the reduction in costs. 143
7.2 Price
When deciding to sell online, it is important for enterprises to think also
about the price of their products and whether online customers will be
willing to pay this price. In this regard, there are some considerations that
need to be made. First, people often expect that prices of goods or services
sold online should be lower compared to the offline context because of the
lower expenses companies operating online have to meet.144 As such,
setting too high prices is counter-productive especially in the digital space
141
142
143
144
43
where price comparison sites have increased the price transparency. What is
important for companies is being competitive in digital markets. This does
not necessarily mean setting the lowest prices but ensuring that their overall
value proposition is captivating.145 Indeed, when customers choose the
products or services they want to buy they are not fully rational and look
not only at the price, but also at other factors related to a brand, such as
trust, familiarity and perceived quality.146
Moreover, the internet has made it possible for businesses to adopt
innovative online pricing models. Examples are payment for use, rental at a
fixed cost per month and lease arrangements. New pricing options aiming at
delivering higher value and at attracting customers have also become
increasingly frequent in e-commerce. This is the case for discounts,
cashback and vouchers, but also warranties, refund policies and order
cancellation terms. In addition, even if some of these pricing approaches
used online are not new and already existed before the internet developed,
their application has become easier only with the advent of the web.
Forward auctions, for example, have long been used in offline contexts, but
today they are also often used in the framework of online selling on
websites such as EBay.147
7.3 Place
With the rise of the internet, numerous companies have shifted their
businesses online creating their online shops accessible through their
websites. As a result, website findability, accessibility and usability have
become some of the companies’ major concerns. In addition to this,
visibility or representation of a company on third-party sites used by
potential customers has also become fundamental in the digital
environment.148
The introduction of the web and innovative digital marketing tools has also
brought about a true restructuring in many industries, in particular through
the processes of disintermediation and reintermediation.149 With the
development and massive spread of e-commerce, it has become possible for
businesses to bypass previously necessary intermediaries by automating
their tasks and thus sell directly to customers through the corporate website.
This disintermediation leads to cost savings for the company, which make it
possible to reduce the final cost of the products or services for consumers.
However, e-commerce has also simultaneously opened up opportunities for
new intermediaries assigning them tasks which are extremely useful to
consumers and firms in today’ digital landscape. This is what is called
reintermediation. These new intermediaries provide innovative services,
which were not requested before, but that have emerged as a consequence
145
146
147
Ibid., 274–276.
148
149
Ibid., 41.
44
of this new way of buying and selling online. These include, for example,
product review and price comparison websites, supplier search platforms as
well as online retailers like Amazon, EBay or Walmart.150
From the consumer’s perspective, these new services are highly convenient
and offer them a value-added experience. From the manufacturer’s point of
view, these new retailers prove helpful in providing pre-sales and post-sales
customer support and make it easy to reach a wider target market.151
Another important contribution of the internet and digital media to
businesses is the possibility for them to sell their products or services
potentially all over the world. Foreign markets that were before impossible
to reach have now become accessible even without the need for local sales
people or customer service representatives. This independence of location
enhances the opportunities for profit and company growth.152
7.4 Promotion
As previously explained, promotional techniques have been significantly
transformed by digital media and the web. Traditional marketing
communications, such as TV and press adverts, are now accompanied by
more interactive and engaging digital marketing practices, including the
company’s website, social media and mobile marketing and online
advertising. The new communication and promotion tools have been
changing how and where organisations engage and communicate with their
prospective and existing customers giving them several new possibilities to
reach their target audiences, inform and persuade them of the strengths of
the products offered and helping them throughout the buying process.153
150
Ibid., 97–98.
151
“Reintermediation,” Technopedia, accessed September 27, 2020,
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27162/reintermediation.
152
153
45

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Exploring the world of digital marketing

1.1 The history of digital marketing

1.2 The evolution of the marketing concept

1.3 Contemporary trends in the business landscape

2 What is digital marketing?

3 The components of digital marketing

3.1 Owned, paid and earned media channels

3.2 Content marketing

3.3 Online marketing

3.4 Social media marketing

3.5 Mobile marketing

4 The characteristics of digital media

5.1 Benefits for the consumer

5.2 Benefits for the company

6 The challenges of digital marketing

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