Some digital marketing solutions for appota joint stock company = Một vài giải pháp Digital Marketing cho Công ty CP Appota

In order to do that, the thesis focuses on reviewing and summarizing the theory of marketing and digital marketing with major tools; applying the reviewed literature to analyze Appota si

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

TRAN VINH QUANG

SOME DIGITAL MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR APPOTA

JOINT STOCK COMPANY

Major: Business Administration

Code: 60 34 05

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS

Supervisors: Dr Tran Doan Kim

Hanoi - 2012

TABLES OF CONTENTS

AKNOWLEGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

TÓM TẮT iv

TABLES OF CONTENTS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES x

ABBREVIATIONS xi

INTRODUCTION 1

1 CHAPTER 1 - LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Overview of marketing 4

1.1.1 Marketing in general 4

1.1.2 Marketing management 4

1.1.3 Shift in marketing management 6

1.2 Digital Marketing 7

1.2.1 Definition 7

1.2.2 The advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing 8

1.2.3 The factors that influence in Digital marketing 10

1.3 Majors marketing tools in digital marketing 12

1.3.1 Email marketing 12

1.3.2 Online advertising 15

1.3.3 Affiliate marketing 18

1.3.4 Viral marketing 20

1.3.5 Social media marketing 22

1.3.6 Search engine marketing 26

1.3.7 Mobile marketing 29

2 CHAPTER 2 - ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL MARKETING SITUATION OF APPOTA JSC 34

2.1 APPOTA‟s introduction 34

2.1.1 General information 34

2.1.2 Products and services 37

2.1.3 Customers 38

2.2 Digital marketing macro-environment analysis 40

2.2.1 Legal – political environment 41

2.2.2 Economics environment 42

2.2.3 Social – cultural environment 42

2.2.4 Technological environment 43

2.3 APPOTA‟s Digital Marketing situation analysis 49

2.3.1 Company factors influencing marketing activities 49

2.3.2 Market factors and trends 50

2.3.3 Future competitors and Appota analysis 501

2.3.4 Current major marketing tools 514

2.4 Evalution of Appota‟s digital marketing 60

2.4.1 Pros 60

2.4.2 Cons 62

3 CHAPTER 3 – SOME DIGITAL MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR APPOTA JSC 63 3.1 Recommended in major digital marketing tools 63

3.1.1 Online advertising 63

3.1.2 Social media marketing 63

3.1.3 Viral marketing 65

3.1.4 Mobile marketing 66

3.1.5 Market research 67

3.1.6 Management process 67

3.2 Action plan 68

3.2.1 Action plan for each step 68

3.2.2 Budget and other resources 69

3.2.3 Schedule 70

3.2.4 Control and Evaluation 70

3.3 Other suggestions for company 70

3.3.1 Differentiation-Focus to market segment 70

3.3.2 Focus in product‟ development and innovation 71

3.3.3 More suggestions to improve 72

4 CONCLUSION 77

REFERENCE 79

APPENDIX 1 SAMPLES OF WEEKLY CONTENTS PROVIDED TO APPOTA USERS 80

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

FIGURE 1-1: CONTEX OF DIGITAL MARKETING 10

FIGURE 1-2: THE SONG‟S TREND IN GOOGLE TREND 21

FIGURE 1-3: THE MODEL OF SOCIAL MEDIA 23

FIGURE 1-4: THE MODEL OF WEB 2.0 24

FIGURE 1-5: RELATED WORD IN SEARCHING 27

FIGURE 2-1: APPOTA‟S MAJOR MILESTONE: 35

FIGURE 2-2: APPOTA‟S BUSINESS MODEL 36

FIGURE 2-3: VIETNAM SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEM SHARE 38

FIGURE 2-4: APPOTA‟S USERS BY MOBILE PHONE OPERATING SYSTEM 39

FIGURE 2-5: APPOTA‟S TOP & BIGGEST APPLICATION DEVELOPERS AND CONTENT PROVIDERS 40

FIGURE 2-6: IT INDUSTRY - REVENUES AND GROWTH RATE 42

FIGURE 2-7: INTERNET USERS - NUMBERS AND GROWTH RATE 45

TABLE 1-1: PROS AND CONS OF ONLINE ADVERTISING 17

TABLE 1-2: COMPARING BETWEEN TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA 22

TABLE 1-3: SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING – SEO & PPC‟ PROS AND CONS 28

TABLE 1-4: MOBILE PHONE FEATURES AND IMPLICATION FOR MARKETERS 30

TABLE 2-1: NUMBER OF TELECOM, INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS 47

ABBREVIATIONS

2G 2nd Generation Mobile System (usually GSM)

3G 3rd Generation Mobile System (usually UMTS/WCDMA)

