Chapter 1: Strategy and Context

Marketing

The creation and satisfaction of demand for your product, service, or ideas

Market share

The percentage or proportion of the total available market or market segment that is being serviced by a company

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The practice of optimizing a website to rank higher on the search engine results pages for relevant search items. SEO involves creating relevant, fresh and user-friendly content that search engines index and serve when people enter a search term that is relevant to your product or service.

Tactic

A specific action or method that contributes to achieving a goal.

SMART objectives

-Specific -Measurable -Attainable -Relevant -Time Bound

Four pillars for situational analysis

1. The environment 2. The business 3. The customers 4. The competitors

Brand

A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The usual expression of a brand is its trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller

Metric

A unity of measurement

Pay per click (PPC)

Advertising where the advertiser pays only for each click on their advert, not for the opportunity for it to be seen or displayed

Short Message Service (SMS)

Electronic messages sent on a cellular network.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Metrics that are used to indicate whether tactics are performing well and meeting your objectives

Four P's

Product, Price, Place, Promotion

Tactics

Specific tools or approaches you will use to meet your objectives

Return on investment (ROI)

The ratio of cost to profit

Search advertising

In pay-per click or search advertising, the advertiser pays only when someone clicks on their ad. The ads appear on search engine results pages.

Porter's Five Forces

Model developed by strategy expert Michael Porter that identifies five competitive forces that influence planning strategies.

Online advertising

Online advertising covers advertising in all areas of the Internet - ads in emails, ads on social networks and mobile devices, and display ads on normal websites.

Affiliated marketing outcome

Sales and branding. Online affiliate marketing is widely used to promote eCommerce websites, with the referrers being rewarded for every visitor, subscriber or customer provided through their efforts. It is a useful tactic for brand building and acquisition.

Search advertising outcome

Sales, Customer retention, and acquistion. The beauty of search advertising is that it is keyword based. This means an ad will come up in response to the search terms entered by the consumer. It therefore plays a role in sales, acquisition and retention. It allows the advertiser to reach people already in the buying cycle or are expressing interest in what they have to offer.

Social media

Social media is media in the form of text, visuals and audio, that can be shared online. It has changed the face of marketing by allowing collaboration and connection in a way that no other channel has been able to offer.

Targets

Specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach within a specific time period

SWOT analysis

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats

Marketing

The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large

Strategy

The most advantageous direction for an organization to take over a defined period of time. It outlines which tactics and means should be used to execute this direction.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

The practice that aims to improve a website's ranking for specific keywords in the search engines

Digital

A participatory layer of all media that allows users to self-select their own experiences, and affords marketers the ability to bridge media, gain feedback, iterate their message, and collect relationships

Brand

A reason to choose one product or service over another

Cluetrain Manifesto

A set of 95 theses organized as a call to action (CTA) for businesses operating within a newly connected marketplace, published in 1999. While some of the book's claims have failed to materialize, it was an early source of guidelines for social media and obtained a cult-like following.

Strategy

A sett of ideas that outlines how a product or brand will be positioned and achieve its objectives. This guides decisions on how to create, distribute, promote and price the product or service.

Marketing

The science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential.

Affiliated marketing

Affiliate marketing is a system of reward whereby referrers are given a 'finder's fee' for every referral they give.

Online advertising outcome

Branding and acquisition. The main objective of online advertising is to raise brand awareness online. It can be more interactive and therefore less disruptive than traditional or static online advertising, as users can choose to engage with the ad or not. Online advertising can be targeted to physical locations, subject areas, past user behaviours, and much more.

Video marketing outcome

Branding, customer retention, and value creation. Since it is so interactive and engaging, video marketing is excellent for capturing and retaining customer attention. Done correctly, it provides tangible value - in the form of information, entertainment or inspiration - and boosts a brand's image in the eyes of the public.

Social media outcome

Branding, value creation, and participation. From a strategic perspective, social media, is useful for brand building, raising awareness of the brand and its story, and encouraging the customer to become involved with the brand. The shareable and accessible nature of social media platforms allows brands to communicate and engage directly with their customers. Social media also offers brands a way to interact with their customers, instead of just broadcasting to them.

SEO Outcome

Customer retention and acquisition. SEO has a key role to play in acquisition, as it ensures your organization's offering will appear in the search results, allowing you to reach potential customers. A site that is optimized for search engines is also a site that is clear, relevant and well designed. These elements ensure a great user experience, meaning that SEO also plays a role in retention.

Email marketing outcome

Customer retention and value creation. Email marketing is a tool for building relationships with potential and existing customers through valuable content and promotional messages. It should maximise the retention and value of these customers, ultimately leading to greater profitability for the organisation a whole. A targeted, segmented email database means that a brand can direct messages at certain sectors of their customer base in order to achieve the best result.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that delivers commercial and content-based messages to an audience. It is extremely cost effective, highly targeted, customisable on a mass scale and completely measurable - all of which make it one of the most powerful digital marketing tactics.

Video marketing

Video marketing involves creating video content. This can be wither outright video advertising, or can be valuable, useful, content marketing.