Lecturing Tutoring Digital Marketing

Marketing has changed significantly in the past ten or fifteen years due to digital channels and more services versus products.  This impacts not just what expertise or qualifications lecturer, teacher or tutor needs, but how marketing is taught in the classroom and coursebooks used e.g. inclusion of relevant digital content and a change in concepts.  Digital communication technology leverages word of mouth and horizontal communication while precluding control of messages.

Digital Marketing Requires Different Teaching and Lecturing Expertise

Following is an introductory summary to teaching marketing round digital concepts in the classroom:

Marketing Digital Offerings Is Different: Strategies for Teaching About Digital Offerings in the Marketing Classroom.

Scott D. Roberts The University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, USA Kathleen S. Micken Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode Island, USA

‘Digital offerings represent different challenges for marketers than do traditional goods and services. After reviewing the literature, the authors suggest ways that the marketing of dd services might be better presented to and better understood by students……. The authors also present specific suggestions for assignments and class discussions to foster students’ critical thinking about the marketing implications surrounding digital offerings.

When the U.S. economy shifted away from its manufacturing base, services marketing theory arose to help marketers deal with the unique nature of the increasingly intangible offerings (Berry 1980).

More recently, the economy has shifted again, driven by digital technologies. Not only have products been digitized, but information and communication technologies have also made it possible to distance producers from consumers, both in space and time. Marketing practice has responded to this environmental change, but academic marketing thinking has not come as far.

We first became aware of the problem while teaching MBA students concentrating in digital media management. For their marketing management course, we used Kotler and Keller’s (2009) Marketing Management. Kotler’s work has arguably been one of the central repositories of marketing’s received theories and ideas. We quickly realized, however, that the discussion of the digital offerings that these students were so engaged with (film, music, and video games) was lacking……

…..How has the marketing discipline responded? Our purpose here is not to suggest that there has been a dearth of literature about the impact of digital technology but rather that there are significant gaps in the literature about how to address digital offerings conceptually….What is missing, however , are pedagogical proposals for teaching about the challenges of marketing digital offerings.
The need to fill this gap comes not only from marketing practice, but also from accrediting bodies.

The 2013 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) standards man date that business programs include learning experiences that help students understand the integration of information technology in business…. Clearly, it is time to equip our students with tools for understanding and embracing all things digital. And it is time to equip faculty with the tools to do so. Faculty are faced with students for whom digital offerings are pervasive, yet who need to learn how to market those offerings strategically…..

IHIP framework of Intangibility, Heterogeneity, Inseparability and Perishability

This IHIP paradigm, however, did not anticipate digital offerings. At its core, a digital offering is made up of data files (recorded ones and zeros) stored on either the drives/media of consumers or on the servers of marketers/facilitators (e.g., in the cloud). These files come together in the form of solutions (bundles of benefits) for consumers.

Many traditional offerings have become available digitally including maps, tax preparation, customer service, reference sources, higher education, and distance medical consulting….. when applying the IHIP framework to digital offerings, some significant differences arise, both in terms of the features of the offerings as well as the attendant marketing challenges…..

Digital technologies have become ubiquitous in marketing. In adjusting pedagogy to acknowledge these changes, marketing faculty have begun to incorporate more technology in the classroom, have begun to address the new options available to marketers for engaging with customers, and in
some cases have created not only new courses but also new majors/concentrations.

External forces also propel this movement forward: accrediting agencies and organizations seeking interns and employees who understand the technology as well as how to use it strategically.

The production of unifying marketing frameworks has not always kept pace with the speed of digital business evolution, and thus marketing texts are not providing timely structures for conceptualizing these changes. This paper suggests ways faculty can effectively use the existing services marketing IHIP framework, but also presents the deviations from it necessitated by digital offerings.

Additionally, we offer suggestions for assignments and discussion probes to augment faculty presentations. Faculty may find the suggestions here helpful in organizing their own thinking about these issues, which in turn will help move the discipline forward.’

Kotler has recently published a related book ‘Marketing 4.0’ see Digital versus Traditional Marketing.

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Analytics in Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is featured in Mumbrella regarding results of survey on digital marketing, presumably using external agencies, firstly focused round metrics or analytics, brand reputation and fraud.

Importance of Analytics in Digital Marketing (Image copyright Pexels)

'Most marketers have had negative experiences in their digital marketing, AMAA survey suggests
September 11, 2018 8:13 by ZOE SAMIOS

Most marketing and agency professionals say they experienced a negative event with their digital marketing, a new survey by the Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA) indicates.

According to the AMAA, around 60% of the 407 surveyed said they had experienced some sort of bad outcome with their digital marketing. A total of 36% said they were impacted by misreporting of measurement metrics, while 32% were affected by “brand safety compromises”, and 13% said they were affected by ad fraud.

The new data comes from AMAA’s annual Trust Matters Research which aims to provide insights into ad trading decisions. The research was completed by agency The Insights Grill through an online survey between April and May this year.

