What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing can be defined as ‘a process of identifying customer wants/needs and satisfying these needs through marketing on digital platforms, devices and services in order to promote a business and gain sales.’ In the previous, classic approach to marketing, there were no such things as social media marketing and internet marketing was never a popular form of marketing by managers and consultants. As technology evolves, so does the use of digital marketing.

Digital Marketing can now be associated with targeted ads, through the apparent subtle recordings performed by Google (Hill.S, 2017) and automated marketing and analytical processes.

Digital Marketing can be classified into 3 different types of Media; Paid, Earned and Owned.

Different Businesses can achieve a higher return on investment using whichever type of Digital Media most applicable to their strengths. Paid media can be expensive but effective through avenues such as paid ads on Google and digital signage, as opposed to cheaper or free alternatives within the Owned Media category including but not limited to Websites and Blogs. A reputable Business could achieve a good ROI through paid media but could potentially also achieve a better ROI if they were to engage in digital marketing through the Owned media category.  

Blog1b. Case Study 1 (E-Bay) – Discuss how eBay has had to evolve its online brand proposition and communicate it to Achieve continued growth.

eBay had to continually improve its service in order to achieve the potential increase in growth for the company. By focusing on their main core messages to buyers and sellers in attempts to increase users, transactions and member activity, they are able to achieve increased sales figures and customer retention. By promoting new levels of customer service such as increasing buyer/seller feedback,  the company is able to continually increase trust in current members and purchasers and the opening of new categories and new product types, eBay is able to continually keep currently clients coming back and quickly develop the trust of potential sellers and/or buyers.

Whilst the fees/commissions were increased, there has still been an increase in customers and transactions due to the other factors that have been improving over the years since the company was created.

Why is customer retention so important?

“In the U.S., 40% of online shopping revenue comes from repeat customers, who make up only 8% of site visitors.” (Bernazzani, 2018) this statement further compliments why the core messages adopted by eBay were effective and attributed to the overall success of the company.

With the cost of gaining new customers and loyal members usually being more costly than keeping current members, adopting principles where loyalty is rewarded through avenues such as convenience and selection of products for buyers and cost effective marketing/distribution and a large buyer base for sellers to help not only eBay grow as a company, but also for buyers and sellers to benefit from using the web service.

Bernazzani. S. (2018). Customer Loyalty: The Ultimate Guide. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-loyalty. Hubspot.

Chaffey. D. (2012). The difference between paid, owned and earned media – 5 viewpoints. https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/customer-acquisition-strategy/new-media-options/. Smart Insights.

Hill.S. (2017). Is your smartphone listening to everything you say? We asked the experts. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/is-your-smartphone-listening-to-your-conversations/. Digital trends.