DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital marketing is the use of digital sources based on electronic signal like Internet, digital display advertising and other digital media such as television, radio, and mobile phones in the promotion of brands and products to consumers. Digital marketing may cover the more traditional marketing areas such as Direct Marketing by providing the same method of communicating with an audience but in a digital fashion.

Digital marketing Pull versus Push

Two different forms of digital marketing exist Pull digital marketing in which the consumer must actively seek the marketing content often via web searches or the recipient has given permission to receive content that is sent to the consumer by email, text message and web feed. Websites, blogs and streaming media (audio and video) are also examples of pull digital marketing. Articles with specific target / topic are a great source to pull interested viewers. In each of these, users have to link to the website to view the content. Only current web browser technology is required to maintain static content. However, additional internet marketing technologies (search engine optimization) may be required to attract the desired consumer demographic. Push digital marketing technologies in which the marketer sends a message without the consent of the recipients, such as display advertising on websites and news blogs. Email, text messaging and web feeds can also be classed as push digital marketing when the recipient has not given permission to receive the marketing message. (This is also known as spam). Push technologies can deliver content immediately as it becomes available and are better targeted to their consumer demographics, although audiences are often smaller, and the costs of creation and distribution are higher. Push digital marketing technologies are more proper when done with the prior permission, the concept called as permission marketing. This is also more ethical. Permission can be obtained either through subsciptions, or consent to send email etc.

Digital Marketing and Multi-Channel Communications

Push and pull message technologies can be used in conjunction with each other. For example, an email campaign can include a banner ad or link to a content download. This enables a marketer to benefit from both types of digital marketing.

Digital strategy
In the fields of strategic management, marketing strategy and business strategy, digital strategy is the process of specifying an organization's vision, goals, opportunities and initiatives in order to maximize the business benefits of digital initiatives to the organization. These can range from an enterprise focus, which considers the broader opportunities and risks that digital potentially creates (e.g., changes in the publishing industry) and often includes customer intelligence, collaboration, new product/market exploration, sales and service optimization, enterprise technology architectures and processes, innovation and governance; to more marketing and customer-focused efforts such as web sites, mobile, ecommerce, social, site and search engine optimization, and advertising.

Overview

There are numerous approaches to conducting digital strategy, but at their core, all go through four steps: 1. identifying the opportunities and/or challenges in a business where online assets can provide a solution; 2. identifying the unmet needs and goals of the customers that most closely align with those key business opportunities and/or challenges; 3. Developing a vision around how the online assets will fulfill those business and customer needs, goals, opportunities and challenges and 4.Prioritizing a set of online initiatives which can deliver on this vision. Within each of those stages, a number of techniques and analyses may be employed

Identifying the key opportunities and/or challenges in a business

Stakeholder interviews

Includes one-on-one interviews, group interviews and workshops with a company's senior management, marketing and sales, operations and service stakeholders with a goal of understanding the business strategy, challenges and opportunities, products, organization, processes, supply chain and vendors, distributors, customers, and competitive landscape, as well as the potential role of their online assets. Competitive analysis

Includes evaluations of a company's main competitors and potential substitutes with the goal of understanding a company's strengths and weaknesses relative to their competitors and potential substitutes. While this often includes steps found in traditional marketing competitive analysis, such as products, prices, etc. Competitive analysis for Digital Strategy includes two unique items: Heuristic evaluation An evaluation by a usability expert of the usability and user experience of a company's online assets compared and contrasted to those of it competitors and potential substitutes. Features/functionality analysis An evaluation of the features and functionality provided by a company's online assets, compared and contrasted to those of its competitors and potential substitutes. Financial analysis An analysis of a company's financial data (which may include everything from public financial statements to private ERP data) with the goal of understanding the financial impact (positive and negative) that certain changes would have on a company.
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Identifying the unmet needs and goals of the customers

Customer interviews

Includes one-on-one interviews and focus groups with a company's customers with a goal of understanding customers behaviors, needs, goals and perceptions of the company and their industry both in the broadest business context as well as specifically online. In addition to standard marketing strategy methodologies and questions, customer interviews for Digital Strategy may includes usability testing, an analysis of how effective customers are at using the online assets developed by a company for their intended purposes. In digital strategy this is used to uncover usability barriers in the present state that may prevent the accomplishment to the online vision.

