(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited

(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited(Đồ án tốt nghiệp) Recommendations for digital marketing activities at rentracks Viet Nam company limited

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION

FACULTY FOR HIGH QUALITY TRAINING

Ho Chi Minh City, August 4, 2020

GRADUATION THESIS

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING

ACTIVITIES AT RENTRACKS VIETNAM

COMPANY LIMITED

EVALUATION FORM FOR GUIDANCE INSTRUCTOR

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Defense Committee

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks and deep gratitude to all the teachers at Ho Chi Minh University of Technology and Education, especially the teachers in the high-quality training department who have kindly guided and conveyed valuable knowledge and experiences to me during the time studying in the university This will be my solid foundation for my future career

I would like to express a special thanks to my lecturer as well as my instructors

Ms Nguyen Thi Lan Anh She has been so devoted to guiding me throughout the process

of making my internship report so that I can complete my report well

In addition, I would like to express my thanks to the whole Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd for creating conditions for me to experience real works and wholeheartedly help and support me with the best knowledge and skills so that I have I can feel a friendly working environment and help me to integrate easily

During the internship as well as during the writing of the report, I did not have much pratical experiences and my limited reasoning ability so that the shortcomings are not avoidable I truly look forward to receiving the teachers' advices to help me improve

my knowleges in the field

Finally, I would like to say thank you to the all lecturers, all the employees in Rentracks best wishes and success

HCMC, August ,2020

Student

Nguyen Van Dieu

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ASP Affiliate Marketing Service Provider

CSS Cascading Style Sheets – A programming language

KPI Key Performance Indicator

SEM Search Engine Marketing

SEO Search Engine Optimization

SERP Search engine result page

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Development history of Rentracks Co., Ltd 4

Table 2.1: Criteria to evaluate website document 19

Table 3.1: Document evaluation of the company website 33

Table 3.2: Statistics of Rentracks’s social media channels 43

Table 3.3: The sales of Japan Premium Store in 60 days from September 29 to November 27, 2019 46

Table 3.4: The general evaluation of social media marketing activities of the company 46

Table 3.5: The email marketing result of Rentracks Vietnam 48

Table 3.6: The general evaluation of email marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam 49

Table 3.7: The general evaluation of the affiliate marketing services 51

Table 3.8: The SWOT analysis and strategies 52

Table 4.1: The recommendations for website document 60

Table 4.2: The content strategy for the website and social media 63

Table 4.3: The persona template 67

Table 4.4: The analysis and optimization form 69

Table 4.5: The goals of the social media marketing strategy 72

Table 4.6: The persona template 73

Table 4.7: Competitive analysis for the imported cosmetics business 74

Table 4.8: The SWOT analysis for social media marketing strategy 74

Table 4.9: The measurement template 1 76

Table 4.10: The measurement template 2 77

Table 4.11: The suggestion for the affiliate promotion campaign 84

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: The company’s logo 3

Figure 1.2: Income Statement Evolution of Rentracks from 2017 to 2019 8

Figure 1.3: Organizational structure chart of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd 10

Figure 1.4: Marketing Department structure chart of Rentracks Vietnam 12

Figure 2.1: How affiliate marketing works 31

Figure 3.1: Rentracks Vietnam’s official webiste 33

Figure 3.2: The comparison between Rentracks’ webiste traffic and AccesstradeVn’s 36

Figure 3.3: The page loading speed of the company website 37

Figure 3.4: Traffic distribution to the company website 38

Figure 3.5: The results of mobile friendly test of the company website 39

Figure 3.6: Traffice source of the company website 39

Figure 3.7: The search engine results with the keyword of “affliate marketing Vietnam” 40

Figure 3.8: The backlink list of the company website 41

Figure 3.9: The comparison of Rentracks’s Facebook page and the competitor’s 42

Figure 3.10: The comparisoon of total engagement of Rentracks’s Facebook page and the competitor’s 43

Figure 3.11: The analysis of activities of Rentracks Vietnam Facebook page for their mobile game from October 29, 2019 to 27 November, 2019 44

Figure 3.12: Analysis of activities of Rentracks’ online cosmetics store on Facebook from September 29, 2019 to November 27, 2019 45

Figure 3.13: The list of Rentracks’s partners 50

Figure 4.1: The report of the most-visited website in Vietnam 56

Figure 4.2: The report of the most-used social media platfroms in Vietnam 56

Figure 4.3: The report of sources of new brand discovery in Vietnam 59 Figure 4.4: The an example of an effective email marketing design template 82

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EVALUATION FORM FOR GUIDANCE INSTRUCTORS i

EVALUATION FORM FOR DEFENSE COMMITTEE ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS viii

FOREWORD 1

1 REASONS FOR THIS RESEARCH 1

2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 1

3 SUBJECT AND SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH 2

4 RESEARCH METHODS 2

5 DISSERTATION STRUCTURE 2

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF RENTRACKS VIETNAM COMPANY LIMITED 3

