Internet, e-Commerce, Digital Marketing: Case Studies, Projects

The internet has enabled some new online Business Models to emerge. Find Internet, e-commerce, and digital marketing case studies, projects and assignments.

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing involves the promotion of your product or services online, and is also used for brand building.

Topics in Digital Marketing?

• Fundamentals of SEO, SEM, SMM
• Google analytics
• Email marketing
• Social media for business – Tools and strategies (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest)
• Mobile Marketing tools

For any business, it is important to have varied digital campaigns that leverages the strengths of the various online platforms available for marketing.

Importance of Content

Every business has to support these marketing campaigns by creating high-quality content that is made specifically for the online medium. It is the content that gets marketed – be it the content on the website/blog, or the content of the video, or the content that is used as posts on social media, in email marketing and even in the various online ads.

Creating content for the web also requires a slightly different style and approach compared to what one reads on the print medium. Points to consider when writing for the web:

• Write to the point and concisely to retain attention of visitors.
• Write shorter paragraphs, leaving more whitespaces after few sentences, making use of headings and sub-headings, make more use of bullets points (lists).

Also, the content for the website should follow an inverted pyramid method wherein the most important points and takeaways of the content should be displayed up on the page, whereas the more supporting kind of details should be listed towards the bottom.

This allows the readers to get a gist of the content and the overall quality of the content, assuming the reader decides to move on to another page without reading the entire page.

Social Media Marketing

Today, for any business to be successful, it needs to have a strong presence on social media. Social media platforms are designed to be more visual in nature and do a great job of narrating the story of a brand.

Social Media Marketing is an effective method to get attention to one’s business, generate more sales and also strengthen the relationship with existing customers.

Keeping a close ear on what’s being said on social media, brands can also better understand what people in general think about their brand.

Wherever people form communities, word-of-mouth marketing does wonders to a good product or service. People love to share. If your business caters to one of their greatest needs or wants, they will most probably tell the whole world about it. They would be your best and most convincing marketing agents, which you aren’t even paying.

Social media offers the possibility of very narrow segmenting of your target group. This is very useful for your marketing campaigns, because you’ll get a much better ROI when you target your best buyer.

Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing involves sending a commercial message to a group of people on a list (that a company builds by capturing email-ids). When done properly, email marketing can help sell more products, and you can even direct them back to the website.

The focus of e-mail marketing is to capture leads.

Create a landing page that will capture email-id. Those who come after clicking the paid ad (to get the discount coupon) will directly come on this landing page.

A landing page is basically a standalone web page, that internet marketers create to capture leads (email -ids) for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign.

Once the person subscribes, they will be sent an email with the discount code for their purchase.

In general, it is a good idea to capture emails of visitors on the website. Have a link to the Landing page (the landing page will reside on your website) on the side-bar on the page where people can clearly see it, to build your list.

So, a company could entice visitors on the website to signup by offering a 5-part newsletter that will teach ‘how to survive skills when outdoors/in the wild”.

A link to the landing page could be placed somewhere at the top of the Home Page saying ‘subscribe’ to our newsletter and learn “life-saving survival skills”.

Capture the email ids and send them the information in 5-parts over different days.

Through those emails, the company can also educate the subscribers about the company and its products.

Pay-Per-click (PPC) Advertising

Pay-Per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the best ways to generate targeted traffic quickly to a website.

The ads will bring in visitors who are already looking for the kind of products the business is marketing. A similar result using SEO would require much more time.

When an online user enters a query for a particular set of keywords (says ‘best camping tent’), the company’s paid ad targeting those keyword phrase could appear in sponsored results in the Search Engine results pages (the result pages will also include other web page links organically ranking for these keywords).

Chances of the company’s Kathmandu’s ad ranking on top of the sponsored search results will depend on a few factors, including the amount the company bids for each keyword, and the company’s overall Quality Score (Google’s rating of the quality and relevance of the keywords and PPC ads).

The company may use PPC advertising to promote their best-selling camping tents, and offer a discount (limited-time offer) if bought before the month-end.

keywords: best camping tent, how to pitch a camping tent, camping tent review

While calculating the ideal max CPC is difficult, as one doesn’t have a control over how much the competitor will bid and their quality score, there’s a method to ensure you pay reasonable amount per click.

The company may already know the conversion rate on its best-selling product pages (how many products are bought per hundred visitors). For example, if the conversion rate is 2% and if the profit per customer is $10, the ideal (or the break-even) CPC would be $10 x 0.02 = $0.2. So, for this example, the max CPC should be kept around that number.