Analytical CRM

An analysis of a company's customer databases and information repositories with the goal of segmenting customers into homogeneous groups across one or more dimension of behavior, demographics, value, product or marketing message affinity, etc. In digital strategy this often includes the online customer registration database which companies use to provide access to their customer specific, protected areas.

Multi-channel analysis

An analysis of a customers behavior (such as their purchase behavior or their service behavior) that looks across all the different channels in which customers interact with a company's products or information. There are lots of different ways to do this, be a representative example would be, a company focuses on the customer purchase process (how a customer becomes aware of a product, how a customer develops the intent to purchase a product, and how a customer actually purchases the product). The analysis would look at which channels (example: phone, catalog, retail store, web site, 3rd party search engine, etc.) a customer uses at which stage of the purchase process, Attempts to understand why each channel is used, and evaluates the company's strengths or weaknesses in that particular channel for that particular stage of the process

Statistical surveys

An approach to collection customer feedback in a quantitative manner from a large population. In digital strategy, surveys may be used to validate or invalidate key questions raised in more qualitative exercises such as customer interviews and focus group. Depending on the breadth of the survey population and the degree of variation within the population, survey results may be segmented to form homogeneous groups across one or more dimension of behavior, demographics, value, product or marketing message affinity, etc. Surveys are often conducted online using web intercepts, e-mail lists, or 3rd party panels, although phone surveys or other offline means may sometimes be used when they are questions as to the online savvy-mess of a particular target population.

Developing a vision and prioritizing a set of online initiatives

Business plan or case

A spreadsheet with supporting documentation that quantifies the investments and returns over time that will result from the execution of the online strategy. The Business plan also defines the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure and evaluate the success of the online strategy.

Technical assessment

A design of a technical architecture which will meet the needs of the business vision and conform to the business plan and roadmap. This is often done as a gap analysis where the current technical architecture is assessed. A future technical architecture, which meets the needs of the online vision, is designed. The gaps between the current state and future state are identified, and a series of initiatives or projects to fill those gaps are developed and sequenced.

Organizational and process assessment

Similar to a technical assessment, organizational and process assessments look at the changes that need to be made to an organization and its processes in order to achieve the online vision. They may involve a series of business process reengineering projects focused on the areas of an organization most affected by the online initiatives.

Portfolio management

A way of prioritizing various initiatives by comparing their cost of implementation to their expected business benefits. This is often done by creating a two by two matrix where cost of implementation runs along the x-axis (from high cost to low cost) and expected business benefit runs along the y-axis, from low benefit to high benefit. Individual initiatives or projects are then plotted on the matrix in terms of their calculated costs and benefits and priorities are determined according to which projects will provide the greatest benefit for the least amount of cost.

Proof of concept

Graphics representations or comps of key ideas or processes of the digital strategy. These are often created in order to better communicate a key concept or to build excitement among stakeholders when building consensus or socializing a digital strategy.

Roadmap

A high-level project plan which details the durations and dependencies of all the initiatives in the digital strategy. The roadmap will often include checkpoints to assess the progress and success of the digital strategy.

Measurement plan

A description of the key performance indicators used to measure the effectiveness of the digital strategy as well as the process for collecting and sharing the information. The measurement plan usually covers the financial, operational, and e-business metrics and their relationships.

Internet marketing
Internet marketing, also known as web marketing, online marketing, webvertising ,or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing (generally promotion) of products or services over the Internet. Internet marketing is considered to be broad in scope because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.

Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, [2] advertising and sales. Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, email marketing, mobile advertising, strategies.