SME Small and Medium Enterprise

ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

MBA Master of Business Administration

LAN Local Area Network

R&D Research and Development

ROI Return on Investment

SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

SMS Short Messaging Service

IOS Apple mobile operating system

Android Google mobile operating system

FI Founder Institute

Mobile website A website that programed to compatible with mobile device ARPU Average Revenue Per User

INTRODUCTION

1 The thesis title

Some Digital Marketing Solutions for APPOTA Joint Stock Company

2 Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to suggest some marketing solutions with action plans to be used in a year to continue growth of Appota with existing products

In order to do that, the thesis focuses on reviewing and summarizing the theory

of marketing and digital marketing with major tools; applying the reviewed literature to analyze Appota situation now; and propose some solutions to enhance the digital marketing in Appota

3 The thesis necessity

Appota is a SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) in the information and communication technology founded in Dec, 2011 Within a year of start-up, it has achieved a significant growth in terms of both revenues and headcount.The company currently has employed more than 60 headcount who obtain many years

of experience in mobile content Appota has become a premier partner to many big companies in the same industry and a leading-edge smartphone content provider in Vietnam With the market share of more than 60% of smartphone users including iOS and Android mobile users, Appota is one of the most disruptive start-up in Vietnam ICT industry The company intends to increase its market share to be the dominance and keep the impressive growth to extend business to South East Asia with the target of coverage over 20 million smartphone users

Being one of the co-founders of the company and take responsible for all sales

& marketing activities, I have been working with both Sales& Marketing team to gain market share, attract customer, monetized products and services, build customer database, keep strong relationship with partners We have tried a lot of new marketing strategies or plans to find the best approach for the company Based

on the research in marketing activities and with an insight of company situation, my

finding in this thesis is to address the digital marketing with specific solutions as a strong tool for the company to keep the growth

4 Scope of research

APPOTA follows a new model in Vietnam with no competitors currently, moreover it has only one year of operation Therefore, instead of implementing industry analysis (including competitors) and SWOT analysis (that provides understanding about Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) the thesis focuses on suggesting some practical solutions for the company

This thesis offers an idea for the company on how they could apply the marketing solution, especially eMarketing to keep the growth of market share and growth of customer base in the target segment

5 Research questions

1 Which theories can be applied in Digital Marketing at Appota?

2 What current digital marketing practice at Appota?

3 How to improve Digital Marketing and other suggestion to Appota?

6 Methodology and Limitations of Study

The thesis based on a qualitative research and a case study method for analytical purpose to suggest or explain why or how something is happening

Appota‟s specific data collection was carried out by interviews In the interviews, Appota‟s representatives like CEO (Chief Executive Officer), CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) and Product Director provided very valuable ideas and information on the subject.Besides, author‟s own observations and experiences were also used in data collection and analysis Secondary data has been computed by research of documents, annual/quarterly reports of Appota

7 Significance

By reviewing the theory of digital marketing, this research benefits Appota in proposing marketing tools to increase the market share and improve the revenues which contributes to the company‟s development

8 Expectation

Digital marketing is being well applied in many companies around the world so the same methodology can be applied in the scenario of other companies in the same industry with some adjustments

9 Follow-up

Further study will be carried on upon the result of this thesis in applying some digital marketing solutions for the company Other way of study will be analyzing the impact of the competition on the company and steps toavoidor come over unexpected impacts

1 CHAPTER 1 - LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Overview of marketing

1.1.1 Marketing in general

Marketing can be found everywhere as people nowadays are bombarded with television commercials, direct-mail offers and sales calls Simplified, marketing is only a two-way process, even though four stages can be recognized which are designing, developing, delivering and determining value1 Baines stresses that a two-way process includes customer and marketing organization The four stages are there to ensure that the whole process will be successful Customer is the one who has the power to make the final decision and has a strong input Additionally, marketers must specify how to satisfy customers‟ needs

In Vietnam, perspective to marketing is very different They emphasize the importance of market segmentation and positioning instead of other features As can

be seen, marketing is a wide and versatile term, which includes many dimensions of business activities Whatever determination is used, the terms value, customer needs and information are often mentioned Therefore, when thinking of promotion, which

is a vital part of the marketing process, it is good to bear in mind that many features influence the result

1Baines, Fill, Page, “Marketing: Case insight”,Oxford University Press, 1st

edition, 2008, pg.17

Based on that concept, there is a formal definition about Marketing provided by American Marketing Association:

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationship in ways that benefit the organization and its stake holders” 2

“Marketing management is defined as the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value.” 3

Marketing management consists of important tasks4:

Developing marketing strategies and plans, meaning to identify potential

long-run opportunities given its market experience and core competencies

Capturing marketing insightsthis step is to understand what is happening

inside and outside the company

Connecting with customersthis task is to consider how to best create value for

the chosen target markets and develop strong, profitable, long-term relationships with customers