In general, the ads should be placed at a level where they can be profitable at your ideal Max CPC. The factors that usually limit or hold back profits include the conversion rate of the website and the profit margin (price of the product/service).

Academic Projects / Assignment on E-Business, ECommerce, Digital Marketing

Question: Global “Barbie 2” Movie Launch

Barbie 1 movie achieved remarkable success at the box office, and the success of the film’s marketing campaign can be attributed to a combination of factors such as targeted advertising, engaging promotional campaigns, and a focus on the movie’s distinctive qualities.

Assume your agency has been hired to create a global digital marketing strategy for the “Barbie 2” movie launch in 2026, building on insights from the successful “Barbie” movie launch. Targeting children aged 5 12, their parents, and adult Barbie enthusiasts, you will leverage your course knowledge and the existing “Barbie 1” fan base to promote the movie and Barbie doll sales worldwide. The Barbie 1 movie generated $1.3 billion in worldwide box office sales. This project reflects your role as future leaders in global digital marketing, working with Mattel and Warner Brothers for the anticipated 2026 release, which they expect will be even more successful than the first.

Objectives of the Global Digital Marketing Campaign:

To create a holistic and innovative global digital marketing strategy that effectively targets the appropriate audience maximizes digital channels, and leverages the success and learnings from the “Barbie 1” movie to achieve the following goals:

• Increase brand awareness and excitement for the movie
• Drive ticket sales and merchandise sales
• Position Barbie as a modern and relevant brand for a new generation of global fans

The assignment must use the following outline:

Executive Summary: Summarize your key strategy highlights and approach in one slide.
Market Analysis: Evaluate the successes and shortcomings of the “Barbie 1” movie launch. In addition to the background articles above, you can use Factiva to research additional coverage of the Barbie 1 campaign. Outline which markets you would like to focus on to maximize results for your client.
Strategy Development: Develop a digital marketing strategy that includes objectives, target audience, key messaging, and a unique selling proposition for “Barbie 2.” Propose innovative digital marketing tactics.
Campaign Execution: Detail a plan for executing your digital marketing strategy. Outline the creative aspects of the campaign, including visual elements, storytelling, and brand alignment.
Measurement and Analysis: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your campaign. Propose methods for tracking, analyzing, and reporting on campaign performance.
Cultural Considerations: Address potential cultural issues that may come up based on what you have learned from the Barbie 1 move. What will be the same, and what might you do differently this time? What factors are controllable and which ones are not?
Budget and Resource Allocation: Assume budget for the campaign launch is $100 million. Where do you think the allocation of the budget should be between markets? Why?

News Headlines:

• ‘Barbie’ movie will now be released in the United Arab Emirates, after a monthlong delay.
• ‘Barbie’ Banned In Algeria—Here’s Where Else You Can’t See The Box Office Hit
• All the countries that have banned the Barbie movie
• Barbie is a ‘power brand’: Mattel CEO

Question: Paid Social Brief for New Car launch

An Auto company is launching a new model car. It is a hybrid, sporty, spacious new model and the company wants people to test drive their new car. This is their biggest revenue driver, so they want to make a big push to encourage users to book a test drive and consider purchasing a car with their finance offer they have in place to pay in monthly instalments for 12 months, interest free.

The aim is to: 1. Drive users to book a test drive for the new car 2. Encourage users to purchase the car car in 12-month monthly instalments. In addition, the campaign aims to grow the brands customer base by capturing new customers across the automotive vertical and build on their brand awareness.

Audience: Bottom-up approach focusing on a CRM data as a base of those who have booked a test drive on other car models from the same brand, but not converted (assume a matched CRM audience of 100,000 on Facebook & Instagram with lower levels on other social channels – what is the budget we would need to reach this audience at a good frequency?). Pixel based retargeting data also available.

Objective: The primary goal of this campaign is to generate test drives and purchase of the new car model, with the second being to build on brand awareness. With this information, please can you recommend the following: Platform selection, Campaign set up, Audiences, Format types, Flight period, How will you measure the success of this campaign?

Media Budget: £200K. Dates: Must start on 31.10.2022. Please recommend a flight period.

Response format: Please come back to us with a top line approach of how you would respond to the brief above. PPT or Word format – please expect to talk through your approach in approx. 20 mins with time for questions/conversation at end.

Question. Role played by social media during the Pandemic.

Over the years, the usage of social media has grown substantially among people, and its usage further grew with the outbreak of the pandemic; with limited resources to get information about the virus, social media became the go-to resource for many, to get updates about the virus. However, fake news dissemination on COVID-19 has also increased in recent months which poses a threat to public health, and the factors that lead to the sharing of this misinformation is less well studied.

