Marketers are often building cyber assets — websites, Facebook pages, YouTube brand channels and so on — because everyone seems to be doing so. Not much thought goes into the strategy or the execution. The outcome is a collection of disconnected properties that diffuse and disorient their brand, and confuse customers.

It is crucially important that before you execute, you have a cohesive strategy that integrates all offline and online brand assets, such that all the elements play well coordinated, yet distinct roles. That your brand’s communication and imagery remains intact as customers move across the media platforms, yet each channel contributes incrementally to its equity.

This guidebook will help you achieve these outcomes. It will give you a clear understanding of the building blocks that constitute digital marketing, and equip you with the tools, the techniques and the knowledge to develop cohesive market strategies, and prepare and execute effective digital marketing campaigns.

Digital Marketing — Overview

Preview of the eGuide containing snippets from some of the chapters

Ordinary people empowered with the social media are interacting and collaborating with increased speed, reach and effectiveness. This has had a profound impact on society, changing the political, economic and cultural landscapes across the globe.

Marketers must adapt to these changes. As they embrace digital marketing, they need a multi-media strategy to attract, convert and retain customers. On the web, they must draw customers by serving useful, relevant and interesting information. This contrasts with conventional media, which involves different forms of “buying” attention to push products to customers.

Anchored in the age of social media, this text is a practitioner’s guide to Digital Marketing.

• The opening chapter, New Media, explains how the internet has transformed the way brands engage with consumers, and outlines the new rules and perspectives.
• The Digital Marketing chapter imparts an understanding of how marketers must adapt, and the tools and techniques they should embrace.
• The next chapter, Digital — Execution, serves as a systematic guide to developing and executing digital marketing plans. It explains how to implement core aspects of a digital marketing plan, including website building and optimization, development of content scheme, use of social media, advertising, conversion and nurturing leads, and tracking and monitoring.
• The text also teaches the fundamentals and vital concepts of advertising and communication.
• Considering that quality is of such great significance, a chapter is devoted to impart the sense of how advertising works, and what mechanisms work best for different marketing objectives.
• In the context of analytics, importance is given not only to the behavioural metrics that flow from the digital platforms, but also to the attitudinal engagement measures, which remain key to our understanding of the quality of advertising. Furthermore, in view of recent developments, the chapter Advertising Analytics also devotes considerable attention to the way analytic techniques and research processes are being refined and re-engineered.

Given its focus on the practice of digital marketing, the book is tailored to the needs of marketing professionals. It is ideal too for business management students who wish to pursue careers in consumer marketing.

With the practitioner in mind, this book is intended to impart a thorough understanding of digital marketing and advertising analytics, and to guide you as you develop and execute digital marketing strategies. I hope that you enjoy reading it, and that it serves you well.

Article – Social Cloisters and Fake News