Examples of effective digital marketing campaigns

 1.      Dacia Motors

Dacia is one of Europe’s fastest growing car brands. Best known for their functional cars that offer amazing price-to-value ratios, the customer market grew by 60,000 cars in the last three years.

Their goal for their digital marketing campaign was to create brand awareness. Dacia, using Facebooks boosted posts, placed ads on their Sandero, Logan, and Stepway models. Their target market was both desktop and mobile users. Dacia studied data from past activity, and conducted wide ad testing, essentially optimizing the advertisement’s impact based on where their customers were in the buying cycle.

Results:

ü  45% reduction in the costs per lead, compared to standard display ads

ü  27-point increase in ad recall

ü  6-point uplift in brand favourability

ü  6-point uplift in purchase intent

 2.      Redbull

Redbull have been on the market for nearly 30 years. Last year they ranked 76^th on the Forbes most powerful brands list. Redbull is sold in 170 different countries and have sold over 60 billion units of their product. Since they began business in 1987 they have added four new flavours of their drink.

Redbull’s goal was to drive awareness of the extension of the brand.

The goal of their Instagram campaign was based on boosting awareness and sales of their tropical flavoured “Summer Edition” energy drink for the Australian market.

Redbull used simplicity and brand building as their main focus. They put out a teaser advertisement just before summer. To get audiences focused on the new look of the cans, they incorporated yellow filters across a range of images and videos portraying typical summer days. Redbull used the #thissummer hashtag to get people talking about Redbull online.

Results:

ü  10-point lift in top-of-mind awareness.

ü  9-point lift in favourability.

ü  7-point drop in the unconvinced market.

ü  1.2 million Consumers reached.

3.  Uber

Uber is an app which allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request, which the software program then automatically sends to the Uber driver nearest to the consumer, alerting the driver to the location of the customer. What makes Uber unique is that the drivers use their own personal cars. As of August 2016, the service was available in over 66 countries and 545 cities worldwide. The Uber app automatically calculates the fare and transfers the payment to the driver.

Uber grew almost entirely through word-of-mouth marketing, which is a very high converting channel.

They offer incentives for riders to act as advocates for the business by providing referral codes to their friends in exchange for free rides. Between a service that saves people time by making transportation easier and cost-effective and their powerful referral system, Uber spread like wildfire.

Results:

ü  Been growing at a rate of about 40% each consecutive quarter.

ü  From the first to the second quarter of 2015, gross bookings increased from $1.5 billion to $2.13 billion.

ü  Raised more than $9 billion in funding.

 4.      Airbnb

Airbnb is a marketplace to list, find, and book unique accommodations around the world for short-term. Accommodation includes apartments, villas, houses, tree houses or even castles for a different travel experience. Airbnb provides affordable and comfortable accommodation to travellers as per their specific requirements and budget.

Airbnb depends on two components: hosts and travellers. The aim of the marketing strategy adopted is to reach and encourage maximum people around the world to become hosts and/or travellers.

Airbnb decided to make their offers visually appealing to attract more customers. They collaborated with Google and invested in Google Search Ads. This helped Airbnb increase their listings from less than 10,000 to 80,000.

Airbnb are active on all social Medias, having 3 million likes on Facebook, and 500000 twitter followers. This gives them a good advantage in conducting digital marketing campaigns.

Results:

ü  The company’s now valued at over $25 billion.

ü  It is the undisputed leader and the most trusted community marketplace for room rentals.

ü  It has 470000+ followers on Twitter, 2750000+ followers on Facebook.

ü   

Strengths and Weaknesses of e-tools

Strengths:

·         Facebook - Business pages are the official way for companies to get

their message across on Facebook, with status updates, images, and 3rd

party apps such as ‘fan of the month’ used to drive engagement. Facebook is one of the best social media forms of marketing as it has over 1 billion active users and businesses have direct contact with their audiences. Businesses and consumers feel as if they are on a level playing field.

·         YouTube – Anything that goes on YouTube has the ability to go viral, due to their being millions of visitors a day. YouTube provides a platform for marketers to reach a huge audience. YouTube has become the second largest search engine with about 55% consumer traffic on the Internet in 2014. Another advantage of promoting videos on YouTube is a strong support by Google as YouTube is wholly owned by the popular search engine.

·         Twitter – Twitter is a good marketing medium as you can offer help and support. You can also monitor campaigns by the use of hashtags. You can see how many people use your hashtags and see all the tweets with your hashtag in them.

·         Instagram – Like Twitter, Instagram uses a hashtag system. This means businesses can monitor their campaigns by searching the hashtag. Instagram can be very effective to businesses that use visual marketing. For example can be very effective for hotels, restaurants and clothing brands. By showing consumers your beautiful hotel/restaurant or your stylish clothing range may encourage them to purchase from your business.

Weaknesses:

·         Facebook – Facebooks main con is that it is not a 9-5 resource for your customers. People use Facebook all hours of the day and night, without a thought for office hours. Businesses know they can’t be there 24/7, so they need to make this clear to their customers so that if they don’t receive a timely reply to their comments or messages they don’t assume the business is ignoring them.

·         YouTube - There is no guarantee of desired outcomes with YouTube marketing as viewers have the final say in supporting or rejecting the video content or business offer.  YouTube has certain restrictions on videos including copyrights on music. Due to YouTube being free, people often post both positive and negative reviews on products. This can be bad for businesses as negative reviews could ruin their reputation, damaging business success.

·         Twitter – Twitter also has its downfalls. Posts are limited to 140 characteristics, which can make it hard to properly describe something and to be informative. Also, Twitter’s fast paced nature can make reaching large audiences hard.