Types of Internet marketing

Internet marketing is broadly divided in to the following
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types:

Display advertising: the use of web banners or banner ads placed on a third-party website or blog to drive traffic to a company's own website and increase product awareness Search (SEM): a form of marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion, or through the use of free search techniques

Search engine optimization (SEO): the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results Social media marketing: the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media websites such as Face book, Twitter and LinkedIn Email: involves directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail Referral: a method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually word of mouth

Affiliate marketing: a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts Inbound marketing: involves creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers Video marketing: This type of marketing specializes in creating videos that engage the viewer into a buying state by presenting information in video form and guiding them to a product or service

Advantages and limitations of Internet marketing

Advantages
Internet marketing is inexpensive when examining the ratio of cost to the reach of the target audience. Companies can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets the nature of the medium allows consumers to research and to purchase products and services conveniently therefore, businesses have the

advantage of appealing to consumers in a medium that can bring results quickly. The strategy and overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns depend on business goals and cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis. Internet marketers also have the advantage of measuring statistics easily and inexpensively; almost all aspects of an Internet marketing campaign can be traced, measured, and tested, in many cases through the use of a server. The advertisers can use a variety of methods, such as pay per impression, pay per click, pay per play, and pay per action. Therefore, marketers can determine which messages or offerings are more appealing to the audience The results of campaigns can be measured and tracked immediately because online marketing initiatives usually require users to click on an advertisement, to visit a website, and to perform a targeted action

Limitations

One of the challenges that internet markets face (as does the general public) is that many internet products are outright scams or promoted with deception making it difficult to know what one is buying. This is especially the case with products that are supposed to train or aid internet marketers in making money. While the quality of products has improved in the past few years, ethics is still often missing in internet marketing. Many so-called money making products are "empty boxes" in which there is essentially nothing there yet a buyer is to make money by reselling this empty box to others. Pyramid schemes are also still prevalent.

Marketer will not be able to use the x-factor/personal touch factor/human touch factor to influence the audience as the marketing is completely based on the advertisement and the information that the advertisement might lead to [websites, blogs and other channels].

WEB banner
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement known as a "click through". In many cases, banners are delivered by a central ad server.

Email marketing
Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail (email). In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be done to either cold lists or current customer database. Broadly, the term is usually used to refer to:

Sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business, Sending email messages with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,

Types of email marketing

Email marketing can be carried out through different types of emails:

Email newsletters
Email Newsletters are direct emails sent out on a regular basis to a list of subscribers, customers. The primary purpose of an email newsletter is to build upon the relationship of the company with their customers/subscribers.

Transactional emails
Transactional emails are usually triggered based on a customers action with a company. Triggered transactional messages include dropped basket messages, purchase or order confirmation emails and email receipts. Many email newsletter software vendors offer transactional email support, which gives companies the ability to include promotional messages within the body of transactional emails. There are also software vendors that offer specialized transactional email marketing services, which include providing targeted and personalized transactional email messages and running specific marketing campaigns (such as customer referral programs).

Direct emails
Direct email involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products). Companies usually collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses to send direct promotional messages to, or they can also rent a list of email addresses from service companies.

Comparison to traditional mail

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using email marketing in comparison to traditional advertising mail.

Advantages
Email marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high when done properly. Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them.

Almost half of American Internet users check or send email on a typical day with email blasts that are delivered between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. outperforming those sent at other times in open and click rates Email is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to 292m in the UK

Disadvantages
A report issued by the email services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 email deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate email servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages were rejected, and eight percent were filtered Companies considering the use of an email marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CANSPAM the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their providers acceptable.

Mobile advertising

Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing.