1.1 The formation and development of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd 3

1.1.1 Overview of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd 3

1.1.2 Development process of Rentracks Co., Ltd 4

1.1.3 The target market, services and competitors 9

1.2 Organizational Structure of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd 10

1.2.1 Organizational Structure 10

1.3 Marketing Department 12

1.3.1 Introduction 12

1.3.2 Marketing organizational chart 12

1.3.3 Functions and missions 12

1.4 Vision, mission, message and business philosophy of Rentracks Vietnam 13

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF DIGITAL MARKETING 15

2.1 Marketing 15

2.2 Digital Marketing 15

2.2.1 Digital Marketing benefits 16

2.2.2 Website Marketing 17

2.2.3 Content marketing 20

2.2.4 Pay-Per-Click advertising 22

2.2.5 Social media marketing 25

2.2.6 Email Marketing 26

2.2.7 Affiliate Marketing 29

CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF DIGITAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES AT RENTRACKS VIETNAM 33

3.1 Website Marketing 33

3.1.1 Website document evaluation 33

3.1.2 Website traffic 36

3.1.3 Page loading speed 37

3.1.4 Traffic distribution and website’s mobile friendliness 38

3.1.5 Traffic source 39

3.1.6 The quality of backlinks 40

3.2 Social Media Marketing 42

3.2.1 Rentracks Vietnam official Facebook page 42

3.2.2 Social media marketing for Rentracks mobile game 43

3.2.3 Social media marketing for selling cosmetics 45

3.2.4 General evaluation of social media marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam 46

3.3 Email Marketing 48

3.3.1 The current state of email marketing activity 48

3.3.2 General evaluation of email marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam 49

3.4 Affiliate Marketing Service 49

3.4.1 Introduction to affiliate marketing service of Rentracks Vietnam 49

3.4.2 General evaluation of Rentracks’ affiliate marketing services 51

3.5 SWOT analysis and strategies 52

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES AT RENTRACKS VIETNAM 55

4.1 The foundation for proposing recommendations for digital marketing activities.

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4.1.1 Overview of Vietnam market 55

4.1.2 Overview of Internet usage in Vietnam 55

4.1.3 Social media usage in Vietnam 56

4.1.4 Mobile device usages in Vietnam 57

4.1.5 E-commerce flatform usages 58

4.1.6 The company goals 59

4.2 Recommendations for digital marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam 60

4.2.1 Recommendations for website marketing 60

4.2.2 Recommendations for social media marketing activities 72

4.2.3 Recommendations for email marketing 79

4.2.4 Recommendations for affiliate marketing services 84

4.2.5 Recommendations for human resources 85

CONCLUSION 87

REFERENCES 88

APPENDIX 90

Appendix 1: Analyze the micro-economic of Vietnam by Porter’s Five Force analysis 90

FOREWORD

1 REASONS FOR THIS RESEARCH

In business, marketing is an indispensable activity of any business in order to survive and thrive The heart of your business success lies in its marketing Most aspects

of a business depend on successful marketing

In the business world, marketing always plays a vital role in any business The marketing compromises many aspects such as advertising, public relations, promotion and sales There is no doubt that without marketing, a business can still offer the best product or service to customers, but their potential customers would not know about it

So, every enterprise will have to choose an appropriate marketing method for their services or product to optimize efficiency and minimize expenditure With the advancement of technology, marketing has been transforming from tradition to digital with many useful tools based on application of digital Digital marketing is currently considered the most effective in the context of marketing with many benefits such as deeper integration by the flexibility, optimization and speed transmission of messages without border of applications

After the time I have worked for Rentracks Vietnam as a digital marketing consultant internship position, I had a deeper understanding of the important role of digital marketing to a business in this digital age Therefore, I decided to choose:

“RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES AT RENTRACKS VIETNAM COMPANY LIMITED” as a topic for my thesis

2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

• To introduce Rentracks Vietnam Company Limited

• To do research about theoretical framework of digital marketing

• To analyze and evaluate of digital marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

• To suggest recommendations to improve the effectiveness of digital marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

3 SUBJECT AND SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

• Subject of the research: matters related to digital marketing at Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

• Scope of research: digital marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd in

2019

4 RESEARCH METHODS

The research methods mainly used in the report are comparative methods, horizontal analysis methods, vertical analysis methods, meta-analysis to give out a right analysis, evaluation, recommendations and conclusion about digital marketing activities

at Rentracks Vietnam company limited

5 THESIS STRUCTURE

• Chapter 1: Introduction of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

• Chapter 2: Theoretical framework of digital marketing

• Chapter 3: Analysis and evaluation of digital marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam

• Chapter 4: Recommendations for digital marketing activities at Rentracks Vietnam

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF RENTRACKS

VIETNAM COMPANY LIMITED 1.1 The formation and development of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

1.1.1 Overview of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

Official name: Rentracks Vietnam Company Limited

Short name: Rentracks

Company logo:

Figure 1.1: The company’s logo

Source : Rentracks Vietnam

Address: the 3rd floor, HBT Building, 456-458 Hai Ba Trung Street, Districts 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Type of company: Companies Limited

