Abstract
The main purpose of this chapter is to examine the digital marketing tools used by businesses in the light of developments in corporate communication and interaction with consumers. For this purpose, a literature review has been made by considering the most used digital marketing tools. Firstly, the transition from traditional communication tools to digital tools is discussed with the stages from Web 1.0 to Web 5.0 in the development of the internet. The 7S concept that businesses have to use to realize digital marketing applications is mentioned. Then, the concepts of search engine marketing, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, display advertising, online public relation, social media marketing, and chatbots are explained. It is mentioned how businesses use these marketing practices, positive and negative factors related to each application were examined, and examples from businesses were given.
TopIntroduction
The rapid development of technology day by day has enabled corporation to change their relationships and communications with consumers. For this reason, there have been great differences in the functioning of the corporate lives of the businesses. With these differences, corporations started to use technology in their corporate communications and adopted new media channels by using digital tools instead of traditional marketing activities. The formation of a new media and sector with digital marketing has completely changed the means of enterprises to introduce themselves to the target audience, to create corporate communication and to announce their brands.
Keeping up with the digital age has become one of the most important elements for them to survive their corporate assets and communicate effectively with consumers. Therefore, they faced a less static and more dynamic communication process. In this dynamic process, digital marketing channels have been the biggest supporter of businesses in corporate communication and interaction with consumers in order to gain competitive advantage. Announcement of a product and a brand to the target audience with promotional tools in traditional marketing activities such as advertising, public relations, personal sales, sales development, has started to differentiate with digitalization, and these promotion tools used in traditional marketing have started to be revised with digital methods. In order to understand these changes and to use them effectively and efficiently, it is necessary to analyze and examine the transition from traditional to digital for both corporate communication and interaction with consumers. Because success in digitalization depends on bringing traditional approaches together with the internet in order to catch the competition, which makes its weight felt day by day.
Porter (2001, p:3) expresses this situation as follows:
The key question is not whether to deploy Internet technology—companies have no choice if they want to stay competitive—but how to deploy it. Here, there is reason for optimism. Internet technology provides better opportunities for companies to establish distinctive strategic positionings than did previous generations of information technology. Gaining such a competitive advantage does not require a radically new approach to business. It requires building on the proven principles of effective strategy. The Internet per se will rarely be a competitive advantage. Many of the companies that succeed will be ones that use the Internet as a complement to traditional ways of competing, not those that set their Internet initiatives apart from their established operations. That is particularly good news for established companies, which are often in the best position to meld Internet and traditional approaches in ways that buttress existing advantages. But dot-coms can also be winners—if they understand the trade-offs between Internet and traditional approaches and can fashion truly distinctive strategies. Far from making strategy less important, as some have argued, the Internet actually makes strategy more essential than ever.
In the light of the above information, firstly, the relationship between digital marketing and corporate communication will be discussed, and the strategies necessary for businesses to adapt to digital marketing will be mentioned. Then, the development of the internet, which should be examined for the transition to digital marketing, will be examined from Web 1.0 to Web 5.0. Finally, digital marketing tools most used by businesses such as search engine marketing, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, display advertising, online public relation, social media marketing and chatbots will be handled. While discussing these digital marketing tools, their advantages and disadvantages will be examined, and suggestions will be made on how businesses can overcome disadvantages. In addition, it will examine how to use the tools of the digital marketing business by giving examples from Turkey and the world.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Display Advertising: Display advertising, which differs from traditional advertisements due to its measurability and sustainability, is advertisements that do not tire the consumer, do not obstruct the general appearance of content such as websites, social networks or blogs, target a specific audience and are generally created for marketing, sales and communication purposes.
New Media: Unlike traditional media channels, it refers to the media tools that corporations use to communicate with their target audience using internet technologies.
E-Mail Marketing: E-mail marketing, which develops with Web 2.0, is a new generation marketing method that is used as a direct marketing tool to deliver the marketing messages of electronic mail to a certain audience and constitutes a sub-category of digital marketing.
Online Public Relations: Online public relations are the communication method that emerges as a result of the transfer of traditional public relations to digital environments, using tools such as blogs, social media, online press releases, and search engine optimization.
Search Engine Marketing: It is one of the digital marketing methods that increase the awareness and visibility of the website with the ads they give to the search engines by the businesses that aim to appear in the top positions in the search engines.
Social Media Marketing: Social Media marketing is all marketing strategies made on social media platforms where the promotion, advertisement, and brand awareness of a product or service are carried out on social media networks.
Digital Marketing: It refers to the preparation and presentation of all marketing activities that businesses carry out, such as communicating with consumers, conveying messages to them, informing and persuading them.
Search Engine Optimization: SEO is the improvement and optimization processes carried out with these improvements in order to be found at all times, providing faster and easier scanning for the results of the websites tried to be found by people in search engines.