Digital Marketing - Macro-Environment Week 4

Digital Marketing - The Digital Macro-Environment

• Week 4 of the course
• Instructor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Gülsüm Vezir Oğuz
• Course: Digital Marketing

Chapter 3: The Digital Macro-environment

• Main Topics:

  • The rate of environmental change
  • Technological forces

• Case Study: Social media - Do celebrities call all the shots?

Learning Objectives

• Identify how the macro-environment affects an organisation's digital marketing strategy, planning, implementation, and performance.
• Consider legal, moral, and ethical constraints of digital marketing.
• Identify aspects of each macro-environmental force relevant to digital marketing.

Questions for Marketers

• How important are macro environmental changes to my digital marketing strategy?
• How can I ensure online marketing activities are consistent with evolving culture and ethical standards of online communities?
• How important is it to understand technological innovations?
• Which laws am I subject to when marketing online?
• How does social media marketing impact my business and what changes are needed in order to react to social changes in the online marketplace?
• What are the political influences which could affect my digital marketing planning?
• How do I keep up in a constantly changing marketing environment?

Introduction

• Explore macro-environmental forces with potential relevance to digital marketing strategy.

• Marketing literature uses mnemonics (e.g., PEST, SLEPT, PESTLE) to categorize macro-forces.

• Macro Forces:

  • Political forces
  • Economic forces
  • Social forces
  • Technological forces
  • Legal forces
  • Environmental forces

Key Micro-Environment Factors

• Technological forces: Changes in technology affect marketing opportunities, new product development, channel integration, and access to target markets.
• Economic forces: Variations in economic conditions impact trading opportunities and consumer spending as well as business performance.
• Political forces: National and international organizations have significant roles in regulating the development and control of the internet and related laws/ethics.
• Legal forces: Define methods for promotion and sales online; guidelines to protect individual rights to privacy and business dealings.
• Social forces: Cultural diversity impacts use of internet/online services provided by businesses

The Rate of Environmental Change

• In the digital world, changes in market forces are increasingly rapid. Companies should develop strategic agility to address emerging opportunities and threats.

Technological Forces (Key Factors)

• Internet technology
• Cyber security
• Mobile and SMS messaging systems
• Mobile apps
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless applications
• Emerging technologies

A Short Introduction to Internet Technology

• Internet: A global network connecting computers
• World Wide Web: A medium for publishing information and services on the internet accessed via web browsers displaying site content.
• Web Server: Stores web pages accessible by browsers; may include databases of customer/product information which can be retrieved via a browser.
• Web Browser: Software (e.g., Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox) for accessing information (documents on web servers).
• Uniform/Universal Resource Locator (URL): A web address used to locate a web page on a web server.

Streaming Media Server

• A specialist server used to broadcast audio/video (e.g., podcasts, IPTV, webcasts).
  • Unicast: A separate copy of the stream is served to each recipient.
  • Multicast: Recipients share streams.
  • Peer-to-peer: Media shared between different recipient computers (e.g., BitTorrent, Kontiki).

A Short Introduction to Internet Technology - URL

• http://www.domain-name.extension/filename.html: Domain name identifies the web server; extension indicates its type (common gTLDs: .com, .org, .net).

URL Strategy

• A defined approach to forming URLs, including capitalization, hyphenation, and subdomains for different brands/locations and online/offline promotion, optimization, findability.

How Does the Internet Work?

• Client-server architecture: Client computers (e.g., PCs) share resources from a more powerful server computer.
• Internet service provider (ISP): Enables home/business users to connect to the internet, and sometimes hosts web-based applications.
• Backbones: High-speed communication links enabling internet communication across countries and internationally.

Infrastructure Components of the Internet

• Static web page: A page on the server that remains unchanged.
• Dynamic web page: A page created in real-time based on user requests, (often related to database queries).
• Transaction log file: A web server file recording all page requests.
• Web analytics: Techniques for assessing and optimizing the contribution of e-marketing activities to business.

Information Exchange Between Web Browser and Web Server

• Web server software (with access to databases, HTML, graphics) responds to browser requests using HTTP protocols.

Web Page Standards – Content

• Content (design, text, graphical information) is key for attracting customers to a website and retaining interest, potentially leading to repeat visits.

Text Information - HTML

• HTML: Defines the text and layout of web pages. Web designers use HTML files and cascading style sheets (CSS) for ease of presentation styling.

Text Information - XML

• XML: A standard for transferring structured data, different from HTML's presentation-focused approach.
• Metadata: Data about data describing structure and content.

Cyber Security

• Risks in e-commerce transactions: Confidential details/passwords accessed on users' computers, transaction/credit card details being intercepted, customer credit card details being stolen from the merchant's server, or customer details accessed by unauthorized parties.

Approaches to Developing Secure Systems

• Digital certificates (keys): Large numbers uniquely identifying individuals.
• Symmetric encryption: Both parties using the same key for encoding/decoding.
• Asymmetric encryption: Parties using a related but different key for encoding/decoding.

Digital Signatures

• A method for identifying individuals/companies using public key encryption.

The Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certificate Authorities

• Secure communication between consumers and merchants via encoded transactions.

Secure Electronic Transaction (SET)

• SET: Enables secure e-commerce transactions from client to merchant systems using public-key encryption. A standard for secure payment via client to merchant.
• Payment systems: Mechanisms for transferring money from customers to merchants.
• Micropayments: Digital cash systems for fractional payments, but may not offer strong security.

SMS Messaging

• Short Message Service (SMS): A formal name for text messaging.

Mobile Apps

• Software applications designed for mobile phones, typically downloaded from app stores.

Social Location-Based Marketing

• Social media tools enabling businesses to use proximity/ location-based marketing sending consumer/user targeted messages and offers collecting customer data on preferences, behavior, etc.

QR Codes

• Quick Response codes: Two-dimensional matrix barcodes for direct response to promotion or offer.

Wi-Fi

• Wireless Fidelity: A high-speed wireless LAN used for internet access in various locations.

Bluetooth Wireless Applications

• A wireless standard (less than 10 meters range) for exchanging data between devices.
• Proximity marketing: Delivering real-time marketing messages based on the presence and/or device of the customer.

Emerging Technologies

• Diffusion of Innovation Curve: Assessing the marketing value of technology innovation with stages such as Innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

Alternative Responses to Changes in Technology

• This chart displays the pace of technological change versus user adoption (Innovators, Responders, and Laggards).