Types of mobile ads

In some markets, this type of advertising is most commonly seen as a Mobile Web Banner (top of page) or Mobile Web Poster (bottom of page banner), while in others, it is dominated by SMS advertising (which has been estimated at over 90% of mobile marketing revenue worldwide). Other forms include MMS advertising, advertising within mobile games and mobile videos, during mobile TV receipt, full-screen interstitials, which appear while a requested item of mobile content or mobile web page is loading up, and audio advertisements that can take the form of a jingle before a voicemail recording, or an audio recording played while interacting with a telephone-based service such as movie ticketing or directory assistance. The Mobile Marketing Association and the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) has published mobile advertising guidelines but it is difficult to keep such guidelines current in such a fast-developing area. The effectiveness of a mobile media ad campaign can be measured in a variety of ways. The main measurements are impressions (views) and click-through rates. They are also sold to advertisers by views (Cost Per Impression) or by click-through (Cost Per Click). Additional measurements include conversion rates, such as click-to-call rates and other degrees of interactive measurement. Mobile media can run on a mobile web page or within a mobile application, often referred to as in-App.

Mobile Rich Media

In addition to standard mobile display banners, a growing trend is to include rich media execution within the banner ads. This includes banners that would expand to a larger size, offering advertisers a larger display to

communicate their message. Games within the banner to make the experience more interactive or a video within the banner space.

Viral marketing
As mobile is an interactive mass media similar to the internet, advertisers are eager to utilize and make use of viral marketing methods, by which one recipient of an advertisement on mobile, will forward that to a friend. This allows users to become part of the advertising experience. At the bare minimum mobile ads with viral abilities can become powerful interactive campaigns. At the extreme, they can become engagement marketing experiences. A key element of mobile marketing campaigns is the most influential member of any target audience or community, which is called the alpha user

Privacy concern

Advocates have raised the issue of privacy. Targeted mobile marketing requires customization of ad content to reach interested and relevant customers. To customize such behavioral personal data, user profiling, data mining and other behavior watch tools are employed, and privacy advocates warn that this may cause privacy infringement Some mobile carriers offer freebie or cheaper rate plans in exchange for SMS or other mobile ads. However, mobile TV and mobile search may override this privacy concern, as soon as they are implemented on a full-blown basis. In a naive way to override privacy concern, however, Users prior consent needs to be obtained through membership to Join or User account to set up. Both mobile TV and mobile search may supersede the way of getting Users prior consent through membership or User account because users are free to choose mobile TV channels or mobile search services on a voluntary basis.

Interactivity
Mobile devices aim to outgrow the domain of voice-intensive cell phones and to enter a new world of multimedia mobile devices, like laptops, PDA phones and smart phones. Unlike the conventional one-way media like TV, radio and newspaper, web media has enabled two-way traffic, thereby introducing a new phase of interactive advertising, regardless of whether static or mobile. This user-centric approach was noted at the 96th annual conference of Association of National Advertisers in 2006, which describeda need to replace decades worth of top-down marketing tactics with bottom-up, grass-roots approaches.

Direct marketing
Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters, and outdoor advertising. Direct marketing messages emphasize a focus on the customer, data, and accountability. Characteristics that distinguish direct marketing are: 1. Marketing messages are addressed directly to customers. Direct marketing relies on being able to address the members of a target market. Addressability comes in a variety of forms including email addresses, mobile phone numbers, Web browser cookies, fax numbers and United States and international postal addresses. 2. 3. Direct marketing seeks to drive a specific "call to action." For example, an advertisement may ask the prospect to call a free phone number or click on a link to a website. Direct marketing emphasizes track able, measurable responses from customers regardless of medium.

Benefits

Direct marketing is attractive to many marketers because its positive results can be measured directly. For example, if a marketer sends out 1,000 solicitations by mail and 100 respond to the promotion, the marketer can say with confidence that campaign led directly to 10% direct responses. This metric is known as the 'response rate,' and it is one of many clearly quantifiable success metrics employed by direct marketers. In contrast, general advertising uses indirect measurements, such as awareness or engagement, since there is no direct response from a consumer. Measurement of results is a fundamental element in successful direct marketing. The Internet has made it easier for marketing managers to measure the results of a campaign. This is often achieved by using a specific website landing page directly relating to the promotional material. A call to action will ask the customer to visit the landing page, and the effectiveness of the campaign can be measured by taking the number of promotional messages distributed (e.g., 1,000) and dividing it by the number of responses (people visiting the unique website page). Another way to measure the results is to compare the projected sales or generated leads for a given term with the actual sales or leads after a direct advertising campaign.

