Consumers and Communities

The Internet has transferred the power from the brand to the customer, evolving the latter to a “prosumer” (pro-active consumer) that demands more access to the brand decision making process. This change calls for new politics inside the marketing department and introduces a new challenge for the strategic marketer: to invite and involve consumers in brand communities populated of like-minded members, in order to fulfill their fundamental psychological goal for belongingness. In this chapter we discuss the characteristics and the specifics of community building, as it emerges as a great means to the end of loyalty building. Additionally, we attempt to decode the consumer behaviour online, in order to develop useful tools for segmentation and targeting, adapted to the new elements of what consumer perceives as value.

Technological Background Knowledge to Use the Internet as a Marketing Tool

Websites are the cornerstone of digital marketing, the online premises of brands and companies, therefore, this chapter focuses on them. Making web design decisions stretches far beyond personal aesthetics, and there is compelling evidence that customers respond and evaluate the overall online experience differently even when a slight detail is changed. This chapter reviews the school of thoughts and models that apply to strategic website design, from the marketer's point of view. Later, we present the main concepts on Search Engine Optimization, since it is significant to website success and tightly bonded to the website architecture. The chapter concludes with a glance at fundamental metrics, as an effort to explain and decode how website related decisions are quantified, measured, evaluated and related to marketing objectives.

Content is King

This chapter is dedicated to the fledging issue of content, in terms of the different types of media and information posted on the social media and relevant platforms to broadcast the brand messages and to engage the consumers. This specific theme of content strategy is one of the major novelties introduced in digital marketing, as not only there is no equivalent in the traditional context but the digital marketer needs to adopt a new mindset and break some well-established boundaries. Besides the different content development approaches, we also discuss the different ways to attract and build an audience, applying techniques, both for organic and paid growth, as an engaged audience can be a valuable source of competitive advantage for the brands and the companies.

Towards an Integrated Online-Offline Marketing Design

Based on a variety of industries, this final chapter aims to provide a coherent helicopter view on interrelated topics in the field of digital marketing integrated with traditional marketing approaches. It combines a body of academic research on the field with practical knowledge. To achieve this aim, mainstream research articles are summarized, illustrating YouTube videos and practical cases, recommendations are presented, interesting future research propositions and questions suggested and conceptualized frameworks provided. The thematic potpourri spans from knowledge management, increased consumer power, multi- channel marketing, integration and channel choice factors, a discussion on business models for multi-channel marketing and online marketing, virtual reality, web and customer analytics and Big Data in relation to corporate performance and corporate competencies. The chapter concludes with a hypothesized summarizing conceptualization on effectively designing online and offline channels, suggestions for future research and strategic foci. The chapter concludes that the path of adopting and anchoring digital marketing is not a mechanical but rather an organic change requiring a holistic change management embracing a cross-functional perspective with strong leadership involvement.

Consumer Engagement in Social Media Platforms

If ‘to be social' is the sum of people's online interaction intentions, that can be monitored by marketers but not coerced, how can we make best use of these powerful new media? The answer lies in understanding the internal, psychological needs that are fulfilled by the social media and how they are demonstrated and testified by liking, sharing and engaging in general with specific pieces of content, while rejecting others. In this environment, marketers are called to develop a “brand as a person” strategy, in order for their brands to mingle and interact with consumers beyond the traditional marketing communication framework. In this chapter, we explore and discuss the strategic use of the social media as a concept that needs to be thoroughly understood but seemingly hasn't been yet by a large majority of marketers.

E-Marketing in a Digitalized World

In this first chapter, we introduce and discuss the fundamental terminology while exploring the distance between digital and traditional marketing. Although we strongly believe that there are no constants in today's dynamic business environment, we propose a set of propositions that might be helpful to the transition of marketing to its digital offspring. Building on experience, best practice, literature and research, we highlight the multifaceted role of the digital marketer by explaining the 7 sets of skills that they need in order to succeed. In a nutshell, this chapter grounds on the idea of a much needed mindset shift that will distinguish the competent digital marketers.