Building strong brand: It requires the company to understand the strengths and

weaknesses of the brand with customers, define its value to bring to the customers

in considering its position in the market and anticipating its competitors‟ move

Shaping the market offerings: Define the value package the company wants to

offer to its customers

Delivering value: It is to determine how to properly deliver the value embodied

by the products and service to the target market

2

Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, “Marketing Management”, Pearson Prentice Hall, 12th edition, 2006, pg.5

3Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, “Marketing Management”, Pearson Prentice Hall, 12th edition, 2006, pg.5 4

Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, “Marketing Management”, Pearson Prentice Hall, 12th edition, 2006, pg.29-30

Communicating value: This task is to adequately communicate the value

embodied by the products and service to the target market Marketing communications activities are the means by which the company endeavors to inform, persuade and remind customers – directly or indirectly about the brand it sells

Creatinglong-term growth: This step considers a long-term view of company‟s

products and services, and how profits should be grown.It get involvements of initiating new products or services, organizing marketing resources and maintaining

a process to implement and control the marketing plan to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing activities and how both could be improved

1.1.3 Shift in marketing management

Philip Kotler & Kevin Keller stated 14 major shifts in marketing management in the 21st century:

 From Marketing does marketing to Everyone does marketing

 From organizing by product units to organizing by customer segments

 From making everything to buying more goods and service from outside

 From using many suppliers to working with fewer suppliers in a “partnership”

 From relying on old market positions to uncovering new ones

 From emphasizing on tangible assets to emphasizing on intangible assets

 From building brand through advertising to building brand through performance and integrated communications

 From attracting customers through stores and salespeople to making products available online

 From selling to everyone to trying to be the best firm serving well-defined target markets

 From focusing on profitable transactions to focusing on customer lifetime value

 From a focus on gain market share to a focus on building customer share, meaning instead of increasing market share, companies aim to capture a larger

share of customer‟s stomach by providing variety of choices to existing customers

 From being local to being “GLocal” – both global and local

 From focusing on financial scorecard to focusing on marketing scorecard

 From focusing on shareholders to focusing on stakeholders

Those theoretical above shift from doing marketing with traditional channel or method to modern method with higher reach, effectiveness and cost-saving to digital marketing because of it scaling, extendable, un-limited reaching

1.2 Digital Marketing

1.2.1 Definition

Thanks to the booming of internet, digital marketing has appeared and gained an accelerate growth

Digital marketing definition can be found in various approaches For example,

Business Dictionary defines “Digital marketing is the promotion of products or

brands via one or more forms of electronic media For example, advertising mediums that might be used as part of digital marketing strategy of a business could include promotional efforts made via the Internet, Social Media, Mobile Phone and Electronic billboards, as well as via digital and television and radio channels ”5

Another definition is “Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products

and services using database-driven online distribution channels to reach consumers

in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner” 6

There are two different forms of digital marketing:

In pull digital marketing, consumers actively seek the marketing contents,

often via web searches or opening an email, text message or web feed Websites, blogs and streaming media (audio and video) are examples of pull digital marketing

5http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/digital-marketing.html#ixzz2DQyhFw3o

6 Asia Digital Marketing Association: http://www.asiadma.com/adma/aboutus/

In each of these, users have to navigate to the website to view the content Search engine optimization is one tactic used to increase activity

In push digital marketingmarketers send a message without the consent of the

recipients, such as displaying advertisings on websites and news blogs Email, text messaging and web feed can also be classified as push digital marketing when the recipients do not give permission to receive marketing messages Push marketing is also known as spam Push technologies can deliver content as it becomes available and can be better targeted to consumer demographics, although audiences are often smaller, and creation and distribution costs are higher

1.2.2 The advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing

There are several advantages of digital marketing that make it attractive to marketers and become a strong marketing tool7

Reach: advertisers can choose the internet marketing tool or mobile marketing

which have suitable viewers with overall marketing campaign Technique can help advertisers recognize and describe the portrait of readers that they want to focus on

Low cost: The emergence of Internet has brought many benefits such as

low-cost transmission of information and communication to the large number of recipients, the message is transmitted in many different forms such as text, images, sounds, movies, games This considerably reduces the costs because of World Wide Web capabilities

Immediacy: With the interactive functions of online marketing, recipients can

respond to messages immediately, or interact directly with the object in a message This is the greatest advantage of online marketing compared with other forms

Dynamic and Creation: Internet marketing combines creative and technical

internet aspects, including design, development, advertising and sales The online marketing activities include search engine marketing (SEM), web display

7

http://www.boldendeavours.com/191/Digital_Marketing.html

advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, blog marketing and viral marketing Online marketing is the process of developing and promoting the business using online media Online Marketing is not simply building

a website Online marketing is a part of marketing strategy and must be a reasonable investment