Challenges and Solutions

While many marketers recognize the financial benefits of increasing targeted awareness, some direct marketing efforts using particular media have been criticized for generating poor quality leads, either due to poor message strategy or because of poorly compiled demographic databases. This poses a problem for marketers and consumers alike, as advertisers do not wish to waste money on communicating with consumers not interested in their products. The term "junk mail," referring to unsolicited commercial ads delivered via post office or directly deposited in consumers' mail boxes, can be traced back to 1954. The term "spam," meaning "unsolicited commercial e-mail," can be traced back to March 31, 1993, although in its first few months it merely referred to inadvertently posting a message so many times on UseNet that the repetitions effectively drowned out the normal flow of conversation. To address the concerns of unwanted emails or spam, in 2003, Congress enacted the Controlling the Assault of NonSolicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act to curb unwanted email messages. Can-Spam gives recipients the ability to stop unwanted emails, and set out tough penalties for violations Additionally, ISPs and email service providers have developed increasingly effective Email Filtering programs. These filters can interfere with the delivery of email marketing campaigns, even if the person has subscribed to receive them as legitimate email marketing can possess the same hallmarks as spam. There are a range of email service providers that provide services for legitimate opt-in mailers to avoid being classified as spam. Consumers have expressed concerns about the privacy and environmental implications of direct marketing. In response to consumer demand and increasing business pressure to increase the effectiveness of reaching the right customer with direct marketing, companies specialize in targeted direct advertising to great effect, reducing advertising budget waste and increasing the effectiveness of delivering a marketing message with better geodemography information, delivering the advertising message to only the customers interested in the product, service, or event on offer. Additionally, members of the advertising industry have been working to adopt stricter codes regarding online targeted advertising

Direct Marketing Channels

Any medium that can be used to deliver a communication to a customer can be employed in direct marketing, including:

Email Marketing
Sending marketing messages through email or Email marketing is one of the most widely used direct-marketing methods One reason for email marketing's popularity is that it is relatively inexpensive to design, test, and send an email message It also allows marketers to deliver messages around the clock, and to accurately measure responses

Online Tools
With the expansion of digital technology and tools, direct marketing is increasingly taking place through online channels. Most online advertising is delivered to a focused group of customers and has a track able response.

Display Ads are interactive ads that appear on the Web next to content on Web pages or Web services. Formats include static banners, pop ups, videos, and floating units. Customers can click on the ad to respond directly to the message or to find more detailed information. According to research by remarketer, expenditures on online display ads rose 24.5% between 2010 and 2011.

Search: 49% of US spending on Internet ads goes to search, in which advertisers pay for prominent placement among listings in search engines whenever a potential customer enters a relevant search term, allowing ads to be delivered to customers based upon their already-indicated search criteria This paid placement industry generates more than $10 billion dollars for search companies. Marketers also use search engine optimization to drive traffic to their sites.

Social Media Sites, such as Face book and Twitter, also provide opportunities for direct marketers to communicate directly with customers by creating content to which customers can respond.

Mobile
Through mobile marketing, marketers engage with prospective customers and donors in an interactive manner through a mobile device or network, such as a cell phone, Smartphone, or tablet. Types of mobile marketing messages include: SMS: (short message service) marketing communications are sent in the form of text messages, also known as texting.MMS: (multi-media message service) These messages use elements such as images, video, and audio; Mobile Applications: Smartphone-based mobile apps contain several types of messages. Push Notifications are direct messages sent to a user either automatically or as part of a campaign. They include transactional, marketing, geo-based, and more. Rich Push Notifications are full HTML Push Notifications. Mobile apps also contain Interactive ads that appear inside the mobile application or app; Location-Based Marketing: marketing messages delivered directly to a mobile device based on the user's location; QR Codes (quick-response barcodes): This is a type of 2D barcode with an encoded link that can be accessed from a Smartphone. This technology is increasingly being used for everything from special offers to product information. Mobile Banner Ads: Like standard banner ads for desktop Web pages but smaller to fit on mobile screens and run on the mobile content network

