SEO or Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing or SEO?

Interesting article by Amit Thakur via LinkedIn highlighting and questioning what’s the difference between digital marketing and SEO search engine optimisation; often not understood well in marketing while traditional media and strategies are preferred.

Digital Marketing versus SEO (Image copyright Pexels)

‘What is the difference between digital marketing and SEO?

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of your growth-oriented online marketing efforts for the business promotion. 

Digital channels such as Google search, social media, email, and their websites to connect with their current and prospective customers involved in Digital Marketing.

Why Digital Marketing?

We are living in the digital world, where most of the people like to use the internet from their computers, mobile and tablets for searching any information about any products and services. Being on the internet it helps our business, product, or service to perform for their right customer. Digital Marketing gives you the power to lets the customer find you.

Benefits of Digital Marketing:

• Being on the Internet you will be available for 24*7*365
• Digital Marketing Helps Generate Better Revenues
• You can easily Communicate with your customer at a real-time
• Best platform to reach the right customers
• You can easily track your customer
• No need to pay extra for any Advertisement
• Digital Marketing Is More Cost-Effective than Traditional Marketing

What is SEO?

SEO or search engine optimization is a technique for improving the ranking of web pages on SERP(Search Engine Result Pages).

SEO or search engine optimization is a way to get new customers and helps you to boost your business, services, products from the internet.’ (Thakur 2018).

Benefits of SEO

The benefits of SEO include constant long-term presence, organic results trusted more than paid digital, after significant front-end investment, informed by customers to attract new customers in their language, leveraging word of mouth, through curated consumer generated media or marketing content, from their regular and authentic feedback (adapted for use as content).

By grounding market research on customers whether focus groups, social media comments etc. any marketing strategy development or system can be cyclical (versus one off budget item and/or campaign), not unlike the systems or software development lifecycle which includes regular feedback for adaptation and improvement based on users.

It’s especially advantageous for sole operators or small medium enterprises lacking large budgets and access to expensive traditional media; they can compete with the physically larger competitors in the digital space using SEO.


Click through for related articles on digital marketing, digital or e-consumer behaviour, market research and marketing strategy.

Focus Group Feedback Coding

Focus Group Research Feedback - Qualitative Data Analysis – Grounded Theory & Coding

Potential respondents must have the ethics of research explained before any interview or feedback, not only verbally at start of an interview or related interaction, but inclusion on a briefing document explaining study and research, storage of data, along with ethics.

Focus Group Interview Feedback Analysis (Image copyright Pexels)

Focus Group Interviews

Focus interviews, individual or via a group, based on psychoanalysis, can be very adaptable, allow expression of body language, in addition to concept checking or informal communication which would be precluded by the written form.  However, there are disadvantages, interviews can be very time consuming to conduct, transcribe, code and analyse when using open questions to elicit perceptions, attitudes and experience of the research area, plus they can be subjective or prone to bias.  On the other hand, they are useful to explore same perceptions etc., then importantly, used to inform a valid survey or data collection instrument or further research (Bell, 2005).


Types of interview include structured e.g. answering survey face to face, semi-structured and unstructured, the latter allows good quality data to be offered.  The unstructured interview can offer an opportunity for an industry person to explain and elaborate on issues that have emerged organically, that would have otherwise remained unknown and ignored (Ibid.).

Focus Group Interview Feedback Respondents

The ‘Focus Respondents’ for this research study included two former international students now professionals with digital literacy, two international education marketing (and admissions) managers for large multinational education providers and two more senior ‘Focus Respondents’ who manage within international education, but without formal marketing background.


‘Focus Respondents’ were asked open questions based upon the literature and round the information search process with any critical issues, key words, processes or phenomenon to be expressed, not in long narrative for full transcription, but abbreviated for notes and action coding.


It was explained to focus respondents, to give them structure or context, that the general focus was decision making behaviour process, represented by a five-stage model:

Purchase Decision Making Model

Five Stage Purchase Decision Behaviour Model or Process (simplified)

• Recognition of Need
• Information Search
• Evaluation of Alternatives
• Purchase Decision
• Post Purchase Behaviour

 (Kotler & Keller, 2012).

From same focus interviews regarding information search or discovery process, the research elicited factors or latent variables, then quantified by survey to analyse for significance of these factors in ‘optimal marketing and communications’.  These factors and construct can then be used to develop an information seeking construct and a useful template for industry.


Next step is to deliver survey to a hopefully significant sample population to then ground any marketing strategy development.

Reference List:

Bell, J. (2005) Doing Your Research Project. (4th Ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2012) Marketing Management. (14^th Ed.) Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education – Prentice Hall.

International Students' Information Seeking Journey - Digital Marketing and Communications

How do international students’ information seeking behaviour relate to marketing and communications strategy in international education?

Abstract of dissertation submitted for the MBA programme

The Business School, University of Roehampton, U.K.

Using the inductive approach of qualitative research to explore and highlight key factors in student information seeking for purchase or future study decision-making, then to inform marketing communications strategy and related practice, in international education and business.

International Student Information Seeking Behaviour

(Image copyright Pexels)

The inductive approach or mixed research methods were used, both quantitative and qualitative, to explore international education marketing according to stakeholders, management and students; a process of triangulation.

The research uses a streamlined version of grounded research methods to elicit key factors from international education sector stakeholders, based upon a purchase decision-making continuum or cycle.  Following was development of a data collection instrument to quantify the factors highlighted according to dimensions or phases of education purchase objectives, information seeking, analysis and post purchase review.

The sample, although not statistically significant, was a culturally diverse cohort of online MBA students, able to offer insight into their attitudes, allowing triangulation with research and industry based literature, and key marketing stakeholder feedback.

A marketing and communications construct was developed, reflecting the process of purchase decision-making through phases with focus upon information seeking, word of mouth (WOM), new digital behaviours and how to approach in the workplace or industry.

A dynamic and ongoing strategy and system review is required according to how customers or students seek information.  This is through ongoing investigation or consulting process that mirrors similar cyclical processes including review or testing of marketing message and communication targeting.

The process developed can be applied to marketing and communications strategy or system development, with broader application to investigation and review in the workplace.  This allows empowerment and motivation of personnel, customers and stakeholders, through their input to ground the same strategies, systems or processes, for validity and reliability, increasing value.

For similar articles and blogs click through here to Academia profile of Andrew Smith.