·         Instagram – The majority of Instagram users use it to follow friends on a personal level and do not want to see business advertisements on their Instagram feed therefore, may give businesses that use this medium a bad relationship with consumers. Instagram only have 300 million active monthly users as opposed to Facebooks 1.4 billion active monthly users. This makes Instagram a bad investment opportunity compared to Facebook in relation to marketing.

Characteristics of the web as a marketing medium

Characteristics of the Web as a marketing medium.

Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.

The internet offers a lot of advantages as a marketing medium, including the following:

Social Media: Social media posts can drive targeted traffic to your website and can also boost your websites search engine optimisation. Part of what makes social media such a great marketing medium is the way you can interact with customers, learning their wants and finding out where you need to improve. Businesses can also see what competitors are doing which will help them to remain competitive. Social media is a great chance for businesses to grow a healthy, more personal relationship with customers.

Facebook: Businesses can use Facebook to inform customers of offers, discounts and giveaways. They can also create an online persona which can cause the market to create assumptions about a business. This can work both positively or negatively for the business, dependent on what they post on Facebook.

Twitter: Twitter can be used by businesses to post notices, general posts, pictures and videos. It is probably the most personal social media to create a relationship with the market. Paddy Power are an example of a business who use twitter very well to promote their firm. Although their posts are controversial, they attract a lot of attention. Paddy Power post funny posts about athletes and although they get sued quiet often, the amount of traffic driven to their site as a result makes this money back.

Instagram: Instagram is an app which allows users to share pictures with their followers. Instagram is more so for personal use and not directed at businesses, but some firms in the clothing industry use Instagram very effectively by posting pictures of their clothes and gathering thousands or sometimes millions of followers. This gathers the markets attention and will increase their websites traffic.

YouTube: YouTube can be used to show video demonstrations on how to use products and for people to post product reviews. This is a great way for businesses to be rewarded with free advertising in return for provided a great quality good or service. It is completely free to them as it is the public making these reviews.

Rich Media: Rich media is a digital advertising term for an ad that includes advanced features like video, audio, or other elements that encourage viewers to interact and engage with the content. Rich media advertisements have a better chance of catching consumer’s attention as there is more information to be gathered compared to a display advertisement or text advertisement. Firms can use rich media in order to capture consumer’s attention, which will result in a larger market share.

Global Marketing: Global marketing is more than simply selling a product internationally. Rather, it includes the whole process of planning, producing, placing, and promoting a company’s products in a worldwide market. Large businesses often have offices in the foreign countries they market to; but with the expansion of the Internet, even small companies can reach customers throughout the world. Businesses can now use the internet to reach potential customers all over the world, broadening their market. This is a huge benefit to businesses.

24/7 Business: Businesses that run online e.g. Facebook or online clothes shops, operate 24 hours a day 365 days of the year. This allows customers to use these websites at all times increasing revenue for these businesses. The business is not just confined to opening from 9-5. This is a massive benefit to businesses as they can still make sales late at night as opposed to employing people to work in shops at these times.

Viral Marketing: This is a marketing technique whereby information about a company's goods or services is passed electronically from one Internet user to another. Nowadays with the growth of technology and the internet videos, pictures, messages etc. can be seen by millions of people in a short amount of time. This allows firms to reach a huge audience online dependent on their ability to create a good online marketing strategy. This can work positively or negatively for businesses depending on how well they market their brand.

Search Engine Optimisation: This is technology that search engines use in order to find the most appropriate pages for viewers. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Businesses can use this programme to their advantage by using different words in the website so there will be more of a chance people will stumble across it.

Google Analytics: This is a free to use web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google launched google analytics in 2005 and it is now the most used web analytics service in the world. Businesses can see how many people are viewing their website and information about these people. This can help them find their target market.

Google AdWords: This is an online advertising service that enables advertisers to compete to display information to web users, based part on cookies and keywords predefined by the advertisers. Google AdWords is now googles largest source of revenue, earning them $43.7 billion in 2012. Businesses can use Google AdWords to advertise their business or a certain product or service they provide, broadening their market.

Interactivity/Feedback: This is two-way communication with customers connecting customers to the business. Mediums for this communication to take place are e-mails, social media, blogs, etc. Feedback from customers is very important, both positive and negative. Feedback allows businesses to identify their strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to improve overall.

Push Marketing: Push Marketing is a form of advertising that sends communication to the user. Also known as direct response marketing or general advertising, it targets a specific audience with messages and offers. Examples of push marketing are e-mail, direct mail, print and broadcast. Businesses can use push marketing to catch the consumer’s attention and attract more business.

Pull Marketing: Pull Marketing is the opposite of Push Marketing. This type of marketing pulls shoppers into your website or social page. Nowadays buyers do a lot of research before purchasing products. They read reviews, ask online for advice and buy accordingly. Pull Marketing gives you an opportunity to attract the researcher wanting answers you provide. If businesses post reviews on their products and they are mostly positive, the consumer will be more likely to purchase these products.

Cost: Compared to other marketing methods, marketing online is much cheaper and some methods online are free. Social media accounts can be made for free and can be used to reach a large target market. Placing ads online is also much cheaper than hiring a marketing agency. Businesses can save money this way and then invest their money elsewhere.

Control: When using digital marketing you have full control of what you want to post and how you want to reach your target market. The business is in full control therefore this is beneficial to them.

Flexibility: You can post advertisements or messages whenever suits you. You are not confined to specific times or places to advertise. Again this is beneficial as the business can focus on other aspects of the business depending on priorities.

Speed: Posts are also instant, as soon as you click post, the message is available for your target market to see. This allows the business to reach their market instantly when most appropriate. Advances in technology have made it much easier for businesses to interact with consumers quicker than ever before.