Digital Marketing Challenges
Today, Digital Marketers are facing great challenges in this highly competitive digital marketing environment. Here are 10 Most Common Digital Marketing Challenges that digital marketers are exactly facing today.
 |
| Digital Marketers are facing great challenges due to high competition. (Photo by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke) |
1. In the past, signed paper documents were used to conduct business and commerce transactions. In the new digital world, electronic documents and messages (without familiar signatures and marks) have changed the prospects of a business. So e-commerce system, therefore, must offer at least the same level of reliability and consistency as that which was in the paper world and the companies should work with maximum reliability.
2. The legal issues of e-commerce have also produced tremendous interest among technologists, traders and legal experts. The legal requirement exists to establish the legitimacy of an electronic document or message. This includes integrity, reliability, and privacy of the origin and receipt of the electronic document in case of dispute.
3. In the case of e-commerce or electronic transactions, there is a concern that in the absence of proper controls, it is relatively easy to change the electronic record. Therefore, proper control and supervision required to be enforced in case of online transactions.
4. In the past, some major legal issues were found for providing services such as online marketing, financial services of banking and trading, online trading such as online publishing, the ordering of products or services, exchange of electronic messages, filing and documentation, electronic transactions, and online contracts made.
5. The trademarks and domain names are common and legal issues. An online company takes her domain name from the registry in its own name as CompanyName.com. Unlikely, in the traditional commercial world where different companies may have the same trademark in different products and services. So, in cyberspace, the company which registers its name for the domain name eliminates all others for using that name.
6. Copyright is also a challenge for the new digital world. Copyright was developed in the printed world to protect the economic interests of a creative writer.
7. Jurisdiction is another issue. Jurisdiction refers to court’s ability to hear a particular case. A number of cases which were vital to the legality of commerce in cyberspace were on arise. Internet communications and messaging have no geographical boundaries, whereas jurisdiction under traditional legislation has the limits of territory. Various laws are applicable under varied jurisdictions.
8. The use of modern technology has become a much bigger focus for the marketing industry. This is because of complexity in the customer journey. The Marketing software is also too hard to use. As the customer journey has grown more complicated, with more touch-points and data, software supporting marketers need to be simplified.
9. The issue of service provider liability cannot be ignored. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide user access to the shared websites. Commonly the concerns include defamation, liability for violation of third party rights, and the liability for hosting of unlawful materials. On the internet, the growth of e-commerce depends to large extent on the confidence of traders informing legally enforceable contracts online. Yet, there are some problems related to jurisdiction of the parties and the website, since it is the jurisdiction which determines the laws that would be applicable in the case of a dispute. Then, there are issues related to the identity of parties and role of digital structures on the internet.
10. Fraud of Ads is also a big challenge for the digital marketing. The United States has one of the worst ad fraud rates in the world in advertising. Comparatively, other countries like Australia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom all have better rates. Despite this growing issue in the advertising field, the advertisers are too aware of it. But we’re also seeing more industry-wide standards and incentives in place this year than there were two years ago.
Digital Marketing Strategy
 |
| Digital Marketing can be successful with Lucrative Strategies. (Photo by Gerd Altmann) |
As the use of the internet, social media, website, and mobiles phones getting popularity. Presently, digital marketing is considered as a cost-effective marketing strategy to increase the relationship and communication with target customers. The companies are to improve, define and design their digital marketing strategies keeping in view their own challenges in planning their digital marketing disconnected channels, industry regulatory guidelines, multiple customer touch-points, on leveraging digital channels specifically social media, and isolated digital marketing operations.
Setting Up an E-Marketing Presence
Clearly, all companies need to consider moving into e-marketing. Companies can conduct e-marketing in any of the four ways shown below:-
§ How to make a website
§ How to place ads online
§ Setting up or participating in Web communities
§ Using e-mail
How to make a Website
For most companies, the first step in conducting e-marketing is to create a Website. However, the marketers must create an attractive website than simply one, and find ways to get consumers to visit their site, stay around and come back often.
