In the last year, to what degree have you utilised the following digital marketing options? And to what degree have you achieved measurable business impact with these options in the same period?
On a scale from 0-4, please specify the answer by selecting from the drop-down menu based on the following logic:

Why is this question important?

• This question assesses and compares your firm’s utilisation and business impact of selected digital marketing initiatives with competitors and peers.
• It is essential for firms to capture the consumer’s attention by managing the complex customer relationships across a variety of channels, initiate and respond to dynamic customer interactions and extract value from relevant data to make better decisions faster.

How to answer this question?

Important terminology

• Digital marketing denotes the process of promoting a firm’s offerings (products, services or business models) using digital technologies and differs from traditional marketing approaches in that it involves the use of channels and methods that enable firms to analyze and quickly understand what is working and what is not – typically in real time. Media that might be used as part of digital marketing include promotional efforts made via the internet, social media, mobile phones (e.g. SMS, MMS, apps, instant messaging), electronic billboards, digital television radio channels and any other form of digital media.
• E-Mail and newsletter marketing occurs when a firm sends a commercial message, typically to a group of people, by the use of electronic e-mail, for instance, through advertisements, requests for business and direct sales invitations.
• Social media marketing refers to a firm’s use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, tumblr, Instagram, reddit, VK, Flickr, Vine, Meetup, ASKfm, etc. to promote its offerings and spread its catchy marketing messages.
• Affiliate marketing denotes performance-based marketing in which a firm (merchant) pays a commission fee to its sales partners (affiliates) for every “click”, “lead” or “sale” they generate for the firm using the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. Typically, affiliates are supported by the merchant with advertising material.
• Search engine marketing is a type of internet marketing and includes both search engine advertising and optimisation. Search engine advertising (e.g. Google AdWords, Google AdSense) denotes the method of posting online advertisements in the form of text or images on search engine results pages. Search engine optimisation (e.g. onsite and offsite optimisation) denotes all measures aimed at increasing the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search result pages of a search engine such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
• Own (mobile) app marketing denotes any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device application.

Technical guidance

• Please estimate the extent to which your firm uses the aforementioned digital marketing options.
• Furthermore, please indicate the business impact for the respective marketing initiatives in the last year. Business impact may have various facets such as an increase in revenue, a higher number of customer requests for products or an extension of your firm’s access to customers.