Direct Mail
The term "direct mail" is used to refer to communications sent to potential customers or donors via the postal service and other delivery services. Direct mail is sent to customers based on criteria such as age, income, location, profession, buying pattern, etc. Direct mail includes advertising circulars, catalogs, free-trial CDs, pre-approved credit card applications, and other unsolicited merchandising invitations delivered by mail to homes and businesses. Bulk mailings are a particularly popular method of promotion for businesses operating in the financial services, home computer, and travel and tourism industries. In many developed countries, direct mail represents such a significant amount of the total volume of mail that special rate classes have been established. In the United States and United, for example, there are bulk mail rates that enable marketers to send mail at rates that are substantially lower than regular first-class rates. In order to qualify for these rates, marketers must format and sort the mail in particular ways which reduces the handling (and therefore costs) required by the postal service. In the US, marketers send over 90 billion pieces of direct mail per year Advertisers often refine direct mail practices into targeted mailing, in which mail is sent out following database analysis to select recipients considered most likely to respond positively. For example, a person who has demonstrated an interest in golf may receive direct mail for golf-related products or perhaps for goods and services that are appropriate for golfers. This use of database analysis is a type of database marketing. The United States Postal Service calls this form of mail "advertising mail" (ad mail for short).

Telemarketing
Another common form of direct marketing is telemarketing, in which marketers contact customers by phone. The primary benefit to businesses is increased lead generation, which helps businesses increase sales volume and customer base. The most successful telemarketing service providers focus on generating more "qualified" leads that have a higher probability of getting converted into actual sales. The National Do Not Call Registry was created in 2003 to offer consumers a choice whether to receive telemarketing calls at home. The FTC created the National Do Not Call Registry after a comprehensive review of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR).
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The do-not-call provisions of the TSR cover any plan, program, or campaign to sell goods or
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services through interstate phone calls. The provisions do not cover calls from political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors, or companies with which a customer has an existing business relationship.

Canada has its own National Do Not Call List (DNCL). In other countries it is voluntary, such as the New Zealand Name Removal Service.

Voicemail Marketing
Voicemail marketing emerged out of the market prevalence of personal voice mailboxes, and business voicemail systems. Voicemail marketing presented a cost effective means by which to reach people directly, by voice. Abuse of consumer marketing applications of voicemail marketing resulted in an abundance of "voice-spam," and prompted many jurisdictions to pass laws regulating consumer voicemail marketing. More recently, businesses have utilized guided voicemail (an application where pre-recorded voicemails are guided by live callers) to accomplish personalized business-to-business marketing formerly reserved for telemarketing. Because guided voicemail is used to contact only businesses, it is exempt from Do Not Call regulations in place for other forms of voicemail marketing. Voicemail courier is a similar form of voicemail marketing with both business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications.

Broadcast Faxing
Broadcast faxing, in which faxes are sent to multiple recipients, is now less common than in the past this is partly due to laws in the United States and elsewhere which regulate its use for consumer marketing. In 2005, President Bush signed into law S. 714, the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005 (JFPA), which allows marketers to send commercial faxes to those with whom they have an established business relationship (EBR), but imposes some new requirements. These requirements include providing an opt-out notice on the first page of faxes and establishing a system to accept opt-outs at any time of the day. Fax senders must begin complying with these new requirements, which are described in this fact sheet. Roughly 2% of direct marketers use fax; mostly for business-to-business marketing campaigns Also, due to the popularity of a variety of digital communication methods, the overall use of faxes is less than in the past.

