DC516 Digital Marketing and Marketing Techniques

Introduction

Digital Marketing is a process of promotion of variety of products amongst local markets and in the public. This process covers a large area in terms of offline promotional techniques and methods. Under this report, Amazon.com’s digital marketing strategies will be discussed. Along with this, strategies developed by the Amazon to cope up with the customer’s insights, market trends and dealing with its primary competitors will also be discussed. Framework used to analyze components of RACE framework will be applied to gain the adequate finding in relevance to the Amazon’s digital marketing strategies. Amazon was found in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. His main concern was to serve the people with appropriate products at their doorstep. This idea was generated from reviewing the busy scheduled life cycle of an individual. This organization serves digitally and a wide range of products are available at reasonable rates. Jeff Bezos used digital marketing techniques for promotion of his website and the same techniques will be discussed under this report (Gómez?Baggethun, et. al., 2010).

Situational Analysis

For Amazon, marketplace would be e-commerce platform through which they sell variety of products to satisfy its customer’s needs. It is an online website under which products are segregated as per the customer’s, their requirements, etc. etc. Amazon’s marketing team adopted the technique of digital marketing to spread the awareness amongst the public. Some of the factors elements of marketplace are discussed below:

• Market Trends: It defines the current condition of the market in various terms and aspects. Financial aspect, technical aspects, etc. It also defines the market conditions and through this analysis, appropriate strategies are developed by the marketing team of Amazon Corporation. Market trends helps the organization to choose appropriate strategies to make its sustainability in the dynamic business environment and along with this, scope of invention also arises. Amazon has developed a number of strategies to cope up with the market trends. Requirement is the reason for innovation hence, unique demands of the market forces the organizations to innovate new things so that those demands could be fulfilled. Amazon has developed a motive of customer centric company and under this they deliver most adequate products to its customers (Gómez?Baggethun, et. al., 2010).
• Competitors:E-commerce business industry’s scope is increasing rapidly and with the effect of this, many corporations have come in the competition with Amazon in electronic field and in the other merchandise fields also. To avoid this situation, Amazon has built its unique image in the customer’s mind by delivering adequate qualitative products. Most important strategy adopted by the marketing team of the Amazon is to promote the products through digital marketing techniques. The most useful strategies which helped the organization to promote its website and variety of products are social media platform because today it is the most suitable and cheapest source of advertisement of products (Ritala, et. al., 2014).
• Customer Insights: It is the explanation of human behavior in terms of changing trends, market conditions, consumer’s tastes and preferences, etc. In other words, when a customer keeps consuming one type of product constantly, they get bored and wish to try another one, and this situation is included in consumer or customer insights. Customers have a great impact over the e-commerce industries. Organizations need to develop their marketing strategies and other policies in relevance with the consumer’s insights to maintain their reliability in the business environment. Along with this, customer insights also forces the organizations to invent new techniques or develop new products using unique strategies to enhance the demand of their products which will helps the organization to grow rapidly in the dynamic business environment (Greenberg, 2010).

Digital marketing strategy

It is the process through which any organization could reach to its customers for promotion of their new products’ launch or for spreading information regarding new offers launched by them, etc. Recently this process is much demanded across the globe in business industries due to its effective and efficient results (Charlesworth, 2014). E-commerce industry has used this technique to promote their websites and products very effectively as promotion and advertisement through digital sources are also a part of the e-commerce industry. Apart from this benefit, it also helps the organization to cover the large area in relevance to the offline mode of promotion and advertisement. RACE framework is the most important framework used in the digital marketing strategy and under this framework; elements are reach to the customers, act as per the strategies used, convert the segmented public into leads so that productivity could be extracted from those leads and the last one is engage which describes to maintain the targeted audience.

Under this element of RACE framework, organization promoting their business and products through digital marketing approach their customers by giving them offers, explaining about their specialties, etc. Amazon uses this technique rapidly and they have gained most of the popularity by using digital marketing only (Harris, 2010). There are various search engines available in the digital marketing through which customers’ needs to watch advertisement of certain products forcefully. For instance, while surfing on YouTube which is a well-known social media’s platform on which videos are uploaded by various artists, etc. While watching any video on YouTube, customers’ needs to watch advertisements unwillingly and this happens because those companies pay YouTube to show their advertisements in between the videos and this happens mostly with the trending videos (Betancourt, et. al., 2016). Strategies used by Amazon to attract the customers towards are the adequate and it is recommended that these should be included in their marketing policies for a long run.

This is included in human behavior that watching or getting information regarding any product willingly or unwillingly continuously, an image of that certain thing stores in the mind. And then customer feels to utilize that particular product to obtain the results. This kind of advertisement constitutes huge costs and this method is used rapidly by Amazon and by other e-commerce business enterprises. Apart from this there are two more sources through Amazon approach its customers, i.e. sending notifications to the customers and by delivering them the adequate information in relevance to the shopping online, features and benefits provided by Amazon to their customers, etc. When customer visits the website of the Amazon, they are asked to provide some basic information like e-mail id, their contact numbers, etc. Notifications are sent on the information provided by them to give them the information regarding the offers on that particular product, features of that product, etc. and this is included in the owned and earned media through which they approach to the customers (Nash, 2013). 

