Digital Marketing and Advertising of Products
Question 1
Choose a product or service (it can be anything from running shoes, a garden tool, cosmetic, car, etc.).
Identify 3 companies that sell your selected product/service and “digitally explore” each as it relates to your selected product/service. By digitally explore, you can look at things such as:
- Their web site
- Any social media channel
- Email (if you are on their subscription list or don’t mind signing up—but this is not required)
- Advertisements (they will show up on your SERP and may even show up on other web sites if you visit their site and go somewhere else—this is retargeting).
- Any other place you can find such as a blog that references them or if they are advertised on Amazon, or another web site.
Compare and contrast between the 3 companies.
- What kinds of promotions are each company doing for the product/service?
- What do you observe that one or more of the companies are doing well (does it seem to have impact)?
- What do you observe that one or more of the companies are doing poorly?
- Overall, from a digital promotion effort, which company seems to be taking the lead?
Please include the following in your response:
- Name of the product/service
- Name of the three companies.
- Your comparison of their efforts (3-4 paragraphs are fine).
Question 2
Many organizations have a marketing department and a public relations or communications department. Both of these departments need to use social media. Which department do you think should control the social media platforms for an organization? It doesn’t mean the other department cannot use the platforms at all; however, someone has to be in charge. Briefly describe your recommendation and why.
Type your response below (one to two short paragraphs will be sufficient).
Question 3
If a friend or family member told you they wanted your thoughts on them becoming a professional influencer, what would your advice be?
- Would you encourage or discourage them becoming an influencer? What’s the rationale for your answer?
- What recommendations would you make for how they would get started?
- What types of attributes would you tell them they need to have to be a successful influencer?
Type your response below (one to two short paragraphs will be sufficient).
Question 4
Choose a non-profit organization.
Identify and describe 3-5 digital promotional activities/items that you would recommend to help the organization solicit a donation. Some or all of your promotional activities can work together as they would in a campaign, or they can be independent. Examples of a digital promotional activity could be, but are not limited to:
- An email
- Display ad or some other type of advertisement
- Obtaining an influencer (you would describe who, what they could do and why they are good for the organization)
- Some type of digital content (see the weekly guide and your other materials for types of content). You would describe the content, what it conveys and where (channels) it would be distributed.
- There are no limits; think about it and don’t be afraid to throw your ideas out there.
For each promotional activity, I don’t expect you to actually design something, but I do expect you to provide a thorough description (the kind of messaging, the content type, the intent/purpose, who the audience is, why you think it would work, etc.).