Couponing
Couponing is used in print and digital media to elicit a response from the reader. An example is a coupon which the reader receives through the mail and takes to a store's check-out counter to receive a discount. Digital Coupons: Manufacturers and retailers make coupons available online for electronic orders that can be downloaded and printed. Digital coupons are available on company websites, social media outlets, texts, and email alerts. There are an increasing number of mobile phone applications offering digital coupons for direct use. Daily Deal Sites offer local and online deals each day, and are becoming increasingly popular. Customers sign up to receive notice of discounts and offers, which are sent daily by email. Purchases are often made using a special coupon code or promotional code. The largest of these sites, Group on, has over 83 million subscribers.

Direct Response TV
Direct marketing via television (commonly referred to as DRTV) has two basic forms: long form (usually half-hour or hour-long segments that explain a product in detail and are commonly referred to as infomercials) and short form, which refers to typical 30-second or 60-second commercials that ask viewers for an immediate response (typically to call a phone number on screen or go to a website).Several aspects of ad, such as its use of adding items to the offer and the guarantee of satisfaction were much copied, and came to be considered part of the formula for success with short-form direct-response TV ads (DRTV)

Direct Response Radio

In direct response radio, ads contain a call to action with a specific tracking mechanism. Often, this tracking mechanism is a "call now" prompt with a toll-free phone number or a unique Web URL. Results of the ad can be tracked in terms of calls, orders, customers, leads, sales, revenue, and profits that result from the airing of those ads.

Insert Media
Another form of direct marketing, insert media are marketing materials that are inserted into other communications, such as a catalog, newspaper, magazine, package, or bill. Coop or shared mail, where marketing offers from several companies are delivered via a single envelope, is also considered insert media.

Out-of-Home
Out of home direct marketing refers to a wide array of media designed to reach the consumer outside the home, including transit, bus shelters, bus benches, aerials, airports, in-flight, in-store, movies, college campus/high schools, hotels, shopping malls, sport facilities, stadiums, taxis that contain a call-to-action for the customer to respond.

Direct Response Magazines and Newspapers

Magazine and newspaper ads often include a direct response call-to-action, such as a toll-free number, a coupon redeemable at a brick-and-mortar store, or a QR code that can be scanned by a mobile device these methods are all forms of direct marketing, because they elicit a direct and measurable action from the customer.

Direct Selling
Direct selling is the sale of products by face-to-face contact with the customer, either by having salespeople approach potential customers in person, or through indirect means such as Tupperware parties.

Grassroots/Community Marketing
The door-to-door distribution of flyers and leaflets within a local community is a business-to-consumer form of direct marketing used extensively by restaurants, fast food companies, and many other businesses focusing on a local catchment. Similar to direct mail marketing, this method is targeted purely by area and community, and costs a fraction of the amount of a mail hot, since it is not necessary to purchase stamps, envelopes, or address lists with the names of home occupants.

Live banner
A live banner is a banner ad which is created dynamically (or whose content is created dynamically) at the time of display, instead of being pre-programmed with fixed content. Live banners function the same way as traditional web banners: promoting a brand, product, service, or an event, except that the banner content is variable and may even update in real time. Live banners are built using technologies such as Adobe Flash, Java, or Microsoft Silver light, and usually employ animation together with text, images, graphics, sounds and video to catch the viewers attention. Depending on the banner design, any of these multimedia elements may be defined as dynamic and therefore variable.