Under this step of the RACE framework, Amazon uses the techniques of spreading information regarding the products they viewed and as per their past shopping experience; appropriate offers and codes are sent to them on their provided information like email-id, mobile number, etc. to attract them to shop from them. In other words, appropriate techniques are adopted to interact with its previous customers as well as adequate interactive methods are also adopted to build the trust level amongst the public. Launching unique products, giving exciting offers to the new users, providing time to time sale on different products, making available almost all kinds of branded and unbranded products, etc. are included in the Amazon’s RACE framework analysis. Recently Amazon has started various unique services like kindle, prime videos, prime membership, etc. These are some of the products launched by Amazon to attract more number of customers and this has been introduced in many parts of the globe. In kindle, they provide a wide range of books online. This feature attracted the book lovers because it is not possible to purchase each and every book for anyone because it consumes huge investment as well as a large area of space also requires for keeping those books. Whereas Amazon’s kindle service enables the customers to read the books directly on their devices by using data connection and most of the books are available at free of cost while some are available at very cheap rates. This helps the Amazon to make a separate place in the customer’s mind and whenever they plans for shopping online, firstly they surf Amazon which increases the number of customers (Gooden & Dantley, 2012).

Whereas Amazon prime video helps the customers to watch various videos and movies online by paying a small amount in return, these actions helps the Amazon to gain more number of customers.

These are some of the actions taken by Amazon’s marketing team to reach towards its customers to build an effective image of the corporation. The features included by the Amazon to attract new customers are some of the effective and unique techniques and it is recommended that apart from these actions, no such extra efforts are required.

This step of digital marketing describes that convert the leads generated with the help of first and second step into sales so that organization could earn some returns in relevance to their spending. Conversion of leads into an effective sale requires appropriate efforts from the marketing team. This is an important part of digital marketing team which develops the effective sales for the organization. The best and effective way to convert the leads into sales is through promotional campaigns and Amazon’s promotional campaigns include discounts and offers through other websites’ and by sending notification to the previous customers to attract the customers towards the offers given by them (Graham, et. al., 2011).

Most appropriate method to convert the leads into sales is providing attractive offers to the customers. For instance, Amazon uses the technique of giving huge discounts on the products offered by them to boost the sales and with these effect customers saves their money. Along with offers and discount coupons, the crucial part in the online shopping is providing support to the customer after sales. When a customer buys certain product from a retail shop, they have the choice to replace it until the product is not used and in fresh condition and they have a valid reason to replace that product. But in the online shopping websites like Amazon, they work with a motive of customer centric and this explains that in all the circumstances, customers will be treated as priority and their issues will be resolved by providing those refunds, returns and exchange window for a certain period of time (Glenn, 2015).

These are some of the measures used by the Amazon to convert their leads generated through digital marketing process into sales (Alegría, et. al., 2011).

The more efforts will be imposed in relevance to the marketing of a product or a business, the more chances of growth will be raised. After reviewing the advice of experts to Amazon, the methods and apart from these, organization could also use better coordination with customers and providing adequate solution to customer’s issues, etc. could help the organization to exceed more sales.

Engage process of RACE framework defines the measures used by the organization to retain their customers for future sales. As customer centric company, Amazon provides a number of benefits to its customers which forces them to be with the organization for long run. Under this process, strategies adopted by the organization also constitute the growth strategies of the organization which helps them to retain its audience for a long duration (Jain, et. al., 2011).

Every organization set up its business with a view of maintaining a sufficient number of customers and along with a number of customers, sustaining in the dynamic business environment for a long run. To make this vision into reality, Amazon uses various techniques which are also recommended as the best measures.

Amazon uses following strategies to retain its customers:

• They help its customers with adequate resolution to their issues in relevance to the products;
• Time to time they conduct sale period for a certain time under which huge discounts are offered on variety of products to attract the customers;
• Notifications are sent to the customers for sale periods and for discount sessions;
• Delivering fresh quality products as well as they also offer its customers to get their orders on priori basis through fast delivery options;
• Customer services provided by the Amazon to serve its customers are most appropriate services in relevance to other corporations; (Talwar, 2010).

Conclusion

This report concludes the information regarding the digital marketing strategies used by the Amazon. With this effect, marketplace of Amazon was also covered under this report. The factors manipulated by the organization to retain its customers for long run and the strategies adopted by the organization i.e. earned media, owned media and the paid media to enhance the leads for sales. Along with this they also send personal notifications to its customers to gain the acknowledgement. Implication of RACE framework helps the Amazon to analyze its digital marketing strategies was also discussed in this report.

References

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