Of those who said they had had a negative impact, 70% said it had led to wasted advertising dollars.
Concerns about non-human traffic have increased, with 53% of professionals arguing it was an issue to tackle in the next 12 months, compared to 39% last year. More than 50% of marketers also saw ad fraud as an issue, compared to 44% the year prior.

However, one of the biggest issues to tackle in the next 12 months, according to marketing and agencies, is proof of performance measurement.'

What are the solutions for any business or organisation to avoid such issues?

• View any digital or marketing strategy as an ongoing system, not a campaign.
• Do your digital marketing in-house for greater validity and control.
• Consult and leverage with your customers and stakeholders, both internal and external.
• If compelled to use external agencies, use CPD or training to learn about digital marketing, become involved, and take an interest in what is being done, not just as a budgetary item for ROI analysis, later.
• Have your own metrics i.e. ensure valid data points are linked to analytics for feedback, that can be accessed while demanding any agency is transparent in the metrics they use, observe or report.
• Use mystery shoppers to gauge the UX user or CX customer experience (still stalked by banner ads after purchase?).

For more articles and blogs about digital marketing services click through.

Digital Marketing Trends

Technology, data and design are key to successful organisations, supported by the right culture, what are the latest trends?

Curiously, while speaking of customer experience CX and their ‘journey’, there is little focus upon customer driven strategies or CGM customer generated media content that is informed, logical, authentic and economic?

Trends in Customer Journey for Digital Marketing (Image copyright Pexels)

'From Prateek Vatash of Econsultancy via AMI Australian Marketing Institute - Digital Intelligence Briefing – Executive Summary

Econsultancy’s 2018 Digital Trends report, published in association with Adobe, is based on a global survey of 12,795 marketing, creative and technology professionals in the digital industry across EMEA, North America and Asia Pacific.

Now in its eighth year, the research looks at the most significant trends that will impact companies in the short to medium term. As part of this year’s study, we have also identified a number of top-performing companies in order to identify how they are focusing their activities and investments differently compared to their peers.

High-performing companies are those organisations that exceeded their top 2017 business goal by a significant margin, and who have also significantly outperformed their competitors.  Key insights from the research include:

Companies continue to focus on the customer experience (CX), as well as the content required to facilitate this. Organisations committed to CX are shown to outperform their peers.

- Asked about the single most exciting opportunity for the year ahead, optimising customer experience (19%) again comes out on top, ahead of data-driven marketing that
focuses on the individual (16%) and creating compelling content for digital experiences (14%).
- Organisations with a ‘cross-team approach with the customer at the heart of all initiatives’ are nearly twice as likely to have exceeded their top 2017 business goal by a significant margin (20% vs. 11%).
- Just under two-thirds (62%) of companies agree they have ‘a cohesive plan, long-term view and executive support for the future of [their] customer’.
- The top strategic priority for organisations in 2018 is content and experience management. Almost half (45%) of companies surveyed rank this as one of their three most important priority areas for the year ahead, with a fifth (20%) stating that this is their primary focus.

We are entering a ‘design and creativity renaissance’, with top-performing companies recognising the importance of these capabilities to complement data and technology excellence.

- The survey has found that just under three-quarters (73%) of respondents say their companies are investing in design to differentiate their brands.
- Organisations describing themselves as ‘design-driven’ are 69% more likely than their peers to have exceeded their 2017 business goals by a significant margin (22% vs. 13%). - - Similarly, organisations where creativity is highly valued are 46% more likely to have exceeded their 2017 business goals by a significant margin (19% vs. 13%).
- Organisations that ‘have well-designed user journeys that facilitate clear communication and a seamless transaction’ are 57% more likely to have significantly surpassed their 2017 business goals (22% vs. 14%).

Investment in technology and related skills is paying dividends, with integrated platforms fast-becoming a prerequisite for success.

- A lack of integrated marketing technology reduces the chances of providing a seamless customer experience and can also be frustrating for marketers and other employees who want to go about their jobs without unnecessary restrictions in their ability to acquire, retain and delight customers.
- In terms of their tech setup, 43% of organisations report a fragmented approach with inconsistent integration between technologies. Top-performing companies are almost three times as likely as their mainstream peers to have invested in a highly-integrated, cloud-based technology stack (25% vs. 9%).
- Digital skills are vital for a range of marketing tools and platforms. Almost three-quarters (73%) of respondents agree that their companies are ‘combining digital marketing skills with technology’. Companies doing this are nearly twice as likely to have surpassed their 2017 business goals by a significant margin (20% vs. 11%), according to our analysis.

AI set to play a growing role in helping marketers to deliver more compelling real-time experiences.