Tax code: 0311701551

Administrated authority: Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department

Date of business registration: 23/03/2012

Official website address: http://rentracks.com.vn

The business areas:

• Commission agent service

• Wholesale and retail distribution rights

• Technical consulting services

• Technical analysis and testing services

• Exercise the right to import products according to Vietnam Law

Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd is the company with 100% capital of Japan, founded

in 2012 The company is currently represented by Mr Sanae Yokoyama as a legal representative Their head office is in Tokyo - Japan, with regional offices in Osaka - Japan, and overseas office in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Dalian, Dubai, Hongkong, Taiwan, Philippines, Mongol, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh and China

“Rentracks.com.vn” is one of the affiliate marketing flatform specialized in social media The mission of Rentracksw.com is bridging the gap between the Brand Owners (Advertisers) that needs to do efficient digital marketing and Influencers (Publishers) that needs to introduce the goods and service

1.1.2 Development process of Rentracks Co., Ltd

The development process of Rentracks Co., Ltd over the period of 14 years from

2005 to 2019 is specifically represented by the table below:

Table 1.1: Development history of Rentracks

2005 August Registered as an individual business in Japan

December Established Coel Co., Ltd with a capital of 100.000 Yen

2006 January Corporate name was changed to Rentracks Co., Ltd

February The capital was increased to 10.000.000 Yen

March Rentracks Mobile was started

April The second term started

August The capital was increased to 19.000.000 Yen

September Privacy mark was required

2007 April The third term started

August The capital was increased to 54.000.000 Yen

QUALUXE and Partners, Incorporated were established (represented as Anything Co., Ltd)

November Capital was increased to 94.000.000 Yen

2008 April The fourth term started

September The company relocated to a new building in Tokyo, Japan

2009 April The fifth term started

2010 April The sixth term started

2011 April The seventh term started

June A rental office was established the first time in Bangkok, Thailand

2012 March The subsidiary was established in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

April The eighth term started

May A new branch was opened in Dubai, UAE

2013 April The ninth term started

2014 April The tenth term started

2015 April The eleventh term started

IPO on TSE Mothers

2016 April The twelfth term started

June The capital was 438.968.000 Yen and it would continue to grow to

344.968.000 Yen

2017 March Growth Power Co Ltd was established

The subsidiary was established in Jakarta, Indonesia April The thirteenth term started

May The subsidiary was established in Dalian, China

The subsidiary was established in Bangkok, Thailand August Universal Media Japan Co., Ltd was established

September Anything Co., Ltd to moves to Shibuya Office

2018 April The fourteenth term started

June The capital is 439.925.900 Yen and would continue to increase to

345.925.900 Yen August Acquisition of shares of BEARIS ONE Co., Ltd (Thailand) September The subsidiary was established in Hong Kong, China

December The subsidiary was established in Taiwan

2019 March Acquisition of shares of PT Kawaii wonder Group (Indonesia)

April The fifteenth term started

May Capital is 440,096,000 Yen and it will be increased to 346,096,000

Yen

July Subsidiary is established in Manila, Philippines

August Subsidiary is established in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

September Subsidiary is established in Gurgaon, India

October TECHNOPAL Co., Ltd is established

Subsidiary is established in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia November Subsidiary is established in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Source: Rentracks Vietnam

In general, the table above indicates that Rentracks Co., Ltd has been developing

so fast from the first establishments in Japan in 2005 with the capital of 100.000 Yen Just in 2 years, the capital of the company massively increased to 94.000.000 which was nearly 10 times higher figures of that in 2005 Moreover, we can easily see a very rapid development of the company through its continually increasing capital of 439.925.900 Yen in a year of 2018

The company shows us a strong intention of internationalizing and expanding business over Asia countries When the company was firstly established in Japan, they made so much effort to expend their businesses over years in many nations within Asian such as many branches, subsidiaries in many countries over years such as the rental

office’s establishment in Bangkok (2011), the subsidiaries’ establishment in Vietnam and Dubai (2012), in Indonesia, Bangkok and China (2017), Taiwan and Hong Kong (2018), Philippines (2019) In addition to that, Rentracks Co., Ltd is also a holding company of all its subsidiary company such as Growth Power Co., Ltd which is a trading site focusing on used construction machinery, ships, aircraft and products and Anything Co., Ltd is a marketing partner specializing in the digital domain and Universal Media Japan Co., Ltd, Bearis One Co., Ltd and Technopal Co., Ltd

From 2012, Rentracks Vietnam has been becoming one of the leading firms in the field of digital marketing The company are continually expanding their network in Vietnam by successfully connecting advertisers with publishers and aiming to offer win-win outcome Rentracks has over 7 years Affiliate Service Provider experienced in various fields such as E-Commerce, Beauty, HR Solution, Banking Systems, the company are offering a wide range of fields for publishers to choose whatever they love

to work for

With an experienced technical team, Rentracks Vietnam has been developing their affiliate online system where publishers and advertisers could easily check the results of their work Rentracks offers publishers a very attractive commission to encourage the publisher team Just over a few years, the company has successfully connected many publishers and advertises and help their clients achieve their goals such as boosting sales and enhancing brand awareness by offering them effective digital marketing services

