Week 5 Discussion 1 Direct Marketing

Define direct marketing. Does direct marketing help with relationship marketing? How does direct marketing supply an organization’s integrated marketing communications plan? Support your position. Incorporate concepts and examples from this week’s lecture.

Online Marketing & Social Media

Social media has added a powerful online media that is designed to encourage user interaction. This format adds a powerful dimension to communications strategies. Social media sites such as Facebook, Google+ Social Service, Twitter, YouTube, and Linked In are the major players in social media (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Consumers may post messages by written messages, videos, podcasts, photographs, etc. Qualman (2013) states the 21st  century has moved from "word of mouth" to "world of mouth" (p. 1), meaning the power of millions of consumers reading what has been posted online about a product or an organization is now read by consumers all over the world. Yet, Qualman states 70% of "big company CEOs have no presence on social networks" (p.) and suggests businesses embrace the social media in order to stay connected to consumers. Kabani (2013) agrees; however, the author suggests the marketing strategies used in traditional marketing venues will not be applied to the effective marketing strategies via social media. New strategies must be adapted for the social media marketing strategy because this media platform belongs to the consumer rather than to the marketer. New tactics must also be developed in order to assess the data extracted from social media. Kozinets (2002) has coined a new term, "netnography," which is the process organizations can use to track patterns and other useful consumer information from the online postings. The postings on social media web sites will give the organizations an opportunity to right something if it is wrong. More importantly, reading what consumers are posting will give the organization an opportunity to identify emerging trends or an unmet demand and be first in the marketplace to fill that demand. While it is very important an organization have a presence within the Internet and social media, care must be taken to assess the ROI on such investment. Metrics such as those listed on page 292 (Ogden & Ogden) of our text give managers an idea of how activities on the social media sites could lead to eventual sales and market share. Most of the activities are easily tracked by looking at the posts on each web site. Metrics such as Google Analytics can help track the postings and response rates for a very large organization. The important point to remember is the social media activity should be monitored in order to confirm the activity is contributing to the organization’s overall mission and objectives. The power of social media and its influence in the integrated marketing communications strategy cannot be overlooked (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Does this mean we should abandon the more traditional tactics and venues of the IMC? No; of course not. It depends upon the targeted market segment. For instance, if the organization is targeting older consumers, the traditional methods such as television and/or radio may still be effective for reaching this group of consumers. If, however, the organization is targeting tech savvy Baby Boomers, Generations X, Y, & the Millennials, then using social media is a must. People want to know what their colleagues and peers are thinking. If you were thinking about purchasing a specific model of auto, for example, are you more likely to believe the postings of your peers or the advertising claims of the organization?

Forbes School of Business Faculty

References: Kabani, S. (2013). The zen of social marketing. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc. Kozinets, R. V. (2002, February). The field behind the screen: Using netnography for marketing research in online communities. Journal of Marketing Research, 39, 61-72 Ogden, J. R., & Ogden, D. T. (2014). Utilizing a strategic marketing approach to managing marketing communications. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.