Types of Websites
Websites vary greatly in purpose and content. The most basic type is a Corporate Website. These sites are designed to build customer goodwill and to supplement other sales channels, rather than to sell the company's products directly. For example, you can't buy ice cream at benjerrys.com, but you can learn all about Ben & Jerry's company philosophy, products, and locations. Or you can visit the Fun Stuff area and send a free E-Card to a friend, subscribe to the Chunk Mail newsletter, or while away time playing Scooper Challenge or Virtual Checkers.
Corporate websites usually supply an upscale style of info and alternative options in a shot to answer client queries, build nearer client relationships, and generate excitement regarding the corporate. They typically give info regarding the company's history, its mission, and philosophy, and therefore the product and services that it offers. Other firms design a marketing or e-commerce website. These sites engage consumers in an interaction that will move them closer to a direct purchase or other marketing outcomes. Such sites might include a catalog, shopping tips, and promotional features such as coupons, sales events, or contents. For example, visitors to SonyStyle.com can search through dozens of categories of Sony products, reviews, and check out the latest hot deals. They can place an order for the desired Sony products online and pay by credit card, all with a few mouse clicks. Companies aggressively promote their marketing Websites in offline print and broadcast advertising and through "banner-to-site" ads that pop up on other Web sites.
Designing Effective Web Sites
Creating a Website is one thing; getting people to visit the site is another. A key challenge is designing a Web site that is attractive on first view and interesting enough to encourage visitors to come to the site, stick around, and come back again. Today's Web users are quick to abandon any Website that doesn't measure up. "Whether people are online for work reasons or for personal reasons," says a Web design expert, "if a Web site doesn't meet their expectations, two-thirds say they don't return; now or ever. They'll visit you and leave and you'll never know. We call it the Internet death penalty." This means that companies must constantly update their sites to keep them current, fresh and useful. This involves time and expense, but it is necessary for the e-marketer to curtail the increasing challenge of online competition.
In addition, many online marketers spend heavily on good old-fashioned advertising and other offline marketing avenues to attract visitors to their sites. For example, Mitsubishi ran an expensive Super Bowl ad to draw visitors to its Gallant Web site. The ad featured a cliffhanger of a crash-avoidance test comparing the maneuverability of a Gallant GTS versus a Toyota Camry to find out what happened, viewers had to go to the Web site. The ad attracted 1.6 million site visits. To attract new visitors and to encourage revisits, suggests one expert, e-marketers should pay close attention to the 7 Cs of effective Website Design.
1. Context: the site's layout and design
2. Content: the text, pictures, sound, and video that the Website contains
3. Community: the ways that the site enables user-to-user communication
4. Customization: the site's ability to tailor itself to different users or to allow users to personalize the site
5. Communication: the ways the site enables site-to-user, user-to-site, or two-way communication
6. Connection: the degree that the site is linked to other sites
7. Commerce: the site's capabilities to enable commercial transactions
How to place Ads Online
E-Marketers can use online advertising to build their Internet brands or to attract visitors to their Web sites. Online advertising that appears while consumers are surfing the Web, including banner and ticker ads, interstitial, skyscrapers, and other forms.
Creating or Participating in Web Communities
The popularity of forums and newsgroups has resulted in a rash of commercially sponsored Websites called 'Web communities', which take advantage of the C2C properties of the Internet. Such sites allow members to congregate online and exchange views on issues of common interest. They are the cyberspace equivalent to a Starbucks coffeehouse, a place where everybody knows your e-mail address. For example, iVillage.com is a Web community in which women can exchange views and obtain information, support, and solutions, or just about any other topic. The second example is MyFamily.com, which is a bigger and most active online community for families, in the world. It provides free, private family Web sites upon which family members can connect online to hold family discussions, share family news, create online family photo albums, maintain a calendar of family events, share family history information, jointly build family trees, and buy gifts for family member quickly and easily.
Using E-Mail
E-mail has exploded onto the scene as an important e-marketing tool. A recent study of ad, brand and marketing managers found that nearly half of all the B2B and B2C companies surveyed used e-mail marketing to reach consumers. Another study found that `almost 80 percent of consumers with Internet access see ads in e-mails at least once a day. To cope efficiently in this ever-more-cluttered e-mail milieu, marketers are designing "improved" e-mail messages, vigorous, collaborative, and personalized messages full of streaming audio and video. Then, they are steering these attention-grabbers more prudently to those who want them and will act upon them.
