Module 5: Recent Developments in Marketing

Online marketing

Online marketing, also known as digital marketing or internet marketing, is a form of

marketing that uses the internet and technology to connect with potential customers.

Internet marketing offers unique benefits other marketing mediums (i.e., TV, print) cannot
offer scope of reach, the option to personalize content, and the opportunity to build far-
reaching relationships with customers, being just a few.

Internet marketing leverages digital channels, including email, social media, websites, and
search engines, to reach your ideal audience. Here, we'll cover everything from marketing
strategies to real-world examples, to ensure your business reaches the right people out of
that four billion.

What is Internet/Online Marketing?

Online marketing, also known as internet marketing or web advertising, is a form of marketing
that uses the internet to deliver promotional messages to customers through digital channels
such as search engines, email, websites, and social media.

Online marketing strategies include web design, SEO, email, social media, PPC, and other
internet-related methods.

Types of Internet Marketing

1. SEO Marketing
Search engine optimization or SEO, helps companies expand their visibility in organic search
results. Essentially good SEO ensures that when someone Googles your product or service,
they can find your website in the search results.

2. Social Media Marketing

Depending on marketing goals and budget:

Organic: With organic social media marketing, you can take advantage of free marketing
opportunities like creating posts and reels on Instagram.

• Paid: With paid advertising on social media, you can create promoted posts targeted
towards a specific audience.

3. Content Marketing
Content marketing involves the creation and distribution of branded online content you can
use to engage and attract both potential and existing customers. This can include social
media, a company blog, training materials, video content, case studies or other industry
related topics.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is the process of targeting your audience and customers through email. It
helps you boost conversions and revenue by providing subscribers and customers with
valuable information to help achieve their goals.

When customers share their email with brand, it can be used to

• Send welcome emails to new customers

• Promote new blog content
• Introduce new products or services
• Send promotions and discounts
• Solicit feedback from customers about their experience with your brand
• Send abandoned cart notifications to boost sales

5. Pay-Per-Click Marketing
Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of advertising that allows you to pay a fee to have your website
on the search engine result page (SERP) when someone types in specific keywords or phrases
to the search engine. The SERP will display the ads you create to direct visitors to your site,
and the fee you pay is based on whether people click your ad.

6. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing employs popular, niche content creators to improve brand awareness,
increase traffic, and target messaging to a brand’s audience. You can use influencers across
multiple channels including social media, blogs, digital and print ads, and television. It is an
effective marketing avenue because it uses word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, which
are now critical aspects of any successful marketing strategy.

7. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing tactic in which a retailer, typically an
online one, rewards a website with a commission for each customer referred via the website’s
promotional activities. The “affiliate” or website only gets paid when their promotion of your
product results in a sale. This method is like influencer marketing, but the pay structure is
different.

Importance of online Marketing:

(i) Helps to attract customers on the web and optimize brand presence in a
conversion/profit-driven manner.
(ii) Gets the brand or the company better visibility into the general public and reaches out
to larger people in a targeted manner
(iii) Improves the local presence of the brand via local Search and Social Media campaigns
(iv) Improves the traffic, authority, and presence of the website
(v) Optimizes in-store traffic of the brands as well.
Direct Marketing:

Direct marketing is a form of advertising that communicates a marketing message directly to

a potential customer. A direct marketing campaign happens through emails, social media DMs,
mail-order catalogues, promotional flyers and coupons, telemarketing, and door-to-door
visits. Direct marketing differs from other forms of advertising that use mass distribution
marketing channels, such as TV ads.

What direct marketing aims to do:

Even though a direct marketing campaign might reach millions of people, each instance of
direct marketing should feel like a one-on-one conversation between a brand and a potential
customer.

To achieve this, direct marketers use personalization techniques, such as mentioning the
recipient’s name or referencing a recent action they have taken.

The main aim of personalized outreach is to persuade a prospect to take action. That action
could be:

a) Viewing a website
b) Making a phone call to learn more
c) Returning a postcard or form to request a quote
d) Giving your name and email address
e) Making a purchase

Direct marketing is a targeted form of advertising used on prospects who are determined to
be likely buyers.

Services marketing:

Definition: Service marketing is involved in designing, delivering, and doing post-delivery

analysis of services for optimizing reach, measuring customer satisfaction, and standing-out
from identical services offered by other market players.

Service marketing, as defined by the American Marketing Association is- “For the sale of good,
the various satisfaction, activities, as well as benefits on offer for sale, are elements of service
marketing.” Sir William Beveridge defines service marketing as, “Social efforts that comprise
of government exertions to battle 5 evils (illness, ignorance, wants, squalor and disease)
within the society”.

Service marketing strategies anticipate the needs of target audiences and try to meet their
requirements for ensuring optimum value for the users/purchasers.
Marketing service strives to achieve-

• Attracting new customers

• Retaining existing customers
• Selling them upgraded services
• Channelizing referrals from existing customers

Green Marketing:

Green marketing is the practice of promoting products or services that are environmentally
friendly or have a positive impact on the planet. It involves incorporating sustainability
principles into various aspects of marketing, such as product design, packaging, messaging,
and promotion. Green marketing strategies often highlight the following aspects:

1. Environmental Features: Products are promoted based on their eco-friendly

features, such as energy efficiency, recyclability, biodegradability, or reduced
carbon footprint.
2. Sustainability: Companies may emphasize their commitment to sustainable
practices, such as responsibly sourced materials, ethical labour, and reducing
waste.
3. Certifications: Many green products carry certifications like ENERGY STAR, Fair
Trade, or USDA Organic, which serve as endorsements of their environmental
credentials.
4. Educational Campaigns: Companies may engage in educational efforts to raise
consumer awareness about environmental issues and the benefits of their green
products.
5. Green Packaging: Companies reduce packaging waste or use eco-friendly
materials and highlight these choices in their marketing.
6. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Businesses may align their green
marketing with broader CSR initiatives, showcasing their commitment to social and
environmental causes.
7. Cause Marketing: Companies often partner with environmental organizations or
donate a portion of their profits to environmental causes, demonstrating their
dedication to the planet.