Figure 1.2: Income Statement Evolution of Rentracks from 2017 to 2019

Source: Rentracks Vietnam’s finance department

The graph shows us the income statement evolution including the sales, operating profit, net income, net margin and operating margin of Rentracks Co., Ltd over a period

In conclusion, although there was increasing figures of sales, operating profit and net income still stayed at humble figures Rentracks must have punctual and effective solutions to boost their sales, operating and net income as well in order to become one

of the leading firms in Vietnam in providing Digital Marketing solutions

1.1.3 The target market, services and competitors

The target market of Rentracks would vary from country to country In general, the target market that Rentracks are aiming to become a leader is affiliate marketing service, the area of e-commerce and all businesses with a need of using digital marketing services in Vietnam

Rentracks offered a full stack of digital marketing with a wide range of services such as affiliate marketing, websites development, email marketing, SEO, SEM, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, social media marketing and even IT consulting services One

of the main businesses of Rentrack is to connect publishers and advertisers Rentracks Vietnam helps clients boost their sales and brand awarenesses by utilizing publisher’s network and effective digital marketing strategies Besides, the company is also selling cosmetics imported from Japan on their own online store

Although Affiliate Marketing is a novel area to Vietnam market, there are still many businesses have been engaging in this area with the equivalent business model and this makes this area quite competitive The company’s direct competitor is

“Accesstrade Vietnam” which is a company with the similar business model as an affiliate marketing service provider

Rentracks Vietnam, with many years of experience in supplying the most optimized solutions for each case of businesses all over Asia and even in Middle East and the top-notch technology from Japan, has been enforcing their position as one of the leading companies in Vietnam

1.2 Organizational Structure of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

1.2.1 Organizational Structure

Figure 1.3: Organizational structure chart of Rentracks Vietnam Co., Ltd

Source: Rentracks Vietnam Human Resource Department

Functions and duties of each department:

- Board of directors: is responsible for ensuring the audit is carried out in a timely manner every year Monitoring the work of auditors in the most accurate way; managing, organizing and maintaining good relationships with executives, strategic orientation and common goals for businesses, represent and protect the interests of shareholders and investors in the company

- Chief Executive Officer: At a senior role in the business, one of the duties of the CEO is to develop and implement strategies to promote the growth and increase profits of the business These strategies can be about investment plans, business plans, product development plans, branding plans, etc Moreover, they organize and monitor the implementation of strategies to ensure financial efficiency and cost effectiveness for businesses

- Marketing Department: is responsible for organizing the marketing plans, advertising plans, managing the company’s brand, conducting campaign management for marketing initiatives, producing marketing and promotional materials, creating content providing SEO for the company website The

BOARD OF DIRECTOR

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

HUMAN RESOURCE DEPT MARKETING

department manage and maintain your social media pages, looking for publishers and advertiser, conducting customer and market research

- The finance - accounting department: The finance-accounting department has the function of advising the company's leaders and organizing the implementation of the following tasks: accounting promptly and fully of all assets, equity, liabilities, financial collection and spending activities, business planning and financial planning of the unit; advise the leadership of the unit to direct and perform the inspection and supervision of the management and compliance with the financial and accounting regime

- Human Resource Department: Develop a strategy for developing human resources to meet the development requirements of the company; planning recruitment and measures to implement the plan; receiving records and interviewing workers applying for jobs; making training contracts, probationary contracts and labor contracts; settlement of regimes for employees such as leave, sick, wedding; checking and calculating working days for company office employees; maintaining and implementing the regulations of corporate office, joining the company's salary raising, rewarding and discipline council; presiding over meetings such as salary increase, commendation and discipline

- Technical director: Technical Director provides technical direction on business decisions and in the execution of specific projects The director will be assigned

to a single project, or may oversee a number of projects with related technologies; taking responsibility for technical plan to each initiative; conducting technical research and development; upgrading and modifying the affiliate system, website; oversee application, software, mobile games developed by the company; perform maintenance of the company server, personal computer such as hardware and software

- Technical department: including web developers, software engineer, data processing team, game developers The department is responsible for running the affiliate system and other technical activities

- To attract more publishers and advertisers to build a huge affiliate network

- To boost the sales of imported cosmetics from Japan and Thailand and to become one of the leading cosmetics retailers in Vietnam

- To promote mobile games developed by the company and boost the number of installments

1.3.2 Marketing organizational chart

Figure 1.4: Marketing Department structure chart of Rentracks Vietnam

Source: Marketing Department

1.3.3 Functions and missions

Creative Team

- Client liaison to develop a strong understanding of client requirements and objectives

- Creating ideas that can be used across various platforms to support campaigns

- Being responsible for producing marketing and advertising materials such as: shooting, photo and video editing, designs

Digital team:

- Responsibility for developing, testing, and implementing a strategy to reach and engage target audiences through digital channels like web, mobile, and social

- Planning and implementing SEO for the websites to improve its ranking

- Implementing and managing the websites traffic, website analysis and SEM

- Building advertising and running ads on social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube

- Writing content for website, blogs to promote and to guide advertisers and publishers to know how to use affiliate systems

- Implementing strategic content plans for website, social media channels

- Writing advertorials to promote imported cosmetics from Japan

- Writing motivational stories to attract publishers and advertisers to join affiliate marketing network of the company

1.4 Vision, mission, message and business philosophy of Rentracks Vietnam

The corporation mission is “bridging the gap between the Brand Owners (Advertisers) that needs to do efficient digital marketing and Influencers (Publishers) that needs to introduce the goods and service.”