Top Digital Challenges of Marketers Today

1. Metrics, analytics, and ROI of the digital marketing programs. Since digital tactics are so new and so different from traditional channels, what are the right metrics to use and how do we even start to get at a return on investment (ROI) with these metrics? Another important aspect of this is benchmarking - e.g., what's a good cost per thousand (CPM) or cost per click (CPC)? What kind of return should I be expecting and what should I do if I'm not getting it? Unifying and integrating within digital and also with traditional. Many companies have already done a bunch of digital "experiments." Now, when their CFOs are breathing down their necks and asking for results and metrics, they are taking a step back and reassessing whether those tactics yielded any business impact. In most cases, they haven't. But going forward they are looking for ways to make digital and traditional marketing tactics work better together and drive real business return. Allocation of budget to digital. Many brands are still struggling with getting enough funds allocated to "digital." The less B2C the brand is, the harder it is. Much of this is due to the lack of a clear path from dollar invested to sales. In traditional media, there is precedent that suggests spending this much extra should lead to this much lift in sales. In digital, few such precedents exist yet. So it's even more important that the brand manager can articulate a clear path to sales - for example, for every dollar spent online, X users come to our website, Y users print off a coupon, and Z users redeem said coupon in retail stores driving this much incremental revenue. Finding the right marketing mix to allocate budget across channels. Historically, if the brand has been TV advertising-driven, the main metrics had to do with reach and frequency, which drove awareness of the product and therefore sales. However, in many cases now, awareness is no longer the marketing challenge so doing more TV may not drive any more sales. Other tactics work better at lower stages of the consumers' purchase funnel Creating lasting impact. All advertising campaigns are over once you turn them off. The large spike in traffic to the website evaporates once the media supporting the campaign is stopped. In digital and social media, however, brands must think of building relationships with customers. This is centered on earning their trust; and this takes time. So companies that used to think in terms of ad campaigns need to now think about digital and social media commitments - long term. When you build a dialog and relationships with customers you can't just turn it off. One way of building lasting value while still on campaign-based budgets is by spending the money to simulate the desirable social actions like "sharing" or "discussing" or "reviewing" instead of just buying "likes" where the users never come back after the campaign is over. Keeping up or missing out. There is a common perception that things in digital move and change fast. That's true. But the corollary that it's impossible to keep up is only partially true. Indeed there are dozens of startups that achieve incredible fame in the media, but turn out to be flashes in the pan. And even huge successful companies may also wane - like Digs, Delicious, Fraudster, MySpace, etc. So chasing every "shiny object" is not necessary; a focus on what really matters is. What are the best practices in digital disciplines that are the same no matter what industry or audience? So as long as you continue to read and learn (don't read books, read online because it's current) and continue to ask the fundamental questions about whether those tactics can actually drive business impact, don't sweat the details or worry about missing out on shiny objects (there will always be more). Speed and innovation. In digital channels, marketing can happen at light speed - a.k.a in real time. Once you put a campaign in market, you can immediately see user actions and reactions to it. No longer does it take months to compile data and write performance reports. With this comes the ability to optimize in real time as well. But too often, the companies don't have processes in place to enable the quick reaction to problems or opportunities. A way to address this is to identify a few scenarios of how customers may react and then pre-plan actions to respond. This will allow the company to innovate the message, the marketing, or even the product or service in question to take advantage of the speed of feedback.

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TRADITIONAL V/S DIGITAL MARKETING

We identified two distinct models for developing new business. In traditional approach you meet people, often through referrals or networking, and develop a relationship. As people come to trust you, typically though repeated interaction over time, you are in a position to do work In the digital marketing model, people find you, typically though paid or organic search, social networking or after reading something youve published online. They become familiar with your work and develop trust because they find your approach helpful. Both approaches involve a trusting relationship, but they get there in a different ways. One cues off of a personal relationship, the other off of sampling your work. In one you find the prospect, in the other they find you.

STRENGTHS OF TRDITIONAL MARKETING

Tired and true. People are comfortable and familiar with it. Locally oriented Built on face-to-face interaction so you can learn a lot about potential client.

LIMITATION OF TRDITIONAL MARKETING

Limited access to distant markets Long development cycle are common Hard to measure and project result.

STRENGTHS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Geography is less important. Can go national or global more easily. Very scalable Cost per opportunity decrease with scale Shorter business development cycles are possible Easier to measure and project results

LIMITATION OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Global reach equals global competition No local familiarity No face-to-face contact to read the prospect or reassure