Digital Marketing Assignment: Impact of Instagram & Youtube on Fashion Industry

Question

Task: Write a well researched and well structured digital marketing assignment report discussing about the positive impact of digital marketing on fashion industry.

Answer

Introduction
In this digital marketing assignment report, we will be discussing digital marketing and its influence on the fashion industry. Our main focus will be on Instagram and Youtube marketing. The latest technological developments have a huge impact on business. The online technology has revolutionized marketing operations. Now, there is a lot more competition in the market than ever, and customers have to decide on a wide range of products. To retain customer's loyalty, an organization has to be more vigilant and has to reduce the communication gap with the customers to better understand the needs and desires of the customer. That's where digital media comes in as it provides the organization a medium to contact the customer directly. The digital media platforms are binding people together. Social media has revolutionized the ways of managing a relationship with consumers. The marketers are using social media sites to expand their businesses, and they use these sites to learn about consumers and then develop business strategies(Lancaster et al., 2018).

To initiate, develop, and maintain a relationship, communication is very important as it provides a medium for understanding the consumer and eliminating any confusion. Social media acts as the mean of communication for brands to raise awareness about themselves. Even though face to face interaction is very powerful, still social media has provided efficient alternatives for communication. There is the option of instant messages by which brand and consumer contact and this conversation are saved on their websites, which help developing future strategies. Today's business is largely influenced by the demands of the customers. Now, people like to see reviews of a product before buying it. To stay in business, we need to actively participate in relevant communities to interact with the consumer and have an influence. Social is not just a trend to be followed; instead, it has shown its importance in building customer relations, loyalty, and promotion of business. Social media provides an open and free mode of communication. The security of new generation websites is increasing, and people have more trust in online markets than ever. In this writing, we will be studying the influence of Instagram and Youtube marketing on the fashion industry.(Asheq& Hossain, 2019)

Types of digital media marketing
There are several types of digital media marketing, and some important types are given as follows:

Organic
The organic digital media marketing covers the traffic of all the search engines like google and yahoo. If you have a well-organized website, then search engine places it in the top results, and more people will come across your website while searching for a specific product or topic related to your website. So invest in your website and search engine optimization.

Email
It includes the traffic of email messages. It may include messages of
• Promotional email campaigns
• Triggered email campaigns
• Transactional email campaigns
• To increase the traffic here, you need to grow your email and contacts.

Paid search
This includes the traffic that comes to your website as a result of paid websites of your product on different search engines. It is also referred to as

i. Search engine marketing
ii. Pay-per-click
This type of campaigns can be launched on

i. Google AdWords
ii. Bing ads
The people who are looking to divert traffic from search engines to their websites should focus on investing and launching their google shopping campaigns or bing product ads, as this mode of ads produces the most traffic and best return on investment. (Ducange et al., 2019)

Content marketing
This type of traffic comes from blogs, videos, and digital downloads related to your website. It is referred to as inbound marketing. Creating this sort of content that provide either value or entertainment can be very helpful as it is quickly picked up by search engines and is shared on social media platforms.

Social media
It includes traffic coming from social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and others. It can either be free organic traffic or paid. Over the last few years, social media networks have made it difficult for businesses to succeed in free initiatives; now, you've to pay for a successful approach. (Fávero, 2019)

Affiliates
This traffic comes from affiliated partners as a commission on all completed tasks and orders. You can launch your affiliate program on

i. CJ.com
ii. ShareASale.com
iii. RakutenLinkshare

Referrals
This includes the traffic that comes from everything else, including apps. It includes display ads, sponsored blog spots, and digital newspapers. It includes everything that is not covered in any other channel, whether it is free or paid.

Direct
It includes direct traffic that comes without any other medium. People type the URL of your website in the search engine to reach your website. It allows you to measure the impact of your offline traffic i.e., radio, tv, or events. For example, people visiting your website after viewing your ad on tv.

Social media marketing
The latest and most popular trend in the market for promoting a product is social media. The traditional tools very expensive and covered a very limited area; the marketing strategies at that time were based on individual markets. At that time, it was very difficult for a company to cover a whole geographical area by one advertisement campaign because every country has its TV channels. But the advent of social media has changed the approach to making a marketing strategy. The very basic aim of marketing is to learn about the requirements and desires of a consumer and then using the resources of the business in the most efficient way to fulfill the needs of the consumer(Enyinda et al., 2018). With the help of social media, the companies can directly contact the consumer for feedback and get their product rated and then use the feedback of consumers to bring changes in the product as per the needs of the consumer. This way, marketing has been revolutionized by social media.

By social media, the consumer is gaining knowledge about everything. The consumer shares their experiences of a product on social media, and it has an impact on the sales of the company. It is an era in which people are more educated, so, a company must spread positive news about its product, and social platform can be a good mean to do so. So, this spread of positive information about the product and services of a company will help it retain its place in the market and generate loyal customers. The most positive fact about social media is that it has helped the business expand globally. Social media is open and free to use, so anyone from any part of the world can access it, and the companies can use it to contact customers or communities living in other parts of the world and build a relationship and target audience there. Social media marketing is nothing like traditional marketing(Kannan & Li, 2017).

Social media is a natural conversational platform and is used to directly contact and build a relationship with the consumer and to satisfy their needs. The social media platforms have helped the companies to spread good words about themselves and their products, resulting in higher sales and better consumer satisfaction than ever. Traditional media has an offline channel and are one way, but social media is a social channel with two-way communications. Social media is improving by the time, and everyone can take part in the conversation on social media, and these are the people that influence the product. In traditional marketing, communication is one-sided, while social media provides a means for a collective approach that creates a collection of information. This information helps the business to revise and re-develop their business strategies to attract maximum customers and retain their loyalty.