- When asked about the themes and technologies they are most excited about over a three-year time frame, ‘delivering personalised experiences in real time’ is by far the most popular choice across all regions, with more than a third (36%) of company respondents, and 40% of their
agency counterparts, selecting this option.
- Top-performing companies are more than twice as likely as their peers to be using AI for marketing (28% vs. 12%). Only 15% of companies are already using AI, but a further 31% are planning to do so in the next 12 months. Looking only at respondents with annual revenues of more than £150m, the proportion of organisations using AI increases to 24%.
- Analysis of data is a key AI focus for businesses, with companies keen to create insight out of the vast quantities of often unstructured data being generated by customers’ activity. On-site personalisation is the second most-commonly cited use case for AI.'

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Website Design for Digital Marketing SEO

Websites are often viewed in simple functional terms and only for the IT or web team to tinker with, however this view is misguided and wrong.  Interesting article about how web design has progressed from online brochures into something more sophisticated:

‘A nostalgic journey through the evolution of web design. September 4, 2018 4.35pm AEST

The World Wide Web was invented almost 30 years ago by Tim Berners Lee to help people easily share information around the world. Over the following decades, it has changed significantly – both in terms of design and functionality, as well its deeper role in modern society.

Just as the architectural style of a building reflects the society from which it emerges, so the evolution of web design reflects the changing fashions, beliefs and technologies of the time.

Web design styles have changed with remarkable speed compared with their bricks and mortar cousins. The first website contained only text with hyperlinks explaining what the web was, how to use it, and basic set-up instructions. From those early days to the present, web design has taken a long and winding journey.’

Website Design for Digital Marketing and SEO (Image copyright Pexels)

Further, it is not just about design by an IT person nor appearance by a graphic designer but also digital or ICT, architecture and purpose, with the latter making the web and related central to organisational product or purpose, and visible presence.

This is exemplified by websites becoming both shopfronts and resource repositories which can be visible globally, often precluding a physical presence.  Functions of websites impacting design, include: digital marketing or SEO, social media junction, intranet, HR systems, training resources, e-commerce, finance or accounting including inventory, billing etc., media and communications.

Nowadays websites and digital need to be viewed as dynamic and living systems informed by internal and external stakeholders according to the SDLC systems or software development life cycle, for ongoing management and review of all organisational aspects.

For a related article on how to develop a website for digital marketing and SEO click through.

Education Theory Application to Higher Education

Cognitivism and Connectivism Learning Theory page as part of an EdX Instructional Design course.

Cognitivism is student centred learning via an existing knowledge base and building upon it according to learner preferences, how they organise memory, how information is linked, learning how to learn, problem-solving and the student learning journey is supported by clear instructions and information (Hanna, 2017).

Further, there is the Three-Stage Information Processing Model including Sensory Register to assess inputs, Short-Term Memory where input can be stored e.g. 20 seconds and then Long-Term Memory and Storage retrievable by linkages that have been developed (Mergel, 1998).

Adult Learning Theories in Higher Education (Image copyright Pexels)

Connectivism is like social learning through others or networks, identify patterns, knowledge based round networks and exemplified in complex learning e.g. round information and technology (Ibid.).

Both can be used for the same education and exemplars, by using both theories to support instructional design, student centred activity and learning, building upon knowledge and experience for inexact outcomes; as opposed to behavioural focus.

In the first case, cognitivism using a course e.g. ‘Introduction to Digital or e-Marketing for Small Business’,  focus upon one learning outcome, ‘ability to analyse (digital) marketing and communication’

Rather than present information or content activities which maybe new and/or overwhelming, assess the knowledge level before training, then drive instruction and achievement of learning objectives via learners and learner centred activity (but monitored an assessed closely).

Instructional Design for Adult Learners in ‘Introduction to Digital or e-Marketing for Small Business’:

Preview by using images to elicit key words, channels etc. related to conventional marketing and communication.

Presentation repeat preview to include digital also and elicit the elements.

Practice by learners listing both types of elements in a small business example marketing and communications; report back to class.

Production in pairs for their own business, assist each other, compare notes then present to each other/class.

Wrap-up Class discussion and/or milling activity to compare with other learners’ ‘production’ and feedback on key points, rules or issues.

Connectivism can be applied to the same course area and learning outcome, not just in the direct learning environment but post learning, i.e. back in the workplace and business environment.  Accordingly, if learners are mostly small business people, already responsible for marketing and communications and sharing a desire to improve application of digital in their business practice, they should be motivated for connectivism.

Within the formal learning, connectivism would fit cognitivism approach above, with symmetry in each phase, but especially with increase in learner interactivity with production and wrap up or review.  Connectivism can then also be followed up informally by learners remaining in communication with each other (e.g. WhatsApp or LinkedIn Group), industry sector networking opportunities and/or local chamber of commerce.

Andrew Smith Melbourne LinkedIn Profile

References:

Hanna, M. (2017) Learning Theory Matrix. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8d28/2833c35fb8b9ea74bf2c930cea22fb1e0fad.pdf (Accessed on: 16 November 2017).

Mergel, B. (1998) Instructional Design & Learning Theory.  Available at: http://etad.usask.ca/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm#Cognitivism(Accessed on: 17 November 2017).