Accessibility: Consumers can access products‟ information and conduct

transactions anywhere.Online marketing helps businesses access to a large market well when it do not encounter time or geographic constraints like other media such

as print or broadcasting media

Controlling: Online Marketing activities are easily monitored and evaluated

For example, the services “Web Analytics” tracking number can access to the internet contents and evaluate the message which is properly transmitted to the customer's desire As expected, online marketing is growing more powerful than other types

However digital marketing also has disadvantages that marketers have to be careful when doing online marketing campaign:

Perception of the consumer, economic and social condition: Because the World

Wide Web is faceless, it can appear cold and user-unfriendly This can leave customers or advertisers feeling isolated and very inward Everyone likes to socialize and meet people, but in this case, it is quite difficult to do in business anyway

To be hard to control if people are lying: There is so much information on the

World Wide Web that it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between nonsense and quality

Information Overload: there isan intensive amount of information on the

World Wide Web including good and bad, truthful and lying one So it is difficult for readers to classify the kind of information If advertisers cannot control or handle them, they can affect the perception of consumers

1.2.3 The factors that influence in Digital marketing

Technological advances give SMEs new ways to digitally connect with their existing and potential customers Digital marketing covers a wide range of opportunitiesthat can be explored including email campaigns, banner advertising, video marketing, blogging, mobile marketing, social media marketing, television and radio There are several factors that affect to digital marketing strategy, plan and execution of a company

FIGURE 1-1: CONTEX OF DIGITAL MARKETING 8

Target Market: Before a marketer decides to use digital marketing to attract

customers and increase sales, determines if and how the customers use digital marketing to get information about products, services or topics related to company‟s business A company‟s digital marketing efforts must include languages and images

8

http://www.boldendeavours.com/191/Digital_Marketing.html

that reflect to the target market and resonate with them

Budget: Businesses with limited budgets might skip digital marketing efforts

with a fear that it is out of their budget In fact, low-cost digital marketing options include creating a social media presence, blogging or creating marketing videos in simple ways with computer and web camera Options such as setting up microsites, pay-per-click advertising campaigns and short message services often require a larger marketing budget

Talent: The knowledge and experience of marketing team have regarding

digital marketing influence whether or not it is incorporated it into the overall marketing strategy Before delving into digital marketing, it is important to know company‟s options, how to implement digital marketing ideas and measure the success Normally, if company does not have a team with previous experience, using a marketing consultant who specializes in digital media services is an alternative

Technology: Servers being down or browser and software issues causes banner

advertisements and websites not to be loaded, such common technology issues can play a major role in the success of a digital marketing strategy If a business encounters issues frequently with its digital marketing campaigns, it may be less likely to use digital strategies to promote the brands Beyond technical difficulties, companies often have to invest in equipment and services to implement their digital marketing campaigns For example, a company that wants to do video marketing needs a digital camera, lights and audio recording equipment and expertise to use it,

or must pay a studio to handle the video editing and recording

Time: Planning, implementing and monitoring digital marketing strategies

require a time commitment, which might be a problem for small business owners who are not well-versed in marketing Digital marketing plan requires constant monitoring, to measure what is working and what needs to be altered

1.3 Majors marketing tools in digital marketing

There is no doubt about it – the Internet has changed the world we live in Never before has it been so easy to access information, communicate with people all over the world and share articles, videos, photos and all manners of media

The Internet has led to an increasingly connected environment, and the growth

of Internet usage has resulted in declining distribution of traditional media: television, radio, newspapers and magazines Marketing in this connected environment and using that connectivity to market is digital marketing or eMarketing

According to Rob Stokes9:

“eMarketing embraces a wide range of strategies, but what underpins successful eMarketing is a user-centric and cohesive approach to these strategies Marketing is about conversations, and the Internet has become a hub of conversations The connected nature of the Internet allows us to follow and track these conversations, and provides entry points for all parties What follows in this book are ways of conversing with potential and existing customers using the Internet.”

Based on Rob Stokes‟s categorizations, there are 16 tools for eMarketing However, in consideration of tools which are practical in Vietnam, following are major tools being applied

1.3.1 Email marketing

“E-mail marketing represents an opportunity to experience both the thrill of increased customer loyalty and steady repeat business as well as the agony of bounced e-mail, unsubscribe requests, and spam complaints”10

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience in its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing Most of big brands often use this method to keep relationship with their customers in all over the world

Simply put, email marketing is a form of direct marketing which utilities electronic means to deliver commercial messages to an audience It is one ofthe oldestand yet still one of the most powerful of all online marketing‟s tactics The power comes from the fact that it is:

• Extremely cost effective due to a low cost per contact

FIGURE 1-2: SAMPLE OF EMAIL MARKETING 11

11 Author‟s received in personal mail box

Applying email marketing will help marketers make long relationship with customers It can create many competitive advantages as:

 Enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,

 Acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,

 Adding advertisements to email messages sent by other companies to their customers

 Sending email messages over the Internet, as email did and does exist outside the Internet

To get high effectiveness in email marketing, the marketer often collects customers‟ email address carefully (based the target of marketing campaign, characteristic and email‟s form)

Spam mail is a concept which involves email marketing.Spam email also

known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email (UBE), is a subset of spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email Spam email means that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk To protect consumers, many countries apply anti-spam law And some email providers also give an announcement about banning spam emails

When implementing the email marketing, marketers should study the anti-spam email law carefully to ensure that they do not violate it The anti-spam law is applied to protect consumers from the harassment of the marketing activities Some ISPs also ban the email marketing if it was sent to a great quantity of emails or its content is so heavy Some email marketing encounters negative feedbacks from customers because of big spam contents and high frequency of spam

FIGURE 1-3: SAMPLE OF EMAIL MARKETING IN SPAM 12

1.3.2 Online advertising

Simply put, online advertising is advertising on the Internet Online display advertising began as simple hyperlinked images shown on a web site and has since progressed to include video, sound and many other modern technologies Today, messages and interactions can be contained within the advertising display, without ever taking consumers to a landing page There are various types to display advertising like: interstitial banners, pop-ups, map-advert, floating advert, wallpaper advert, banner advert…

Although the Internet provides new scope for creative approaches to advertising,

we see its true advantage when we realize how track-able and therefore measurable Internet advertising is Or, to take it from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google cited by Lieb (2002): “The Internet will transform advertising because of its track-ability, not its beauty.”

12 Author‟s email box

Advertising, whether online or off-line, has a number of objectives13:

 Building brand awareness: Online, creative advertising or banner advertising

is largely visual, making it an ideal channel for promoting brand collateral

 Creating consumer demand: Modern online advertising provides a great way

to communicate the USPs (unique selling points) of a product, thereby helping stimulate demand

 Informing consumers of the advertiser‟s ability to satisfy that demand

 Driving response and sales: All forms of online marketing need to drive traffic and sales in the long term However, the immediacy of online advertising also drives traffic and sales in the short and medium terms Unlike traditional media advertising, online advertising can turn potential customers into actual customer‟s right there and then What is more, it is possible to measure accurately how effectively the online advertising campaign does this

 The key differentiator: Online advertising is able to drive instant sales and conversions Unlike offline advertising mediums, the consumers can go from advert to merchant in one easy click Because of the connected nature of the Internet, online activities are highly track-able and measurable, which makes

it possible to target adverts and to accurately track and gauge the effectiveness of the advertising Each display advert can be tracked for success

13 Rob Stoke, “eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing”, Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd., 2008, 2ndedition, pg.26

TABLE 1-1: PROS AND CONS OF ONLINE ADVERTISING 14

Images - display can offer a rich

brand building experience Some

campaigns are better suited to having

images rather than the plain text such

as promoting travel package,

launching an exciting new sport

cars…

Technical obstacles The nature of a

lot of display advertising is intrusive,

so pop-up blockers can often prevent ads from being served as they were intended by the advertisers

Interactivity It allows your target

market to not only see your banner,

but to play with it too Interaction

builds a bond and improves the

chances of the consumer

remembering your brand tomorrow

Example: Viral marketing - clever

viral marketing games or “send to a

friend” functionality from within the

ad Video - viewers can check out

video previews or trailers from

within the ad

Connection speed Bandwidth can

also be an issue, although this is a shrinking problem However, campaigns should be planned around demographics in determining the richness (and investment) of interaction For example heart disease medication is likely to appeal

to an older community, with less money and slower connection speeds

Measurability and data gathering

Banner ads, like all eMarketing

tactics, are measurable Track

click-through rates and you get an idea of

exactly how many people are

responding to your call to action

Advertising fatigue Consumers are

suffering from advertising fatigue, so while new technologies can provide great results, as soon as the market moves mainstream, it can get saturated

14 Rob Stoke, “eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing”, Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd., 2008, 2 nd edition, pg.38-39

Some publishers even have the

ability to do post-click tracking‟ i.e

you can track the user all the way to

a sale if that is the purpose of the

advert

Consumers are increasingly ignoring adverts

Ad blockers As well as most

browsers now blocking pop-ups, there are also extensions available for the Firefox browser, such as Ad Block plus, that will block advertising on web pages

Technologically savvy consumers are increasingly using these methods to limit

the advertising that they see

1.3.3 Affiliate marketing

If you recommend a restaurant to a friend, and that friend visits the restaurant because of your recommendation, the restaurant‟s revenues will have increased because of your referral This is “word of mouth” marketing But you, as the referrer, do not see any of the cash benefit that the restaurant does!

