Digital Marketing Week 4: Macro-Environment

Digital Marketing - The Digital Macro-Environment

• Week 4 of the digital marketing course
• Focuses on the digital macro-environment impacting marketing strategy
• Topics covered in Chapter 3: rate of environmental change and technological forces.
• Case study provided: Social media- Do celebrities call all the shots?

Learning Objectives

• Understand how the macro-environment influences digital marketing strategy, planning, implementation, and performance.
• Consider the legal, moral, and ethical implications of digital marketing.
• Identify macro-environmental elements relevant to digital marketing.

Questions for Marketers

• Assess the importance of macro-environmental changes on digital marketing strategy.
• Maintain consistency between online marketing and evolving cultural/ethical standards.
• Evaluate the significance of understanding technological innovations.
• Identify applicable laws when marketing online.
• Examine the influence of social media marketing on businesses and the need to adapt to online marketplace changes.
• Analyze political influences on digital marketing planning.
• Adapt to a constantly changing marketing environment.

Introduction

• Explores macro-environmental forces and their relevance to digital marketing strategy:
• Common mnemonics are discussed, for example PEST, and SLEPT, or PESTLE models are utilized to represent different aspects of macro-environmental forces.
• These forces include: political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental forces.

Key Micro-Environment Factors

• Technological forces: influence in technology of marketing opportunities, introduces new aspects of product development, new marketing channels, and access to target markets,
• Economic forces: impact of economic conditions, like consumer spending, on trading opportunities and digital marketing planning.
• Political forces: influence of governments and global organizations on Internet adoption, control, and governing rules for online activity.
• Legal forces: laws and ethical guidelines for online product promotion, sale, and customer privacy.
• Social forces: impact of online communities and cultural diversity on online businesses, Internet use, and business services online.

The Rate of Environmental Change

• Changes in market forces within digital environment are rapid.
• Companies should respond with strategic agility to emerging opportunities and threats.

Technological Forces (Key Factors)

• Internet technology: Internet infrastructure and communication networks.
• Cyber security: safeguarding against security threats and risks related to e-commerce transactions.
• Mobile and SMS messaging: strategies to utilize mobile tech applications and support for mobile applications.
• Mobile applications: software applications, like location-based services.
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless: technologies that enable wireless internet access.
• Emerging technologies: new technologies impacting online interactions and user experiences.

A Short Introduction to Internet Technology

• Internet: A global network connecting computers.
• World Wide Web: A system for publishing information on the Internet. It is accessed through browsers.
• Web server: Stores webpages and related information that is accessible through web browsers.
• Web browser Software: Facilitates access to web content.

Short Introduction to Internet Technology (streaming and URLs)

• Streaming media server: Server that broadcasts audio/video.
• URLs(Uniform Resource Locators): Web addresses used to locate specific pages.

A Short Introduction to Internet Technology (URLs) (further specific details)

• Domain names: Names of websites, often mirroring company names.
• Extensions/Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs): Indicate domain type (.com, .org etc.)
• Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs): Identifies specific countries (.co.uk, .de, .fr etc.)
• URL structure: Standard format for creating web addresses; involves the use of hyphens, subdomains and file names to determine the unique URL for a page.

How Does the Internet Work?

• Client-server architecture: Client computers access resources stored on more powerful server computers.
• Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Provide access to the Internet for users.
• Backbones: High-speed communications links enabling international network communication.

Infrastructure Components of the Internet

• Static web pages: Pages with fixed content on the server.
• Dynamic web pages: Pages created in real-time, often based on database queries.
• Transaction log files: Server logs that record user webpage requests.
• Web analytics tools: Techniques to analyze website usage and optimize the website experience.

Information Exchange (web browsers & servers)

• Diagram illustrating the sequence of communication for information exchange between a web browser and server.

Web Page Standards

• Content: Design, text, and graphics form the content of websites. Content is critical for attracting and retaining visitors.

Text Information - HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

• HTML: A standard for structuring webpages, including text and layout.
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): Used to define styles for webpages, separating content from presentation.

Text Information and Data - XML (Extensible Markup Language)

• Metadata: Data about data, describing content structure.
• XML: Standard for transferring structured data, differing from HTML which is primarily presentational.

Cyber Security

• Risks in e-commerce: Confidential details and transaction data are vulnerable to breaches.
• Methods of cyber attack: Keylogging software, malware, packet sniffing, hacking (servers/employee access), social engineering, etc.

Approaches to Developing Secure Systems

• Digital certificates: Key-based technology for identifying individuals or companies.
• Symmetric encryption: One key for encoding and decoding messages between parties
• Asymmetric encryption: Uses separate keys for encoding and decoding.

Digital Signatures

• Digital signatures are an authentication method for individuals or companies that use public-key encryption.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certificate Authorities

• Diagram providing a high-level overview of how PKI/certificate authorities work.

Secure Electronic Transactions (SET)

• Secure Electronic Transactions (SETs): Standard for enabling secure online transactions (credit card processing).
• Payment Systems: Method of transferring funds.
• Micropayment: Allows for small transactions to occur at a decreased transaction cost.

SMS Messaging

• SMS (Short Message Service): Standard for text messaging.

Mobile Apps

• Software applications used on mobile phones.

Social Location-Based Marketing

• Social media tools facilitate sharing of location data, enabling location-based marketing campaigns.

QR Codes, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

• QR codes: Two-dimensional bar codes.
• Wi-Fi: Enables wireless Internet access.
• Bluetooth: Wireless standard for data transfer over short ranges.

Emerging Technologies

• Assessing the value of technology innovations.
• Diffusion of Innovation Curve (diagram): Shows the pattern for adoption of new technologies.

Alternative responses to changes in technology (figure 3.6)

• Illustration showing variations in strategy and responses to technology changes (innovator, responder, laggard.)