This paper aims to provide an introduction to concepts behind digital marketing, as well as some low-level practical experience of a few of the tools currently being used – and awareness of a lot more of them. Your understanding of marketing and strategy from other courses will be applied to digital platforms and technologies.

The course will have a strong practical element that is introduced in labs and which will require self-study outside of class time.
There are several important caveats to studying digital marketing:

1. There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what Digital Marketing actually is. In this course, it is treated as, “Any aspect of marketing that uses digital platforms either wholly or partially as part of a marketing strategy” That means that almost all modern marketing comes under this heading. Concepts learnt in earlier, more academic courses such as Marketing 151, Consumer Behaviour, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Analytics, and Advertising & Promotions, all come into play in implementing a digital strategy.
2. In addition, while most students studying a 300 or 400 level course here in New Zealand have not yet had a need to develop a marketing strategy in the real world, almost everyone has had direct experience in digital marketing, just as everyone has used a shop or seen an advert. In actuality, how to develop and ad campaign, design a questionnaire, or run a retail store, are all today superseded by digital alternatives, and even as customers, you are probably more aware of those alternatives than of the ‘traditional’, analog (non-digital) methods taught in classrooms. Some of you will have used digital marketing in your jobs already. The range of knowledge within the class will, therefore, be quite diverse. Unlike most courses, there is no single, baseline starting point for the majority of students enrolled.
3. Just as marketing is core to any business, so today and into the future, that will mean digital marketing. As an extreme example, even for a business with no web presence, even on Facebook, or even no e-mail address, it’s likely that customers will find your location by searching for you online. You cannot avoid it. In addition, digital tools allow marketing strategy to be implemented more efficiently, more effectively, and often more creatively than ever before. New options and techniques (for example, Pokemon GO!) appear all the time. While the majority of courses teach ‘textbook’ marketing concepts that have evolved over the past 20-50 years, digital marketing is, by necessity, a very practical, career requirement. Even where marketing is outsourced, you still need to be able to evaluate strategy proposals and interpret outcomes.

In summary, digital marketing today is so pervasive that, in the real world at least, ‘marketing’ and ‘digital marketing’ are one and the same thing.

The paper is taught over 12 weeks with a variety of delivery mechanisms.

It will adopt a so-called 'blended' learning approach. In other words, of the four hours of contact time per week, two will be conducted online and two will be in the classroom. Lecture-style content will be online – you will mostly work through this yourself, individually.

• Digital Marketing in a Marketing Strategy Context
• Digital Marketing Tools and Techniques
• The role of Social Media

Additional Notes on the 'Build a Website' assignment

All online business is centred on a company’s web-presence. The aim of this assignment is to create a website to meet the goals of a marketing strategy. The key is to first develop a strategy (based on market definition, segmentation, targeting and positioning) and then create the website accordingly.

This assignment is structured in four parts with different deadlines.

Please read the instructions and restrictions carefully.

A. Notes & Restrictions

1. The website you create MUST incur zero cost, i.e. you must NOT pay to create the website. Also, you cannot produce the website on an existing hosting account you may own or have access to, because this also means you would be paying for the service. This rule is to ensure complete fairness to all students regardless of your ability and/or willingness to pay.
   Note: the online web-builder we will use has a paid option, but you should NOT use this. If you already have a paid account on this service, you must create a new, free account also.
2. The website can be commercially viable (i.e. you are allowed to sell and profit from the website), but your assessment will NOT be based on your ability to sell or profit from the site.
3. You CANNOT use an existing website of any kind for this assignment (e.g., you cannot use a website you developed for an assignment in another course).
4. You must plan, code and produce the website yourself. You cannot pay someone else to do it for you, and you should not enlist large amounts of help from outside the course. (Asking for advice etc., is, of course, acceptable.)

B. Website Development

The website service recommnded for this course is Jimdo.com (see http://www.jimdo.com). Jimdo.com is a well-known, ‘drag-and-drop’ web-builder, which also provides the option to run an online store on its free service, and allows use of Google Analytics. (The restriction is that you can only accept payment via Paypal.) Free services that provide these options are rare.

If you wish to use a different service, you MUST apply in writing to the instructor, explaining your reasons IN DETAIL.

However, please note that you CANNOT use the following services as they do not provide the necessary functions to complete this assignment in the free versions:

• Wordpress.com

• WIX.com

NOTE: Jimdo seems robust and has been operating for a while, but you should ALWAYS make a backup of your work on a disk. I recommend you keep this work on your university Google Drive. To backup your work, see the instructions on Google Classroom (we will also cover this in the labs).

C. This is an individual assignment

This is an individual assignment as it's not possible to assess which parts of a project might be carried out by which members in a group situation.

D. General grading requirements

1. The website should be as complete a mock-up of a genuine commercial website as possible.
2. The website should be a substantial piece of work (it should be obvious you’ve spent at least 40 hours on this assignment: 1 pt = 1 hour).
3. The website should meet the goals of the pre-determined marketing strategy.

E. Assignment Stages

The final grade is taken from the total of the assignment components. The assignment will be marked in FOUR stages, each with a different deadline, and a DIFFERENT grading weight. Briefly these are as follows:

1. Stage 1: Submit a maximum one page outline plan, in bullet point form that lays out what the website will sell and why, and, very briefly, what your expected target will be.
2. Stage 2: Establish the website online and submit the URL.
3. Create a Google Analytics account or add your site to an existing one and promote the site to the other students in the course.
4. Stage 4: Add content to the site and link social media tools.

See the individual stage explanations for grading criteria.

NOTE: you will need to create other elements that are not assessed individually, but which are necessary to get a high grade:

1. A Paypal account
2. A corresponding Twitter and Facebook account for the business

This course will make extensive use of Google Classroom for out-of-class study, exercises, feedback, peer review, and assignment submissions. Visit the Moodle page and get used to the content as soon as you can.

Note: MKTG370, MKTG470 and MKTG470 (TGA) all use the same online content.

Google Classroom

1. You MUST use your university email account to access the site. If necessary, on http://classroom.google.com, click on the email address top right of page, and switch to your university account. (You may need to "Add Account" if you use a private email on Google usually.)
2. Once logged in, click the "+" button top right, and choose "Join Class"
3. Enter the following code: ymb4c7 (NOTE: the codes are DIFFERENT for 370 and 470)
4. You will be taken to the Digital Marketing course. Be sure to bookmark the course for later use.

Please feel free to email the instructor at any time, visit during office hours, or arrange an appointment. My email is Roy Larke.

Student workload should be distributed roughly as follows:

• In-class time: 3-hours per week
• Self-study online: 6-8 hours a week
• Assignment preparation time: 2 hours a week
• Content reflection and peer content review: 1-2 hours a week