Digital Marketing Involving Areas

Question: Describe about An analysis of the different areas of application of digital marketing for the chosen organisation. This should include areas like promotion, distribution, service provision, new product development and so on !!!the organisation selected is NIKE !!! Answer: Introduction Nike runs several different forms of digital marketing involving areas such as social networking, television advertisement and paid online advertisements to reach its wide customer base. This customer base spans across 6 continents and the company utilise up to 44,000 employees worldwide to conduct their operations.[1] Their use of professional athletes is particularly effective as it provides prominent role models that consumers idolise, therefore solidifying Nike products are a top-tier sports ware brand. They have a variety of successful social media campaigns promoting their products, one of which is the highly successful Find your Greatness campaign which collected over five million views, nine thousand likes and one thousand comments.[2] This advertisement reached a huge global audience which is an incredible form of advertisement as the product reaches a large proportion of its target audience due to the filter systems created for ads on social platforms. This provides their p roducts with a high effectiveness in their advertisement as adverts reach primarily the audience that they would appeal to. This is further reinforced in the distribution figures of Nike, which show that their direct sales provide a higher margin than sales to wholesalers. This means that the direct marketing campaigns that Nike employ are highly successful as they sell more units themselves, than through wholesale companies [3] . The present report analyses the different areas of application of digital marketing on Nike. Analysis of the different areas of application of digital marketing on Nike Nikes research and development department is also hugely successful as they develop new products in their RD department, but then test them through a variety of means, the primary being using groups of sports personalities and journalists to test their products in a controlled setting, this actually provides them with a basis for prototype marketing as commonly their shoes receive a large amount of attention before they are even released. [4] This is incredibly useful as in the necessary process of testing their new products, they are also reducing the costs of their final marketing campaign for their products which is a solid business strategy. They then make their services apparent to their customer base by advertising their products with local sports stars to increase the relatability of their advertisement for the consumer, subsequently increasing the likelihood of adverts being successful and their campaign being more cost effective. An example of this would be their use of loca l star Marco Bresciano in Australia to provide a relevant focus of their advertisement to the Australian public. [5] The end goal of Nike is to make sure that people buy their products and not from other brands. For accomplishing the goal, the company has made a good choice to diverge from the traditional advertising and emphasize on digital marketing. The brand has taken up an appropriate step in that big investment has been made in social media, that includes Facebook and Twitter and Nike+, the companys own social network. The demand is that by owing the data and providing services to the customers, there is a desirable increase in the brand loyalty. Livestrong campaign is a good example of how the company uses mobile to involve consumers in marketing campaigns. Nike had the interactive campaign Fuel Your Team using the Nike+ social platform having more than six million members[6]. Nikes digital media approaches have been determined by changes in the means consumers can interact with the brands. There is the underlying realization that digital technologies have changed internal processes in companies apart from consumer-facing processes. For accompanying the shift towards rise of digital media, the brand has built multiple social sites and launched a presence in social platform dominating specific geographies. Nike has strengthened their brand over Instagram as using arty videos and carefully shot photographs is benefitting the brand image. Nike has branched into many departments as it has witnessed much growth. The aspect where Nike excels in Twitter is that their interaction with the followers is strong and it provides an effective platform to get advice and responses from the consumers that make them feel special. Nike has the longest and largest standing following on Facebook. It is the purposeful utilization of social media where community build up is poss ible among the consumers. Such community is the forum for discussing new ideas and opinions on how to bring advancements in the brand image. The venture division Digital Sport is a thought process from global strategy comprehending requirements of digital strategy. Getting close to consumers data means Nike holds promise for being one of the worlds biggest sports companies. It has the foundation for getting the best answers to the opportunities for engaging with the consumers and getting feedback from their products. The bold move implies that Nike can follow close the customers and the users and forge a long-term association and strong relation[7]. Nike has understood that the purchase of a product from the company is not the end of marketing cycle. It is rather the beginning of the opportunity to offer a varied variety of serves and products tailored for individual needs. What Nike is executing is really the way famous brands must do for marketing themselves to the consumers in the present era of high competitive market. Digital marketing is being used to answer questions of the consumers, raise awareness and allow consumers to share the results. Nike has achieved a large amount of brand exposure from the excellent digital marketing, especially through social media[8]. However there have been several issues with their marketing campaigns such as; A mismatch between product offering and customer needs, apparent with their Nike Free Run mens running shoes as they were more comfortable when walking than running. This mismatch could reduce their marketing success as shoes could become known as ineffective at their role and therefore their unit sales would drop as consumer confidence would be reduced in the produce. Another issue which could cause Nike the same problem is that their product quality on Nike Air shoes was reported to be low, further reducing consumer confidence due to this being a large safety concern. Finally there has been an issue of the Nike website not entertaining a customers query, since the point of service is not a Nike store but a Wal-Mart. This would cause a loss of sales as retailers that are not invested in Nike products would not have employees possess the required knowledge to advise customers on which shoes would best suit their needs and therefore some consumers may be put off by this and seek other competetors products that they can collect more information on before they make their purchase. This is damaging to the company as it would cause a loss of sales due to its outsourcing of sales and the lower number of own branded shops which could provide consumers with more targeted information, making their previous marketing campaigns more effective as units would subsequently actually be sold. [2] Conclusion In conclusion the social media marketing campaigns of Nike are highly effective in reaching their target audiences, however improvements need to be made in the testing of new products to ensure marketing can surround the strengths of the product and the product can meet standard, furtherly their points of sale need to be improved to ensure that products that have been successfully advertised can then be sold to the consumers. Bibliography 1 - https://www.nikebiz.com/crreport/content/workers-and-factories/3-11-0-interactive-map.php?cat=map 2 - https://www.slideshare.net/ojasvipat/final-digital-marketing-at-nike 3 - https://marketrealist.com/2014/12/nikes-distribution-channels-products-reach-customers/ 4 - https://www.afrbiz.com.au/case-studies/nike-developing-nike-free/Page-4.html 5 - https://www.afrbiz.com.au/case-studies/nike-developing-nike-free/Page-6.html 6 - https://www.intelligenthq.com/social-media-business/nike-takes-digital-data-and-social-media-marketing-seriously/ 7 - https://digitalfireflymarketing.com/how-nike-killing-it-social-media-marketing 8 - https://linkhumans.com/case-study/nike