The vision: “Provide suitable information and convenience for people making full use of Internet”

Rentracks believe that "Rentracks-ism" is a core essence to achieve their mission

“Rentracks-ism” is shared as their management philosophy and business policies Management philosophy: “Giving adequate information and convenience to people.” There are 5 key points of Rentracks Philosophy which respectively are:

• Strong belief – “You only live once Let’s live to the fullest”

• Sense of responsibility – “Always be conscious of surrounding people and win their trust.”

• Modesty – “Not to be arrogant and be conscious that others make it possible for you to live.”

• Mach Speed – “You are not the only one who is working hard Handle things at

a speed that does not fall behind than others”

• Ability to get things done – “Recognize that thinking is of course important but meaningless unless you have the ability to get things done”

Business policies: “Having belief, sense of responsibility, humility, speed and ability to execute” as a business motto Rentracks will let every people related with them

to grow They will explore ways to make people happy and offer their happiness In Rentracks, all employees usually read out loud "Rentracks-ism" at every morning's meeting to familiarize with their mind A core business in Rentracks is "ASP" business (Affiliate Service Provider), web-consulting business This year, each staff members are seriously and honestly working under the goal of “aiming to become by far the best customer satisfaction in ASP.”

Rentracks are aiming to become not just “ordinary” but “by far” the best, with this

"Rentracks-ism." All of “Rentracks-ism” looks nothing special However, they strongly believe that the company will become very interesting and exciting if every single person seriously embodies our belief They deeply feel honor of working together with person who thinks our belief is interesting, exciting, and like to pursue together

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS OF

DIGITAL MARKETING 2.1 Marketing

According to American Marketing Association (2007): “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”

Philip Kotler’s definition of Marketing (1991) is – “Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with other The term also explained that marketing is a combination of the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.”

2.2 Digital Marketing

“Digital marketing is a form of direct marketing which links consumers with sellers electronically using interactive technologies like emails, websites, online forums and newsgroups, interactive television, mobile communications etcetera” (Kotler and Armstrong, 2009) “It facilitates many-to-many communications due to its high level of connectivity and is usually executed to promote products or services in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner” (Bains et al., 2011)

Digital Marketing's definition for digital marketing is " Digital Marketing is a sub branch of traditional Marketing and uses modern digital channels for the placement of products e.g downloadable music , and primarily for communicating with stakeholders e.g customers and investors about brand , products and business progress (Royle & Laing, 2014) In digital marketing, marketing channels are important as in traditional

marketing because digital marketing strategies are organized considering these channels Mostly used digital marketing channels are e-mail, social media, content, events and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Mostly budget allocated areas in digital marketing are data and analytics, marketing automation, e-mail marketing, social media marketing and content management.”

2.2.1 Digital Marketing benefits

- Convenient

With Digital Marketing, your business can operate 24/7 without having to worry about opening hours or overtime pay for employees, and also more convenient for customers when they can order online, customers can find your online store anytime, anywhere

- Approach

With Digital Marketing you can eliminate geographical distance, you can sell to customers anywhere, any country without opening stores there, expanding target markets, organizations organizing export business without building a network of distribution channels in other countries However, if your business is international, you should use localization services to make sure your products conform to the local market and comply with local business regulations Service of localization means knowing how

to customize the product and use the language to suit the differences in each market

- Cost-effective

The cost of doing Digital Marketing is much lower than that of traditional marketing Businesses do not have to pay for rent or maintenance, you can order according to your needs to save warehouse costs

- Personalization

Personalization is a strong point of digital marketing You can personalize your offers by building a purchase history and customer preferences By tracking websites and product information that potential customers visit, you can identify their interests The information available from tracking the websites they visit also provides data to help build cross-selling campaigns that can increase the value of sales

- Social media

Digital Marketing allows you to take advantage of the growing importance of social media An article on the Harvard Business School Executive Education website highlights the link between social networking and online revenue growth According to the article, a group of customers who have a strong interaction with social networks generates sales of around 5% You can take advantage of this type of influence by incorporating social networking tools in your Digital Marketing campaigns

2.2.2 Website Marketing

“To provide users with the results Search Engines are involving programmed indexes of words One search attempt can result on thousands of outcomes related to the given topic Normally, the most suitable pages appear on the top of search result, allowing getting the best matches of the information For the user search process does not normally go more difficult than typing the word in the field of Search Engine, finding the right or the most suitable page from the results and clicking on it On the other hand, companies do not have to do anything to be found by Search Engine and gain more traffic to their web page, if they do not want to Nevertheless, to influence the traffic and

to boost the number of users reaching the site, search marketing should be involved into companies’ digital marketing activities.” (Moran, Hunt 2009, 3.)

