Topic outline

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    Welcome to the course on 'Digital Marketing'


    This course is an initiative designed to educate students in the area of Digital Marketing. Digital Marketing and Social Media have transformed marketing and business practice across the globe. This course provides an understanding of the ever evolving digital landscape and examines the strategic role of digital marketing processes and tools in designing the overall Marketing strategy and the Digital Marketing Plan. It explores the challenges of Interactive media, the online market place, and the creative challenges of communicating and retention strategies of customers through these media, the main search engines and the future trends in digital marketing.

  • Unit 1: Introduction to Digital Marketing

    Overview

    This Unit is intended to provide students with a background into digital marketing, analyse some of the established models used in constructing a digital marketing strategy and discuss how they apply to integrated digital marketing for engaging audiences and its risks. It will also distinguish between traditional marketing and digital marketing, digital marketing platforms, segmentation strategies and the digital marketing plan. Part A will focus on the definition of digital marketing, the importance of digital marketing and digital marketing platforms and segmentation strategies for digital marketing.

    Part B of Unit 1 will outline the main elements of the digital marketing strategies and the components of the digital marketing plan and the main benefits and drawbacks of digital marketing. The key areas covered in this Unit are:

          • A history of digital marketing
          • Definition of Digital Marketing
          • The 4 Ps of marketing and their Digital Marketing Implications
          • Segmentation for Digital Marketing
          • Digital Marketing Strategy
          • Digital Marketing Plan


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • translate some of the key marketing and business models that will help to shape your digital marketing strategy
    • review the history of digital marketing to give some perspective to your digital strategic plan
    • describe online market presence, segmentation and the 4 Ps of marketing and their implications for digital marketing
    • discuss the opportunities and risks of integrated digital marketing
    • outline an approach to developing a digital marketing plan
    • explain the key digital marketing activities needed for competitive success

  • Unit 2: The Online marketplace

    Overview

    We now spend more time online each day than we do sleeping. But how does that affect our everyday lives? What effect does it have on how we communicate and interact, how we work and engage with the rest of the world? We are now living in what is known as the Digital World and this has had a profound impact in all spheres of life. The way we now need to do marketing has not been spared of what we will call the ‘Digital Revolution’. This chapter will discuss about Digital World and Digital Media and the effect that they have brought to our everyday lives.


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • explain the concept of Digital World
    • relate the relevance of Online Marketplace in today’s world
    • discuss the benefits of Online Marketplaces
    • explain the concept of disintermediation
    • examine the concept of Digital Media and the benefits to be derived
    • describe what is Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

  • Unit 3: Relationship Marketing

    Overview

    This Unit looks at the digital methods that can be used to retain customers through effective customer relationship marketing (CRM) and marketing retention strategies.  The key areas covered in Parts A and B of this unit are:

          • Defining CRM and retention
          • Transactional marketing to Relationship Marketing
          • CRM Plan
          • CRM systems
          • eCRM and Benefits and challenges 
          • Permission Marketing
          • Database Marketing and Profiling
          • CRM and Loyalty schemes
          • Customer centric companies
          • Customer life cycle and Digital Communication strategies
          • CRM relationships through Social Media
          • CRM and Complaint Management systems


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • recognise the core features of customer relationship management (CRM) and retention programmes
    • illustrate how contact strategies play a part in shaping digital marketing strategies
    • identify the role of CRM systems and its benefits
    • examine how loyalty programmes are linked to successful CRM strategies
    • apply basic CRM principles online
    • appraise the careful planning required to harness marketing communication for successful CRM strategies
    • select the options to support customer lifecycle communications with an integrated, multi-channel database

  • Unit 4: Evaluation and Improvements

    Overview

    This Unit discusses about some issues involved with measuring the success and improving the results from a digital marketing campaign. The field of digital marketing is very dynamic. Every smartphone owner is a potential target and the added complication is that these targets are moving around placing them in contact with other products. The field is also very competitive with several digital marketing channels and a number of companies involved as well. The one who offers the best free products will attract more customers who can then be targeted by an ad campaign. A successful digital marketing campaign means more income for the advertising company and presently we have a large number of such companies.


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • identify the metrics used in digital marketing
    • explain how we can improve our metrics
    • discuss the basics of recommendation systems
    • discuss the importance of Churn Rate in a business

  • Unit 5: Digital Marketing Channels

    Overview

    Marketing has moved from one message fits everyone to very personalised one. Digital marketing channels are the new means for us to get individualised marketing materials, through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) devices. These devices range from the very simple mobile phones to complex computer systems. This Unit gives an overview of some digital marketing channels. The same principles are used for systems not covered in here. On one hand we have the merchants having a product to market and on the other hand we have potential buyers. Digital marketing channels make use of intermediaries and sophisticated matching algorithms to enable a transaction and generate income at the same time. This income keeps our emails and social networks going without any cost from users.


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • explain why we get advertising materials when we use our email or social network
    • organise how we can limit the marketing materials we get through emails
    • appraise why we get relevant ads on certain websites when we are searching for specific information
    • make money by participation in affiliate programs

  • Unit 6: Search Engines

    Overview

    A search engine enables us to search for information on the internet. It is accessed through a web browser. The search engine not only provides us with the information we are looking for, but it also ranks the information according to its importance and is used for marketing purposes as well. Examples of search engines are Google, Bing and Yahoo. This Unit gives an overview of search engines in general, look at some mechanisms of how to appear higher in a result page both for free and against payment.


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • explain why we get a huge list of webpages as a result of a search
    • examine why a certain webpage is ranked higher compared to others
    • organise how we can ethically boost the ranking of our webpage
    • appraise why the ads we get together with our search results and emails are relevant to the content of our search and email
    • relate the size of the market for advertising with search engines
    • evaluate of some unethical practices to boost webpage rankings

  • Unit 7: Trends in Digital Marketing

    Overview

    The last years have seen an explosive growth of Digital Marketing. Indeed this is a field that is evolving rapidly and it is expected to further change in the years to come. This is mostly due to rapid evolution in the field of IT and networking. The next years to come are going to be even more exciting for the field of Digital Marketing. This Unit highlights some of the latest trends and innovation in Digital Marketing and gives an exposure to some of the success stories and failures as far as Digital Marketing is concerned.


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • discuss the latest trends happening in Digital Marketing
    • describe some of the latest technologies used in Digital Marketing
    • analyse the impact of technology in Digital Marketing
    • discuss some of the reasons that can cause a Digital Marketing Campaign to fail
    • examine some of the case studies depicting successes and failures in Digital Marketing

  • Unit 8: Digital Marketing Mini Project

    Overview

    The purpose of this unit is to consolidate the different topics covered in the form of a simple assignment: design and implement a digital marketing for a small business. The social media platform to be used is Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/). The small business may be an existing one, the promotion of your hobby, or the promotion of a certain cause.


    Learning Outcomes

    Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to :

    • identify the issues in drafting a digital marketing plan
    • apply your knowledge about metrics in digital marketing.
    • measure the success of a digital marketing campaign