Question: Identify the marketing and digital marketing options that you would advise for this organisation- for example , do you believe that their marketing website needs to be optimised, that the search engine optimisation, maybe they need to include Google adverts or Facebook boost adverts, Google analytics, what do they need to do to divert their organisation’s operations so they can be both traditional marketing and digital marketing options that they can look into and apply to their strategy of their organisation?

Assessment Overview:

For this assessment, select an organisation to use as a case study, apply relevant marketing research and critically evaluate the organisation’s existing offline and digital marketing communications strategies for its consumer segments in the marketplace: and apply the results of the critical assessment to develop a new / improved creative digital marketing communications campaign for a selected target market segment. In developing the new or improved communications campaign, ensure that the new digital communications campaign is integrated with its current traditional (off-line) communications strategies for the selected organization.

For this assessment, you are required to adopt an evidenced based approach by conducting relevant market research, literature reviews and applying relevant marketing concepts, conceptual frameworks for the critical assessment of existing (offline & digital) communication strategies and the development of a new/improved digital communications campaign for your selected New Zealand organization.

All work must be completely your own and all literature used must be referenced appropriately using APA 6th edition.

Instructions To prepare for this assessment you will need to select, and have approved by your teacher, an organisation to use as a case study.

Apply relevant marketing research method(s) to critically evaluate a New Zealand organisation’s traditional (off-line) and digital marketing communications strategies for its consumer markets. Applying the results of the market research, develop a new or improved creative digital marketing communications campaign for one of its target consumer segment. In developing the new digital marketing, ensure that the new digital communications campaign is integrated with its existing off-line communications strategies for the selected organization.

Marking Schedule/Criteria:

Critical analysis of marketing research and consumer behaviour
Comprehensive to complete The report provides an complete critical evaluation of: current / existing marketing communications of a business/organisation (in a New Zealand context), for both its traditional and digital marketing communications, for its targeted consumer segments. Provides an complete level of critical assessment of whether the current / existing marketing communications approach is integrated.
Thoroughly embeds relevant marketing information using appropriate marketing research methods (such as secondary research, observations, interviews) for the critical evaluation of issues in the report with excellence.
Applies and integrates relevant evidence/literature insightfully to support critical evaluation.
Application of marketing research to design and produce a marketing campaign.

The report shows complete critical evaluation to: present current gaps, challenges and or opportunities to develop an improved or new digital marketing communications campaign for a selected target market for the selected business / organisation.
Demonstrates complete and professional design and production of a creative digital marketing communications campaign for a target segment for the selected business / organisation by: developing a new / improved digital communication strategy (strategies) and, integrating current traditional (offline) marketing communications strategies.
Provides a complete range of relevant measures / metrics to measure the performance of the new/improved digital marketing communications campaign
Adopts relevant evidence/literature to insightfully support critical evaluation.

Assessment Overview

A leading hospital and healthcare chain wants to have a better understanding of their consumer sentiments to improve their service offerings. They can see a certain dip in their sales and are convinced that the power of Social media can assist them to know the root cause of issues and take corrective actions.

a. They have hired you as a consultant to assist them to judge their consumer sentiments and design a roadmap on the strategy towards implementation. Please assist the healthcare chain to achieve this objective.

b. Elaborate on the online and mobile channels and tools you will use to achieve the above objective.

Question: Runnr, a new sports shoe brand is thinking of building its website and has hired you as their Digital Marketing Consultant.
a. Can you guide them about how can they achieve direct traffic to their portal?
b. Also, what are the ways of achieving paid referral traffic?

Question: (a) Define the four Ps of digital marketing. How do they work? Support your answer with suitable examples (b) What are your views of contextual advertising? How does it work? Please illustrate your answer with examples. (c) With the cost of data connections being relatively on the higher side and penetration of smartphones still very low, do you think mobile phone is a viable medium for rich media in India?

Question: (a) Buzz Marketing, Viral Marketing Word of Mouth Marketing are terminologies that are often used today in the context of marketing. Why and in what context are they used in marketing? (b) Online marketing is relatively new and needs to prove itself. What is your opinion – does online marketing work? Why? Do you have examples to support your answer? (c) What steps would you take to ensure success in your email marketing program?

Question: (a) What is ‘On line Marketing’? Vimal is planning to re-launch it’s Saree brand, do you think resorting to ‘On line Marketing’ would be a good option for them. Justify your answer (b) Elaborate the pros and cons of ‘email Marketing’?