“Marketing experts must come up with attractive websites, find a way to attract customers to visit the web site, keep them there for a while and make them frequently come back to their website.” (Kotler, P., Bowen, T John., Makens, C James 2010)

“The term search engine optimization describes a diverse set of activities that you can perform to increase the number of desirable visitors who come to your website via search engines (you may also have heard these activities called search engine marketing

or search marketing) This includes things you do to your site itself, such as making changes to your text and HTML code It also includes using specially formatted text or documents to communicate directly with the search engines or pursuing other sources

of traffic by creating listings or attracting links, tracking, research, and competitive review are also part of the SEO package SEO is not advertising, although it may include

an advertising component It is not public relations (PR), although it includes monitoring your reputation and crafting your branding similar to PR As a continually evolving area

of online marketing, SEO may sound complicated, but it is very simple in its fundamental goal: gaining targeted visitors.” (Jennifer Grappone, Gradiva Couzin, 2008)

❖ The benefits of website marketing:

- Website marketing is the process of marketing products quickly in line with the company's product strategy globally Support the products of the business

to be outstanding and popular

- Support businesses to fully introduce the products and company services customers to create trust for customers to trust and use

- Website marketing has a much lower cost than all types of communication marketing services and brings higher efficiency than expected

- Website marketing helps businesses receive a lot of feedback from customers Contribute to promoting businesses to catch up with the market trend Besides, it also holds a lot of information for customers

❖ Criteria to evaluate website document

Table 2.1: Criteria to evaluate website document

Evaluation of website document How to interpret the basics Accuracy - Who wrote the page and can you

contact him or her?

- What is the purpose of the document and why was it produced?

- Is this person qualified to write this document?

- Make sure author provides e-mail

or a contact address/phone number

- Know the distinction between author and Webmaster

Authority - Who published the document and

is it separate from the

"Webmaster?"

- Check the domain of the document, what institution publishes this document?

- Does the publisher list his or her qualifications?

- What credentials are listed for the authors)?

published? Check URL domain

Objectivity - What goals/objectives does this

page meet?

- How detailed is the information?

- What opinions (if any) are xpressed by the author?

e Determine if page is a mask for advertising; if so information might be biased

- View any Web page as you would an infommercial on television Ask yourself why was this written and for whom? Currency - When was it produced?

- When was it updated'

- How up-to-date are the links (if any) ?

- How many dead links are on the page?

- Are the links current or updated regularly?

- Is the information on the page outdated?

Coverage - Are the links (if any) evaluated and

do they complement the documents' theme?

- Is it all images or a balance of text and images?

- Is the information presented cited correctly?

- If page requires special software

to view the information, how much are you missing if you don't have the software?

- Is it free or is there a fee, to obtain the information?

Source: Jim Kapoun, who is currently the Library Director at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa The chart is from his article, "Teaching Web Evaluation to Undergrads," which appeared in College and Research Libraries News, July/August 1998: 522-523

2.2.3 Content marketing

According to Mandloys, Digital Agency (2013), content marketing is: “The creation of content that is relevant, compelling, entertaining and valuable and this content must be consistently provided to maintain or change the behavior of customers Content marketing is an essential marketing activity that helps retain customers, acquire new ones and helps companies to build a strong brand.”

According to Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach (2016), “content marketing involves the planning, creation, governance, and maintenance of content, whereas content marketing strategy focuses on the narrow discipline of marketing content.”

❖ There are basically 11 steps to develop a content strategy:

- Set goals for strategy

- Develop KPIs

- Identify target customers

- Do keyword research

- Choose content type

- Set frequency calendar

- Prepare publishing procedures

- Decide distribution channels

- Optimization and action items

❖ Other terms used in this thesis:

Conversion: “is a technical term used in e-commerce operations to describe the

track a consumer takes through Internet advertising or search system, navigating an commerce website and finally converting to a sale.” (Ozolins 2012)

e-Click-through rate (CTR): “is a way of measuring the success of an online

advertising campaign for a particular website as well as the effectiveness of an email campaign by the number of users that clicked on a specific link.” (American Marketing Association 2013)

Reach: “is the percentage of people in a target market who are exposed to an

advertising schedule at least once.” (Barker et al 2013, 296)

Frequency: “is the number of times an individual views a commercial in a

particular advertising schedule” (Barker et al 2013, 296)

Cost per action – CPA: is a form of calculating advertising costs based on the

number of customers who actually buy the product/fill in the registration form/call/ email after they see and interact with the ad

CPC/PPC - Cost Per Click/Pay Per Click: CPC/PPC is the method of calculating

advertising cost based on each click on the ad CPC is currently the most popular pricing model in online advertising

Display Advertising: Display Advertising is the term just Display Advertising, is

the form of banner advertising in electronic newspapers, or banner/rich media advertising through advertising networks

Impression: is the term for the number of times the ad is displayed counted as 1

impression

SERP - Search Engine Result Page: is the search results page displayed after the

user performs a search operation

Bounce rate: is the percentage of sessions that access only one page on the

website, then leave immediately without clicking on any other content

❖ Benefits of content marketing:

Pulizzi and Barrett (2009, 9-20) explain six reasons businesses are making the change to content marketing:

- “There is a change in buyer attitudes toward traditional media and the credibility

of content: Buyers need content that makes them smarter and more knowledgeable.”

