Fundamentals of Digital Marketing — Winter 2024

Digital marketing can reach targeted customers more effectively and marketing delivers immediate results but B2C and B2B matters a lot. Discuss.

Communication is unidirectional in traditional marketing while it is bidirectional in Digital marketing discuss in context with Differ Traditional Marketing Vs Digital marketing

Understanding Digital Consumer is very difficult. Sometimes scenarios are like “ I don’t know you and you don’t know me” Discuss.

Long Questions

What do you mean by online reputation management? Explain its scope and importance

CASE STUDY: Boo.com lacked the expertise, resources and capabilities to make a successful launch in 18 countries simultaneously. The founders had created a successful online book business in Scandinavia but Boo.com was a much more complex operation. Additionally, the underlying technology infrastructures were not in place and the ‘aspirations’ of the management team for the functionality of the website were way beyond the ‘know-how’ of developers at the time. Ultimately, Boo.com did not have a coherent strategy and so rather than building a scalable business that could grow over time they aimed to build a global business overnight. The company benefited from the high demand for high-tech stocks, which allowed money to constantly be pumped into the business. However, once the company demonstrated its inability to deliver, the launch date for the website was constantly put back. The failure to deliver on time linked with the stock market crash it was almost inevitable that the business would fold. Boo.com wanted to offer a product range of branded goods to the 18- to 24-year-olds who were both fashion conscious and had good incomes. In essence, this approach was ok if the size of this target group at the time of launch was not as extensive as predicted and there were still many barriers to shopping online both for this group and other potential targets. This made a heavy demand on the promotional budget as Boo had to launch a new shopping concept; establish credibility for the brand and reinforce to the target audience that it was ‘ok’ to shop online. Boo failed on the logistic side, there were many problems associated with logistics throughout the supply chain. Goods were delivered late and returns were mishandled. Page 2 of Shopping with Boo was a laborious process. The user interface had many graphical features which meant slow download speeds and was not seen to be user-friendly. When it is working, the online environment created by Boo was sophisticated and offered many of the interactive features that shoppers were looking for; however, this was not the case for much of the time. Furthermore, many shoppers did not have broadband and as a consequence could not enjoy any of the benefits. The shopping process did not work in a streamlined way and there were many angry customers. People: the website used JavaScript and Flash technology to allow Miss Boo, a sales- assistant-style avatar to assist shoppers, but this did not work very well especially when using a 56k modem and dial-up connection. Premium brands were used, leading to premium prices. Unclear on mix between sportswear and high street fashion. Scope relatively narrow, limiting target audience. As mentioned in the case, there were issues of pricing in different regions. No mentions of discounting are made, consistent with the brands’ premium positioning. However, competitive selective promotions are today commonly used by many e- retail brands.. Boo.com had a worldwide distribution, which was good for achieving reach, but added to the cost-base of the company, impacting on promotion. Aglobal launch of a new brand was ambitious and can be contrasted with the more conservative approach from the likes of Amazon and eBay. To build the Boo brand and drive visitors, it was reliant on online advertising, which gave rise to a high cost per customer acquisition that ultimately led to the brands failure. The use of PR was more effective and is one of the successes of Boo. The magazine appears over ambitious and did not pay for itself through sales generated. At the time, the promotion through online marketing techniques such as search engine advertising and affiliate marketing techniques was limited in its possibilities. Today, these are more effective for companies. It is well known that the technology was too advanced for a time when the vast majority was accessing the web over dial-up modems. This led to a ‘clunky’ experience that resulted in the low conversion rates referred to in the article. It also seems likely that the cost of providing customer service was not factored into the business model.3.In many ways the vision of Boo’s founders were ideas before their time. Give examples of the e-retail techniques used to create an engaging online customer experience which Boo adopted and in now becoming commonplace. When boo.com collapsed, the company left a legacy of the underlying e-commerce technology. This was bought for £250,000 by Dan Wagner, which enabled him through his company Bright Station to create an e-commerce solution package, which runs many of today’s successful online retailers’ web operations. The 3D images of products, sales assistant avatars and multiple country online stores are examples of some of the features of Boo.com operations that have now become common place, for example, IKEA for online sales support through their ‘Ask Anna’ facility.