Question: Arvind Group has just completed the makeover of its flagship brand — Excalibur — and re-launched it across the country two years ago. The company positioned the Excalibur brand for young office going men. ‘Live, Work and Play’ is the new brand campaign By 2012 they have targeted to make Excalibur a Rs 100 crore brand. Other brands that will be revamped include Flying Machine, Newport and Ruf & Tuf jeans. They are planning to hire an international design firm to work. Arvind Brands (part of the Arvind Group) would spend 10 per cent of its turnover on a new advertisement campaign involving both print and outdoor publicity this year. Arvind Brands will open 25 stores independently. But the experience from re-launching of Excalibur brand for young office men in 2009 showed expenditure on advertisement was too high and turnover was too low. So to reach it’s target of making Excalibur a Rs.100 crore brand the company wants to cut down its advertising expenditure by resorting to emerging technologies of advertising. For Flying Machine also the group is resorting to a mass media of promotion that will hook the generation next.

Question 1 (a) Do you think resorting to digital marketing for Excalibur will help Arvind Group to cut down it’s advertising expenditure? Give logic to support your answer. Question 1 (b) What sort of digital marketing tool would you recommend to the brand manager of Flying Machine and Newport, considering the fact the target group is 18-21year old?

MBA case study or assignment question on Landing page:

Make a landing page for a campaign that you are running for a Men’s fashion brand which has Diwali offer running in their brick and mortar stores. The goal of the campaign is to drive traffic to the stores for the Diwali offer. What are the 3 parameters that you will keep in mind to create a strong landing page. Mention any 2 best practices that you would follow to attain maximum return on investment for this campaign.

Question on Email Marketing Campaign: You have to execute an email campaign for a MakeMyTrip promoting their 9 day summer package to Manali. This has to go to their existing database with the intention to generate leads to promote their Manali Trip. Mention the main aspects that the brand should keep in mind while designing the email communication. Create a mock emailer to promote the package and mention 3 important metrics that should be measured to calculate the effectiveness of the campaign

Question on social media campaign: A well-known university is launching a master’s degree in sports management in Mumbai. The campaign running on digital and social media is to direct them to take admission for a 2 year course.
a) List down the metrics that will define success of this campaign on social media, If Facebook was one of the major platform to promote the course.
b) Design a social media ad campaign keeping in mind the parameters to make an effective landing page

Define Social Media and explain how these companies use Social Media to increase their business? Is it a wise choice to use social media to connect with customers?

Question: You are required to apply the business model canvas to 3 innovative online businesses.

You are required to identify 3 online businesses that you feel are particularly innovative (so not well established companies like Tesco online, Amazon, Alibaba, Uber, Airbnb etc.) and write a report applying the 9 aspects of the business canvas to the 3 companies. The three examples you identify should not all be from the same country. They should also be from organisations that are of a different size (i.e. not all from 3 large organisations or 3 small organisations).

The assignment assesses your ability to be articulate, informed and to apply the business model canvas to three real businesses demonstrating an awareness and understanding of the range of issues and factors involved. The business report will be assessed on the basis of:

• Clear and logical discussion of the application of the Business Model Canvas to 3 businesses. It must include all 9 aspects of the canvas but most importantly the Core Value Proposition, the Sources and Methods of Revenue Generation and the Costs of Revenue Generation stating any assumptions that you make.
• Understanding of business model concepts
• Identification and use of three appropriate innovative online businesses that are from different countries and sizes of organisations

The businesses need to be innovative and therefore NOT from the ones that are widely known about and have been around for many years like Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Yahoo etc.

Question: Sell tennis rackets outside the United States

Your company manufactures and sells tennis rackets and would like to start selling outside the United States. You are in charge of developing a global Web strategy and the first countries you are thinking of targeting are Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, and Japan.

1. Using the statistics in the CIA World Fact Book, which of these countries would you target first? Provide rationale.

As we surf through CIA World Fact Book the Country having almost all factors positive is China. We know China is the fastest growing economy in world, it have largest population and diversified people communities. The unemployment rate in China is very low 4% (as of 2012) so their Per Capita Income is good so is their purchasing power. It is obvious to target any product on China and I would prefer choosing it too.

2.What criteria did you use?

The factors/criteria to make above decision are the GDP Per Capita $12,900 (2014 est.), GDP Purchasing Power Parity $17.62 trillion (2014 est.) and the Literacy rate of 94%. It is obvious the interest and involvement of people on Sports activities is dependent on their education level and development index factors like PPP, GDP etc. So the figures are very much suggestive to choose China as first target.

3.What other considerations should you address in your Web strategy?

The other considerations needed in web strategies is the population growth rate, Sport attachment of people, local working hour policy, internet connection availability, multilingual support on the application etc.