- “Traditional media sources can’t be counted on to assist you in reaching your customers: Social media tools can provide better and more buyer data than traditional media partners.”

- “Media companies are shrinking their budgets, thus reduce content quality: These continued cutbacks reveal significant opportunity for businesses to become the publisher themselves to attract the information-thirsty customers.”

- “Selling to your customers is becoming more challenging: Even though traditional marketing will always work, it is clear that the future of marketing will be centred on conversations and engagement between business and customers.”

- “Because technology is both cheap and easy to use, even small companies can deliver great content solutions to a targeted customer base: By becoming the publisher themselves, businesses can gather a huge amount of data relating to current and future customers easily and inexpensively They can say goodbye to the middleman.”

- “High-quality editorial from the business expert is trusted: Company should be the expert of their own field; therefore, they should possess the most trusted content resource that will attract and retain customers and prospects.”

2.2.4 Pay-Per-Click advertising

PPC stands for Pay-per-click - a form of marketing where marketers pay a fee each time a user clicks on their ad This is a way to buy the visit to the website, instead of generating natural traffic

PPC can provide us with instantaneous visits to our website and allow immediate evaluation of our business model in the shortest possible time However, paying for each click value is highly competitive, and must take into account spending budget over a long period of time when we advertise, carefully target ads, monitor our competitors pictures

❖ The benefits of PPC advertising/Google Ads

Google Ads lets us take advantage of the benefits of online advertising: showing our ads to the right people, in the right place, and at the right time Google Ads offers

many benefits, but here are the key ones:

- Target our ads:

Targeting gives us the ability to show the ad to reach people with specific interests,

in particular, people interested in our products and services and show them ads Google Ads provides different targeting methods:

+ Keywords: Words and phrases related to their products and services, used to display ads when customers search for those terms or visit related websites

+ Ad position: Display ads on Google search results pages and sites in the Google Search and Display Networks

+ Age range, location and language: Select the age range, geographic location and language of their customers

+ Date, time and frequency: Show our ad at certain hours or days of the week and determine how often it will appear

+ Devices: The ads can appear on all types of devices, and we can finetune their devices on and when

- Evaluate the success:

With Google Ads, if someone clicks on the ad, we will know If they clicked on the ad and then, done something valuable for our business such as: buy a product, download an app or order phone

By seeing which ads get clicks and which ones do not, we can quickly know where

to invest in their campaign In turn, it can quickly increase return on investment

We can get other valuable data, including how much it costs us on average to advertise leading to our customers' online purchases or phone calls And we can also use analytics tools to learn about their customers' shopping habits For example, how long they tend to research their product before making a purchase

- Manage the campaign:

Google Ads also provides us with tools to easily manage and monitor accounts

If we manage multiple Google Ads accounts, My Client Center (MCC) accounts are a powerful tool that can save our time This account allows us to easily view and manage all Google Ads accounts from a single location

We can also manage our Google Ads account offline with Google Ads Editor, a free and downloadable desktop application that allows us to make changes to our account quickly and convenient With Google Ads Editor, we can download our account information, edit offline campaigns, then upload our changes to Google Ads We can use Google Ads Editor to manage, edit and view multiple accounts at the same time, copy or move items between ad groups and campaigns, and undo and redo multiple changes while editing edit campaign

❖ There are 6 steps to make a successful PPC campaign strategy:

Step 1: Set up objectives

Step 3: Identify target audiences

- Define the ads measurements

Step 6: Analysis and optimizations

2.2.5 Social media marketing

According to Evans (2008), “Social Media relates to a self-generated, authentic conversation between people about a particular subject of mutual interest, built on the thoughts and experiences of the participants Therefore, Social Media is definitely all about sharing and aiming at a collective vision, often intending to offer a more appropriated or informed choice at the end Furthermore, Social Media changes over time as it allows people to generate the content in a participative way whenever they want to add any additional piece of information Social Media are also evolving constantly as they are part of internet high technologies, which are modified regularly with additional or replacing features.”