Rural Marketing: Rural marketing is the process of undertaking marketing activities for the
rural segments of the population. The marketers encourage people living in rural areas to
effectively convert their purchasing power into demand for goods and services. By making
these available to the rural sector, marketers attempt to improve the standard of living of the
rural sector.

Rural marketing is a three-way process:

1. Urban to Rural Market:

Urban to rural marketing is selling goods and services in rural areas by urban marketers. These
products mostly include FMCG goods, consumer durables, agricultural pesticides, etc.
2. Rural to Urban Market:

Rural to urban marketing is selling goods and services to urban marketers by rural producers.

3. Rural to Rural Market:

This process involves exchanging agricultural products, carts, cattle, and other tools within
the rural community.

Search Engine Marketing:

Meaning: Search Engine Marketing is the digital marketing process of increasing traffic
from search engines primarily through paid ads or organically. The overall goal of SEM is
to increase visibility in search engines by achieving higher rankings in organic search
results or top positions for ad placements.

Types of Search Engine Marketing

The most important search engine marketing types are Pay-Per-Click Ads (PPC), SEO
(Search Engine Optimization), and Local SEO.

With PPC ads, you can get immediate visibility on the SERPs by bidding on specific
keywords you want your ads to show. With SEO, you can rank higher in organic results by
creating useful and relevant content. With Local SEO, you can get more exposure in th e
local search results for location-specific queries.

1. Pay Per Click Ads (PPC): One of the ways to take advantage of the millions of users that use
search engines daily and get targeted traffic to your website is through paid search ads.The
most commonly used model is the PPC (Pay Per Click), which means that you pay only
when someone clicks on your ad, and the most widely used PPC platform is Google Ads.

2.SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of
optimizing your website to achieve higher rankings in search engines for specific keywords.
SEO principles can help you create high-quality websites with good content and satisfy the
user intent.

3.Local SEO: Local SEO is part of general SEO but is considered a type of SEM because it
involves specific techniques to increase your visibility in the local search results. Local
businesses that want to get customers to their door prioritize local SEO over other types
to get free traffic and leads.
Mobile Marketing: Mobile marketing refers to the practice of promoting products and
services using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. It refers to the different methods
that enhance the reach of various products and services through mobile/smartphones.

Mobile marketing works by using different platforms and strategies to reach out to people
who use mobile devices. With the increasing usage of mobile phones, many brands have
taken advantage of this medium of communication for their benefit. Mobile phones are being
used as a tool for advertising products, services, and ideas effectively. It helps them better
target their audiences with specific messages that can be quickly delivered.

Mobile marketing also helps in strengthening the brand’s voice across different channels. It
allows brands to connect with their mobile device users more interactively and engagingly.
This further helps in building relationships between the company and its customers, which
leads to customer loyalty.

Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing (also known as digital marketing and e-
marketing) is the use of social media—the platforms on which users build social
networks and share information—to build a company's brand, increase sales, and drive
website traffic. In addition to providing companies with a way to engage with existing
customers and reach new ones, SMM has purpose-built data analytics that allows marketers
to track the success of their efforts and identify even more ways to engage.

• Social media marketing uses social media and social networks—like Facebook, X
platform (formerly Twitter), and Instagram—to market products and services, engage
with existing customers, and reach new ones.
• The power of social media marketing comes from the unparalleled capacity of social
media in three core marketing areas: connection, interaction, and customer data.
• Social media marketing has transformed the way businesses are able to influence
consumer behaviour—from promoting content that drives engagement to extracting
personal data that makes messaging resonate with users.
• Because social media today is so ubiquitous, marketing techniques using these
platforms are extremely important for businesses.
• Social media marketing is often more cost-effective with great exposure, though it
requires ongoing maintenance and might have unintended negative feedback
consequences.
Email marketing is when a business uses email to communicate and connect with their
customer base. This is a form of direct marketing used to inform customers, increase brand
awareness, and promote specific products and services.
There are several types of marketing emails that you might consider incorporating into your
email marketing strategy. Some common types of emails include:
• Welcome emails
• Email newsletters
• Promotional emails
• Lead nurturing emails or re-engagement emails
• Transactional emails, such as confirmation emails or password reset notices
• Feedback or survey emails
 • Milestone emails, such as for customer birthdays or anniversaries

Network Marketing: Network marketing refers primarily to a marketing tool used by

producers to increase their sales. For successful channelization of a business, a distributor
network is formed which may also be multilevel.
Manufacturers use network marketing to move their goods by using multiple distributors at
different levels to widen their reach and meet customers at different levels.

Use of Network Marketing

For business structures that require a multi-level form of marketing, manufacturers typically
use network marketing. It is because an extensive network of retailers and sub-distributors
requires these business models. It is also handy for retailers themselves as they can make a
profit from it.