Imagine that the restaurant gave you 10% of the bill for every person that you referred to the restaurant They would be paying you a finder‟s fee for new customers There are a number of businesses that market this way offline Brokers for insurance products are examples, but these referrals can be hard to track Online, they are very easy to track This system of reward where compensation is based on

referral is called affiliate marketing, and is used to describe this type of marketing

in an online environment.15

Affiliate marketing is used widely to promote websites, and affiliates are rewarded for every visitor, subscriber or customer provided through their efforts Because of this, affiliates are sometimes viewed as an extended sales force for a website Affiliates are paid for performance, so affiliate marketing is also referred to

as performance marketing in digital marketing general Traffic or visitors exchange

is the motivation for one website, wapsite or company work with others to gain both mutual benefits In some cases when use digital marketing, marketers normally apply this type of marketing to save cost and keep a very strong relationship with channels instead of paying for advertisement

The core of affiliate marketing is a simple process:

1 An affiliate refers potential customers to a merchant‟s web site/wapsite

2 Some of those customers perform a desired action

3 The merchant rewards the affiliate for each desired action resulting from the affiliate‟s referral

FIGURE 1-4: THE AFFILIATE MARKETING PROCESS 16

15 Rob Stoke, “eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing”, Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd., 2008, 2 nd edition, pg.46

However, there are many different ways an affiliate might market a merchant‟s offering, different types of actions that can be rewarded, and most importantly, it is necessary to keep track of the whole process

of people who have been “infected” grows exponentially 18

Viral marketing campaigns work when a message is spread exponentially and it results in a desired outcome for a brand Viral marketing utilizes electronic means

to spread messages It harnesses the electronic connectivity of individuals to ensure marketing messages are referred from one person to another Viral marketing campaigns can be tricky and unpredictable However, the lure of exponential growth at a very low marginal cost creates this method attraction to marketers

Example: Popular K-pop song “Oppa Gangnam Style” on Google Trend19

This song sang by PSY was released on July 15, 2012 As of November 18,

2012, the music video has been viewed over 750 million times (with 5.2 million

“likes”) on You Tube and it is the site‟s most watched K-pop and the second most watched video ever We can imagine that is more than 1/10 of the world population And on September 21, 2012, The Guinness World Records announced that the video has officially broken the record for “Most Likes on YouTube!”20

FIGURE 1-2: THE SONG’S TREND IN GOOGLE TREND 21

Steps to go viral:

 Define the aims of the campaign, and how you will measure success

 Plan a message or content that users want to share

 Make your content easy to share

 Make it as simple as possible for users to get involved

 Be authentic and transparent

 Provide an incentive for sharing and interacting

 Make the message available

 Use a strong call to action

 Track and analyze, and optimize

 Get lucky

21 http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=oppa%20gangnam%20style

1.3.5 Social media marketing

Blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, tag clouds, social networks, tweet, pages… – new words for new things, and new ways to use words The many facets

micro-of social media are also called Web 2.0, consumer generated media, citizen media and new media In fact, comparing social media to traditional media is probably the most useful way of defining what exactly this means Most simply put, social media are media (from written to visual to audio to audio visual) that are designed to be shared Sharing means that it is easy to comment on, easy to send, and that there are

no high costs associated with viewing the media And, because of the connected nature of the Internet, it means that sharing; commenting and viewing can all be tracked and measured

TABLE 1-2: COMPARING BETWEEN TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND

SOCIAL MEDIA 22 Traditional Media Social Media

Fixed, unchangeable Instantly updateable

Commentary limited and not real-time Unlimited real-time commentary

Limited, time-delayed bestseller list Instant popularity gauge

Archives poorly accessible Archives accessible

Limited media fix All media can be mixed

Committee publishers Individual publishers

Sharing not encouraged Sharing and participation encouraged

The Internet and software developed to run on it have made it simple for anyone

to publish and distribute It has also made it simple for anyone to access the content published The realm of social media is about collaboration, users generating contents, sharing and, most of all, it is about connecting

22 Rob Stoke, “eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing”, Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd., 2008, 2 nd edition, pg.168

Social media marketing is the newest internet marketing tool though social media or web 2.0 There are some different definitions and arguments related to this term:

 Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations‟ integrated marketing communications plans Integrated marketing communications is a practice organizations follow to connect with their target markets Integrated marketing communications coordinates promotional elements: advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing and sales promotion

 Social Media Marketing is the active practice of developing content and sharing it with online communities in order to represent your brand and business

 Social media marketing is the process of marketing through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube By utilizing the social aspect of the web, social media marketing is able to connect and interact on a much more personalized and dynamic level than through traditional marketing

FIGURE 1-3: THE MODEL OF SOCIAL MEDIA 23

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites This is essential differences between Social media or website 2.0

FIGURE 1-4: THE MODEL OF WEB 2.0 24

23 Google images search

24 Google images search

There are many differences in concept but the main goals of social media marketing are making connection and information transformation though social media or social network Social Media and Social Network are 2 terms which related with Social Media Marketing closely

