Managing Digital

Communications: Online,
Social Media, and Mobile
Online Marketing
4 Main categories of online
marketing communications are:
◦ Web sites
◦ Search ads
◦ Display ads
◦ e-mail
Online Marketing – Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages
• Can offer or send tailored
information/messages
• Can trace effects by UVs
clicks on a page/ad
• Contextual placement
• Can place advertising based
on search engine keywords
Disadvantages
• Consumers can screen out most
messages
• Ads can be less effective than
they appear (bogus clicks)
• Lost control over online
messages via hacking/vandalism
 Seven Key Design Elements of a Web site

Commerce Context

Connection Content

Communication Community
Search ads
◦Paid search or pay-per-click ads
◦ Marketers bid in a continuous auction on search terms that serve as a
proxy for the consumer’s product or consumption interests.
◦ When a consumer searches for any of the words with Google, Yahoo!, or
Bing, the marketer’s ad may appear above or next to the results,
depending on the amount the company bids and an algorithm the search
engines use to determine an ad’s relevance to a particular search
◦Search engine optimization (SEO)
◦ SEO describes activities designed to improve the likelihood that a link for
a brand is as high as possible in the rank order of all nonpaid links when
consumers search for relevant terms
Display Ads and E-Mails
• Display ads or banner ads are small, rectangular boxes containing text
and perhaps a picture that companies pay to place on relevant Web sites
• Interstitials are advertisements, often with video or animation, that pop
up between page changes within a Web site or across Web sites.
• Maximize the Marketing Value of e-mails
✓Give the customer a reason to respond
✓ Personalize the content of your e-mails
✓Offer something instead of direct mail
✓Make it easy to opt and unsubscribe
✓Combine e-mail and social media
Social Media
Means for consumers to share text, images, audio, and video information with each
other and with companies, and vice versa

Three main platforms for social media are:

Online
communities/forums

Blogs

Social networks
Word of Mouth
- Conversations started by consumers
- Online it can lead to Viral marketing (“word of mouse”)

- Creating Word-of-Mouth Buzz

✓Identify influentials and devote extra efforts to them
✓ Supply influentials with product samples
✓Work through community influentials
✓Develop WOM referral channels
✓Provide compelling info to pass along
Mobile Marketing

Is uniquely tied to one user

Is virtually always “on”

Allows for immediate consumption

Is highly interactive
 Developing Effective Mobile Marketing
◦Mobile apps-
◦ Bite-sized software programs that
can be downloaded to smart phones
◦ Mobile ad copy should occupy only
50% of screen
◦Brands should limit ads to a pair of
phrases – e.g. offers and taglines
◦Put brand logo in corner of ad
frame
◦Use only one or two bright colors
◦Calls to action should be in a bright
color