1. SYMBIOSIS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES (SIMS)
DIGITAL MARKETING: THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE
SUBMITTED BY:
NIDHI SREERAM

2. ABSTRACT
In today's fast changing market scenario, digital space is gaining limelight in brand's multi-pronged strategy,
and here companiesare playing the crucial role of an integrated content platform partner for E-commerce
channels, companies and other industries.Fordigital marketing to be successful oneneeds synchronization,
full engagement of customers, online and offline. One can't just implementat one place and ignore the other.
Statistics show increasing spends on content marketing and budget allocation for digitalization in companies
in 2013(30-50%).
INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing, as a marketing tool, makes widespread use of PCs, tablets, digital billboards, cellphones
and internet marketing being its major component. It is a marketing process involving promotion of brands
of products/services as well as organizational development, through the use of a variety of digital channels.
Through its techniques and practices, digital media aims to reach customers in a cost-effective, timely,
personal and relevant manner. Moreover, non-dependence on internet has allowed digital marketing to
include an entire lot of elements such as mobile phones, banner advertising, multimedia messages and
outdoor advertising.
Two forms of digital marketing have emerged:
PUSH MARKETING: This strategy involves the marketer to send messages across to his
customers/recipients without their permission. The recipients too have free access, requiring them to filter
the content on websites through various blogs, newsletters, emails and posts. This technique is better known
as spam. Though push technologies can deliver valuable content to targeted audience, the creation and
distribution costs are expensive.
PULL MARKETING: this is a consumer-oriented strategy involving the active participation of the
customer to seek content. It can be done through web blogs, feeds etc. it generally requires the recipient to
utilize the web browser technology, to help him navigate to a particular site. One tactic popularly used is the
‘search engine optimization’ which helps the marketers increase online activities. Here the focus is directed
towards special sales and innovative product information rather than ‘catchy’ content.
Presently marketers resort to joint usage of both push and pull strategies. Such multi-channel
communications are becoming popular especially when it comes to e-mail blogs which might contain a
banner ad or a hyperlink to the destination website.
7S FRAMEWORK FOR DIGITAL MARKETING
Some theoretical frameworks need to be kept in mind to improve digital interactivity. Organizations
commonly follow the 7S framework to check their compatibility with digital marketing:

3. STRATEGY: How significant is digital marketing while supporting and influencing organization’s
strategy
STRUCTURE: How organization structure should be modified to support digitalization
SYSTEMS: What specific procedures, processes and information systems need to be developed to
support digital marketing
STAFF:What combination staff is required, insourced/outsourced and with varied domain
experience
STYLE: How dynamic, influencing or conservative should key managers be to achieve
organizational goals
SKILLS: What distinctive capabilities and skill sets need to be developed in staff members to handle
digital processes
SUPER-ORDINATE GOALS: What guiding concepts are required to build digital organization’s
culture.
DIGITAL ACCEPTANCE: THE RACE IS ON
The world-wide marketing communications industry has been increasingly plunging into the
digital media arena. But not all companies (especially their marketing departments) have
embraced the idea of creative digitalization. Only a few have got to grips with interacting
through social media. A participant at a recent expert discussion on digital marketing
maturity said, “Digital is potentially the most perfect form of marketing, but also one of the
most difficult." However, some firms have successfully exploited the benefits offered by the
digital media:
Tangerine digital, a digimarketing company has been helping Noida’s businesses to
build brands through content marketing
Under the direction of RishadTobaccowala, President, StarcomMediawest Group IP,
SMG one of the largest digital communications agencies has grown 500 percent. This
was due to his initiative of launching two new innovative practices as part of SMG
Next: TV 2.0 and Play
Marketing professionals have even started tapping social media to woo customers.
Experts analyse that popular social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc
have provided a platform to target those who have higher purchasing power and
disposable income than others