Social media is media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue Youtube.com website

is the typical example

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes", which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige Blog

is typical representative for a social network

There are some key differences and knowing between social media and social network:

Definition: Social networking is an act of engagement and social media is a

method to transmit, or share information with a broad audience Everyone has the opportunity to create and distribute Groups of people with common interests, or like-minds, associate together on social networking sites and build relationships through community

Communication style: Social media is more akin to a communication channel

It's a format that delivers a message Social media is simply a system that disseminates information „to' others The communication is two-way thought social networking Depending on the topic, subject matter or atmosphere, people congregate to join others with similar experiences and backgrounds Conversations are at the core of social networking and through them relationships are developed

Return on investment (ROI): It can be difficult to obtain precise numbers for

determining the ROI from social media For instance, influence, or the depth of

conversation and what the conversations are about, can be used to gauge ROI Social networking's ROI is a bit more obvious If the overall traffic to your website

is on the rise and you're diligently increasing your social networking base, you probably could attribute the rise in online visitors to your social efforts

Timely responding: Social media is hard work and it takes time You cannot

automate individual conversations and unless you are a well-known and established brand, building a following does not happen overnight Social media is definitely a marathon and not a sprint Because social networking is direct communication between you and the other people that you choose connect with, your conversations are richer, more purposeful and more personal Your network exponentially grows

as you meet and get introduced to others

Target of conversation - asking or telling: A big no-no on with social media is

skewing or manipulating comments, likes, stumbles or other data, for your own benefit (personal or business) Asking friends, family, co-workers or anyone else to cast a vote just to cast it, does not do anyone much good for anyone and it can quickly become a PR nightmare if word leaks out about dishonest practices Every can tell their peers about new business or blog and discuss how to make it a success though social networking The conversations that you create can convert many people into loyal fans, so it's worth investing the time

“Social media and social networking do have some overlap, but they really aren't the same thing They're two separate marketing concepts can make a difference in how you position your business going forward”

1.3.6 Search engine marketing

Every day, all around the world, millions of people use search engines to find content on the Internet Search engines are web-based programs that index the web and allow people to find what they are looking for

“Search” or “search marketing” is often used to refer to the industry that has built up around search enginesGoogle, Yahoo! and Microsoft‟s Live are all well-

known international search engines Google is by far the leading player in the market A comScore study of worldwide search engine activity, release in October

2007, showed that Google has just over 60% of the global search engine market share In Europe, almost 80% of searches are on Google

Search engine marketing (SEM) has two arms: search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising These correspond to the two types of search results SEO aims at improving a web site‟s ranking in the natural search results PPC advertising involves bidding for placement in the paid search results section of the SERP Both SEO and PPC advertising are based around the same fundamental concept: keywords

For example: From the above-mentioned famous song “Oppa Gangnam Style”, when people want to know more about it, they start searching not only exact word but also relevant words or phrases The figure above is from Google Trend for the word “Oppa Gangnam Style” and we can see, for example “Download Gangnam style” has 65% searching compared with the exact word “Oppa Gangnam Style” (100%)

FIGURE 1-5: RELATED WORD IN SEARCHING 25

25

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=oppa%20gangnam%20style

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is the practice of optimizing a web

site so as to achieve preferred ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs)

Pay per click (PPC): PPC is an advertising system where the advertiser only

pays for each click on their advert For the advertiser, the beauty of PPC advertising

on search engines is that their adverts are displayed when potential customers are already expressing intent – they are searching for a product or service It allows advertisers to present their offering to a potential customer who is already in the buying cycle

SEM – SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Tough to quantify

Lots of on-going work

Result can take a while to be seen

CONS Can be more expensive Cost per click is climbing Constant monitoring required

26 Rob Stoke, “eMarketing – the essential guide to online marketing”, Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd., 2008, 2ndedition, pg.71

1.3.7 Mobile marketing

The mobile phone is a small gadget

that has had a huge impact on our day to

day lives It has already had a profound

impact on the way we communicate and

conduct ourselves daily This continues

to be felt as the mobile phone enables

new ways to market and new markets in

which to transact

The picture on the right can illustrate

how mobile phone influence our lives27

Consider that there are 1.3 billion people worldwide with access to the Internet

Of those, 1.2 billion are active users of email With the world‟s population at 6.6 billion, that‟s almost 1/5 of the population who can be reached on email That needs

to be compared to 3.2 billion mobile phone subscribers – almost half of the world‟s population And of that 3.2 billion, 2.5 billion were active users of SMS text messaging in 2007 (Ahonen, 2008)

27 Source: pocket/

http://www.thatericalper.com/2012/11/12/photo-20-years-later-all-these-things-now-fit-in-your-TABLE 1-4: MOBILE PHONE FEATURES AND IMPLICATION FOR

