Impact of Digital Marketing in Retail Sector

Digital Marketing is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. Like other advertising media, online advertising frequently involves both a publisher, who integrates advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be displayed on the publisher's content. Other potential participants include advertising agencies that help generate and place the ad copy, an ad server which technologically delivers the ad and tracks statistics, and advertising affiliates who do independent promotional work for the advertiser. 

The various research objectives of the study are:

• To define the concept of digital marketing and innovative sales promotion techniques.

• To review as to how much sales promotion through digital marketing has penetrated in the market place

• To demonstrate about functioning of digital marketing and benefits of digital marketing for the businesses as well as the customers.

• To assess the feedback of companies and customers towards different sales promotion strategies using digital marketing techniques.

• To suggest the potential marketers on use of digital marketing for improving their business.

Problem Definition

Today, for any organization or firm to survive in this competitive world, it depends on its ability to be dynamic and be different from the competition to be unique in the industry. For this, it is very important in knowing competitive/marketing strategies of a company. We need to understand and analyze marketing strategies to create an interaction that will reach to the ultimate desired goal of a company. Implementation of marketing strategies helps every organization to keep the existing customer and to build new customer.

Whilst once the domain of the information seeker and the passive web surfer, the Internet has evolved to become a truly social media environment; an interactive environment that now sees a free-flow of information and conversation. In line with this evolution, we have seen the balance of power shift from the marketer to the consumer, from the communicator to the receiver through social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Currently it is estimated that during an average adult’s day, a total of nine hours is spent surfing the net. It is anticipated that this time commitment will increase significantly as social networking becomes mainstream. Since consumers are now able to control the ebb and flow of information, marketers and advertisers are coming to recognize that, in order to succeed in the new digital world, they need to re-think their strategies. 

Digital media is seen as an emerging communication environment for many. Indeed it appears that many media practitioners, marketing agencies and advertising agencies are continuing to apply traditional planning strategies in this new environment. In this report, my objective is to highlight the growing importance of online advertising in the digital media environment. Digital Marketing is widely used across virtually all industry sectors. 

Many common online advertising practices are controversial and increasingly subject to regulation. Online ad revenues may not adequately replace other publishers' revenue streams. Declining ad revenue has led some publishers to hide their content behind pay walls. The purpose of this study is to study the latest digital marketing strategies adopted by companies to cater to the needs of desired mission and vision. The reach of Internet may not yet be as wide as that of other mass media, but given its unique advantages, it is undoubtedly the communication medium of the future. Marketers around the world have from time to time tried to reach their target audiences through various media. Scientific and technological advances have and will continue to create newer media to improve communication, and marketers will try to use the same to effectively address their audiences. Internet is one of the latest to join the list of such media inventions.

Methodology to be used

Research data can be characterized by two different aspects, which are quantitative and qualitative strategy. Quantitative is a collection of data analysis that leads to numerical data and qualitative data collection leads to analysis, which leads to non-numerical data such as words and images Qualitative data can be used to ‘develop theory from your data’ and in addition it can include both ‘deductive and inductive approaches’. The objective of the study is to explore how digital marketing is used to influence consumers. Using a quantitative strategy will not be relevant to the research question. The study aims to find out qualitative data concerning the marketing tools used, the technologies used by brands to engage consumers and how this influences them. The researcher will use qualitative data to justify the link connecting customers and the Internet. 

In this framework, the questionnaire method is the appropriate method. A well-structured questionnaire is formed and distributed to the internet users. All the questionnaires have the same questions in an identical sequence. The questions are concise, easy to understand, and aimed to secure applicable and reliable information. In addition the questionnaire method is suitable for collecting data related to the influence of digital marketing on companies and consumers. The data collected from this method will be helpful for the acknowledgement of digital marketing strategies that could be implemented by brands for their digital marketing approach. 

The Questionnaire method will assist the research to get up to date information and in addition information which is relevant as it will be data collected from individuals who use internet more frequently. Furthermore this method ensures accuracy as respondents give answers in their own time and own words. The questionnaire can be issued in a large sample, which makes this method more consistent. 

Before commencement of the questionnaire the participants are sufficiently prepared for the questions. Therefore, at the beginning of the questionnaire there is a short summary about the subject and the purpose of the questionnaire, in addition some key phrases are defined. The questions are concise, easy to understand, and aimed to ensure valid and dependable information. The logical design of the questionnaire followed the deductive method, which begins with respondents answering general questions moving on to specific questions. Furthermore, emailing the questionnaire allows for a faster rate of communication with participants and response to the questionnaire and additionally can be seen as ‘environmentally friendly’ as there is no paper involved.

The main focus is not to produce official theories regarding digital media as a marketing tool but to provide descriptive explanation of its influence on consumers. Therefore grounded theory research can assist in summarizing data as its central idea is that there is a strong link between theory and practical studies therefore its data is derived from the research stage. The research will then proceed to analyse data from the results produced; the research will then decide what information to provide. Results are then concluded and conclusions are drawn which relate to the research aim and lead to knowledge, which is integrated, into the existing field of knowledge.