Social Media covers a wide variety of “online and mobile, word-of-mouth forums including social networking websites, blogs, company sponsored discussion boards and chat rooms, consumer-to-consumer email, consumer product or service ratings websites and forums, Internet discussion boards and forums, and sites containing digital audio, images, movies, or photographs, to name a few” (Hollensen, 2011)

“Social Media Marketing is marketing that focuses on people, not products.” (Diamond, 2008)

“The products can be presented by the company with as many qualitative features and promotional tools as possible, but what really matters is the comments and

appreciations left by the customers People provide the content, and this is the reason why Social Media Marketing is so scary and challenging for marketers They do not control the marketing content anymore Negative word-of-mouth can be spread worldwide in a couple of minutes only With the explosion of Internet-based messages transmitted through the Social Media, they are now a main factor in influencing many aspects of consumer behaviour, such as awareness, consideration, information gathering, opinions, attitudes, purchasing decisions and post-purchase evaluation International marketers need to recognize the power and critical nature of the conversations being hold by consumers using Social Media Consequently, the ability

of influencing the crowd effectively is the main quality needed by the marketing team.” (Evans, 2008)

The benefits of social media marketing:

- Awareness building for brands is not limited

- Increase traffic on websites

- Creating interactive channels from multi-dimensional user channels/fanpage very easily

- Build a social group social community with an association organization feature

- Develop social network signals to support SEO web development activities

- Developing revenue and minimizing optimization can be easily controlled

- It will make it easier to achieve many goals in the marketing strategy

2.2.6 Email Marketing

According to E Fariborzi and M Zahedifard (2012): “E-mail marketing is one of the subsets of the following: E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses E-mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience In its broadest sense, every E-mail sent to a potential or current customer could

be considered E-mail marketing However, the term is usually used to refer to:

- Sending E-mail messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business

- Sending E-mail messages with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately

- Adding advertisements to E-mail messages sent by other companies to their customers.”

“The use of email marketing creates the opportunity to offer any potential interested guest to arrive at the right time at the minimum cost, and the results of such activities must be measurable, which creates a basis for decisions on future marketing activities.” (Kotler, P., Koller, K.L 2008)

❖ The benefits of email marketing:

- Low cost

One of the most obvious advantages of email marketing is lower costs compared

to mainstream marketing channels There are no printing or postage costs and no fees are paid in exchange for exposure on a given billboard, magazines or TV channel We only need to pay our service provider a budget to send thousands of emails at once, but these costs are much lower than what you would pay using other marketing channels

- Reach to target audiences

Email marketing is one of the few channels that exactly touches your desired audience Most businesses using the platform only send email to those who have signed

up to receive them This can allow for much higher conversion rates because a business targets people who are already interested in their brand

- Submit exactly the target we want to market

Most marketing professionals will be happy to pay for sure that their ads can target them who are interested in their brand Email marketers can go one step further, by sending emails only to subscribers who meet certain criteria

If we want to promote our product in a specific area, we can create an email template with useful content and email it to people who live in certain areas If sporting

goods are sold, it can only be arranged for people who have shown an interest in sports

to receive emails

- Data monitoring

With email marketing, we can organize and track all data to improve our business activities and understand how email marketing campaigns work For example, we can know how many people open emails, how many people click on links on emails as well

as the number and conversion rate (tracking sales compared to the number of emails sent) Those numbers are the result of our email marketing campaign

We will also be able to track which customers forward emails, stop receiving messages or mark them as spam From there, We can better understand the recipient interaction for our email and make changes to avoid being marked as spam These data will help us identify the best content for our recipient

- Automate email marketing campaigns

Unlike direct marketing, email marketing can work automatically Our company can easily schedule an effective monthly or weekly email delivery

Automated features are extremely useful, especially if we are preparing to launch

a seasonal sale, advertising or announcing events planned for the year With email marketing, we can set up email alerts and set a time to send them in at special times to help customers know your company's products and promotions

- Promote sales

One of the important reasons our company should use email marketing is that they can drive sales Surely, we do not want our email to look like spam, so we will have better ways to use email marketing to sell

2.2.7 Affiliate Marketing

❖ Concepts of affiliate marketing

According to Gallaugher et al., “affiliate marketing is classified as a type of online advertising, where merchants share percentage of sales revenue generated by each customer, who arrived to the company's website via a content provider Content provider, also referred to as affiliate, usually places an online ad (for example a banner

or a text link) at its website When visitors click at the ad, they are redirected to merchant's website and affiliation is tracked by a cookie stored on visitors' computers.” (Gallaugher, Auger, Barnir, 2001)

“Merchants, within online marketing called advertisers, pay for the content providers' services only when a visitor coming from their website executes a specified action Such action can be a purchase of a product, filling in a form with personal data, subscription to a newsletter etc.” (Gallaugher, Auger, Barnir, 2001)

An agreement between the content provider and merchant is referred to as affiliate program

“Affiliate program as an arrangement between a company and many affiliate firms characterized by unidirectional linking with the purpose of generating traffic and transactions similar to instant access to salesforce of thousands.” (Chatterjee, 2002)

“Employing affiliate marketing is advantageous for merchants from many perspectives Hoffman and Novak claim that by employing affiliate marketing, merchants can let thousands of independent websites, also called content providers, to display ads for its products and only pay them when the ad would actually lead to a sale Advertising costs move from fixed to variable costs, which can facilitate allocating money to advertising: In the revenue - sharing mode, the price of advertising is a function of the desire response by the market Measurable market responses include key marketing objectives like unit sales, software downloads, qualified leads, product