MARKETERS 28

The mobile phone is personal

A 2006 survey (“Wireless Works” by BBO

and Proximity) found that 63% of

respondents would not share their phone

with anyone (and 90% of those surveyed in

Japan would not share their phone) While

laptops do present a personal connection to

the Internet, they are not as personal a

device as the mobile phone

Respect for privacy and permission is exceptionally important in all aspects of marketing, and particularly so when it comes to mobile phones

The mobile phone is always carried

According to 2007 research by Morgan

Stanley, 91% of mobile phone owners keep

their phone within one meter, 24 hours a

day People have their phones with them at

all times of the day, even in the bathroom

Messages sent to recipients can be read and acted on immediately Unlike, for example, email which requires that the recipient be in front of their computer and connected to the Internet, messages sent to mobile phones will most likely be accessed within minutes

of being received

The mobile phone is always on

In order to fulfill its primary function – as a

telephone – the mobile phone is always on

Messages and services can be sent and acted

on at all times of the day

Similar to the previous feature of the phone, the fact that the phone is always on changes the services and messages that can be developed for the phone It also means that marketers need to be perhaps even more sensitive with their marketing

communications Not many people would appreciate an SMS at 4am informing them

system

Every mobile phone has a built in payment

mechanism – the SIM card Billing is easily

handled through the user‟s mobile network

Not only do mobile phones have this

built-in payment mechanism, paybuilt-ing for content

and downloads has been built into the way

that consumers use their phones There is

less of an expectation that goods and

services will be free

There are also a number of services that turn

the mobile into a virtual wallet or bankcard,

bringing banking and payment services to

people all around the world

and content on their mobile Advertising is not the only way to generate revenue for content

The mobile phone is available at the point

of creative inspiration

As the mobile phone is always carried and

always on, it is always available as a

creative tool Phones today feature a number

of tools that let users act on creative

impulse, from taking photos and videos, to

becoming a scribbling pad on which to jot

down ideas

The feature can be used to encourage interactivity with campaigns created for mobile It presents the mobile as a useful tool in viral campaigns based on consumer generated content

The mobile phone presents accurate

audience measurement

While the Internet is vastly superior to other

media in its ability to track and measure

advertising and marketing campaigns, it is

eclipsed by the mobile phone Every

transaction made on a mobile phone can be

uniquely tracked to that mobile phone

Aggregated data provides extensive profiling and segmenting opportunities for targeting the right audience Campaigns can also be accurately measured and tracked for return on investment Bear in mind as well that this accurate measurement means that mobile phone users have far less anonymity than Internet users Even though at least

number, whether the transaction be a voice

call, an SMS message or accessing the

Internet

50% of mobile phones worldwide are on a prepaid or pay-as-you-go type of contract (which means that the network operators do not have the phone user‟s name and

demographic details to go with the mobile number), each transaction made by the phone user can still be measured

The mobile phone captures the social

context of media consumption

This represents emerging thinking on the

benefits of the mobile Because of the

nature of the mobile phone to be able to

accurately track transactions to any

particular phone number, it can track

transactions between mobile numbers This

means that sophisticated data mining can

identify patterns that indicate information

about and preferences of mobile phone

users Not only can alpha users be

identified, but they may be identified within

their social context

This information will represent rich data that can be used to both create and market products, content and services online

Just as the Web is used in a myriad ways as a marketing, advertising and distribution channel, so is the mobile phone There are a number of technologies available to reach a mobile audience, such as, SMS, CRM, MMS, and tailoring website for mobile phone…

Limitation of a mobile phone

The mobile phone is small This means that it has a small screen and a small

keypad While some phones have a full QWERTY keypad, many have the standard numeric keypad When it comes to the mobile web, consider that phones do not have a mouse There are a few models that have touchscreens, but for the most part, navigation of the mobile web is through the keypad or scroll buttons on the phone

Mobile phones are also even less standard than PCs Not only do phone

models present a myriad of screen sizes, there are also several operating systems and browsers that are used by mobile phones

Use of more advanced features of phones can require an extensive education process While mobile phones have a host of features, these devices are

for the most part under-used

2 CHAPTER 2 - ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

SITUATION OF APPOTA JSC

2.1 APPOTA’s introduction

2.1.1 General information

 Business Domain Delivery mobile content business

 Vision To be one of the leading mobile content delivery in

http://www.ictnews.vn/home/Kinh-doanh/8/Appotacom-phien-ban-quoc-te-cua-(3) http://e27.sg/2012/03/15/vietnams-appstore-vn-heads-for-global-market-with-appota/

Founded in Dec 2011, in the booming era of e-commerce and digital content, APPOTA has focused and become a pioneer in delivery mobile content for smartphone users in Vietnam with system integration based on wireless and