4. Tapping the digital sector, food and beverage major PepsiCo has adopted innovative
methods to build brand equity and increase sales. It has also spoofed Thums Up with
its Atom campaign
Microsoft, world’s largest software maker, has taken over a global digital marketing
company, aQuantive in order to expand its presence in the world of online advertising.
DIGITAL MARKETING ON THE RISE
Though social media is the area where most marketers would like to increase their spending, mobile
apps are also not far behind. Tablet applications development
is also ascending. A few other digital trends that can be followed
as we hurtle into second half of 2013 and which could have a big
impact on how the markets perform are:
CONTENT ADVERTISING: The idea of native advertising
(i.e. merger of content and advertising), is red hot. It particularly
serves vast implications for marketers, consumers and content
creators helping them to expose their client messages. As per a
survey in 2012 by Outbrain, 91% of in-house marketers use content advertising to increase sales.
90% marketing professionals even believe in the expansion of content marketing in next 12 months
THE ‘SMALL’ WORLD: Digital media such as info graphics, instagram, Vine etc have provided
effective solutions to transfer information to the customer base through small and digestible,
integrated ‘packets’
SOCIAL INFLUENCE MARKETING: It’s a powerful and inevitable trend which is on a boom
lately. Ad and boutique agencies have taken this trend into the mainstream, believing that if one’s
content is squeezed, one could simply influence larger pipelines
INTERNAL VS EXTERNAL: Companies have realized that big
money is in applying the social media applications instead of simply
developing them. This has enabled large organizations to collaborate,
unlock data and resolve problems efficiently. Hashtags and graph search
techniques are opening up advertising opportunities for marketers.
3D PRINTING: This has been giving expert solutions for logistics and procurement transformation.
It creates entirely new business models by producing precise items one needs
MEDIA FRAGMENTATION: The multimedia consumption
is diverse among a common set of platforms. The marketers are
devising strategies to disperse their content across vast areas, as much
as their budget allows

5. These are the trends the marketers need to embrace to stay relevant in the digital era.
THE DIGITAL STRATEGY
The audience is dispersed across multiple channels and platforms. This provides a fair share of
challenge to marketers to retain their omni-present customers. A digital strategy should be able to
provide a foundation to engage customers through one’s tactical marketing. The following
opportunities could be tapped by marketers to differentiate oneself in this hyper-competitive market:
GOOGLE PLACES: Updating information of contact details, websites, exact location on google
places ensuring exact place markers, videos and pictures
TIE-UPS FOR ROOMS: The companies can have tie-ups with online agents to sell their
inventories via their website. Tie-ups with Just Dial would be apt for both online and
telecommunication channels
VIDEO WALKTHROUGHS: Videos can be created for various properties and uploaded on
YouTube which provides a bird’seye view of the organizational activities.
FEEDBACK APPS: these can be developed for I-Pads where effective feedbacks can be invited,
instant alerts are configured and generation of online reports are enabled
DIGITAL BRANDING: A holistic model and few unique drivers should be built offering brand
personality dimensions
ONLINE MARKET RESEARCH: Allowing an anonymous and relaxed settings and using
incentives for data collection about exact target customer profiles (demographics and
psychographics)
ANALYTICAL OPTIMIZATION:Web analytics and tools can be
optimized for collection, measurement and analysis of internet data for
improving effectiveness of a webpage enabling digital strategy. One of
the most popular web analytics tool is Google analytics
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: Can be used to spread awareness regarding product/service
through keyword research, link building, site structure, on-page optimization, schematic brand-
building and viral marketing strategies
GOOGLE’S PAGE RANK: It is one of the most popular metric that can be used to estimate the
visibility of a webpage on a search engine, based on its ranking relative to its importance
VALUE ADDITION THROUGH DIGITAL MARKETING
Marketers have been launching experiments after experiments, since the dawn of digital media to
improve customer loyalty and sales. Customers have evolved in the way they make their purchase
decisions. The marketers who have analysed these changes have made efforts to centralize digital

6. interactivity in their marketing strategies. Marketers’ core focus is the value addition for the
customers and digital media has +++been enhancing this by:
Empowerment of consumers through active interaction and information flows between marketing
departments and customers, enhancing active learning and evaluation of products
Unifying consumer experience and preventing opportunity leakage through integrated consumer
experience
Capturing consumer engagement through a central website that helps to stretch the marketing budget.
By sharing information with larger audience or focusing on a core group that would spread positive
impressions can help reversing the economics
Tailored or customized preferences due to increasing pull on demand by customers
Increased returns on investment and assets through
disciplined content supply chain, offering accurate,
timely and personalized content and improving
web research experience
CONCLUSION
The reset button needs to be hit to accept new perspectives on accomplishment of
marketing needs. For this the marketing executives are required to be armed with
intellectual marketing insights about the tools needed to guide the decision making
journey undertook by customers. The digital market potential continues to grow with
bigger data and turbo charging mobile and social.