Benefits of social media marketing The benefits of social media marketing are
Cost-related
It is the main advantage of social media marketing. There are very low financial barriers as compared to other means. The social media websites are usually free, and you can make an account on these websites and then post the advertisement for your product. Traditional marketing costs millions of dollars; on the other hand, social marketing sites are free even for businesses. A very successful social media marketing campaign can be run by limited to no investment(Stephen, 2016). To reach your target audience with little to no investment has substantial impacts on your business, and people who want the information related to your product follows you there. Social media has a viral nature, and anyone who reads about your product can spread it further, so the information goes to a lot of people.

Social interaction
Social media has created a new form of social interaction. Nowadays, people spend a lot of their time on social media. Social network sites attract a lot of people, and they are their ultimate destination on social media. Social media has enabled people to communicate with far more people than before, and this communication has affected the behavior of consumers. Consumer behavior studies have revealed that people trust the information on the third-party sited more than the product, and these reviews by the third party influence their buying decisions(Yanes & Berger, 2017).

Interactivity
Interactivity is defined as the influence of people in modifying the form or content of information on social media. It has become a defining character of new media technologies; it gives more information to the consumer and increases the engagement of consumers with social media content. An increased level of interactivity results in more involvement and a positive attitude to the source of information. This ability to interact has enabled the consumer to perform two-way communication. Active control takes place, and it has involvement from all the involved parties.

Targeted market
Social media has enabled companies to target a specific audience and amend their product according to their needs and interest. The companies use smart advertisement skills to find and reach the audience who would be interested in their product. Furthermore, word of mouth enables the information to travel far more. The traditional marketing means no longer interest or influences the consumer. (Järvinen & Karjaluoto, 2015)

Customer service
It is a very crucial area. It enables the customer to directly contact the company and seek information about a specific product. This helps the customer in the buying process, apart from these; some websites provide a toll-free phone number as well. Order fulfillment and fast delivery are a crucial part of this business. A fast and efficient delivery system increases the loyalty of the consumer.

Instagram marketing
With the advent of social media marketing, many companies have actively participated in using these means to promote their brands. In this busy lifestyle, people prefer to look at visual advertisements rather than traditional ones that are filled with words. That's where Instagram comes into play; Instagram is a mobile application for sharing photos and videos. Many companies use it to promote their brands and to get in contact with their customers. Instagram makes use of visual base strategies. On Instagram, everything is either about photograph or video, primarily photograph. It is a common saying that a picture says a thousand words, so, these photographs act as a silent salesman for the company(Laing & Khattab, 2016). On Instagram, a photograph can reach thousands of social media users by the use of proper hashtags; you just type in the hashtags, and the application presents to you everything related to it. Due to this, fashion companies are now rushing to Instagram, which acts as an online store for their products. Instagram is highly popular among the new generation as well as brands. Many brands are actively using Instagram to display and promote their products.Social media provides an easy means for companies to contact the consumer and learn about their needs, the comment and direct message section of Instagram help the company to directly come in contact with the customer(Taiminen& Karjaluoto, 2015). A photograph of a product shared on Instagram can reach millions of customers in no time by the use of proper hashtags, and then the comments on the post provide feedback about the product. Most of the social media users want to know how a company interacts with its customers, so, they pay special attention to the comment section, so, if a company pays proper attention to the feedback on the posts and provide support to customers, then it builds trust and improve relationships with the customer, and ultimately leads to loyal customers. The direct message function is the cherry on the top, by which the customer can directly contact the company in a better way(Nadda et al., 2015).

Instagram marketing influence on the fashion industry
Visibility on a social platform is very important for all brands so that they can compete with rest. Instagram is the go-to option for most of them as it provides a visual marketing opportunity. The competitors bring in the new collection now and then and promote it on social networking sites to remain in business. In today's world, visual content is the strongest mode of communication as people pay more attention to them. While marketing on social media, the content should be of high quality as small mistakes can break the consumer's trust in the brand(Wei et al., 2016). The influencers are the go-to option of brands to promote their products on social media, the influencer's content reaches millions of people, and collaboration with them highly promotes the product. Moreover, marketing on Instagramdoesn't feel like an advertisement. A picture of your product or influencer just appears in front of the user while scrolling through his feed. In this way, the brand promotes its product without any effort. Plus try to build a strong relationship with the customer, a person who buys from a product is bound to revisit in the future, so, try to build a strong relationship with the customer by providing high-quality products actively uploading photographs of your product on Instagram and participate in the comment section with the customer.

Youtube marketing
It is the second largest search engine and is the third most frequently visited website throughout the world. It has the largest video content that is shared worldwide. Youtube is free to use, and anyone can access it, make an account on it, or use it as a digital platform to promote their product. It provides organizations and brands to share their video content with their customers. Making a channel on Youtube helps the brands to share video content of their product with customers, or they can use the advertisement option of Youtube and have an advertisement of their product featured in someone else's videos. The brands can achieve this by paying the Youtube to promote their product; Youtube will feature an advertisement of their product in other videos on the platform, thus increasing the reach of the company and having them come in contact with more social media users. YouTube offers different types of advertisements like display, bumper, video, and sponsored cards. The effectiveness of Youtube marketing communication is regularly evaluated(Kotler et al., 2019).

Youtube marketing influence on the fashion industry
Youtube act as an opinion leader in the world of social media; this means Youtube can better interpret and explain the media present on social platforms. The information through social media, especially through such powerful opinion leaders, tends to move much faster than the traditional methods, and they have got a huge impact on customers. They influence the customer to buy their clothes by directly relating trendsetting with persuasion. Videos can alter the thoughts of the public so, it is very important to remain active on this site. The influencers on this platform actively promote a product, as well as persuade the customers to buy it in their video content. The young generation is easily influenced by social media and influencers. The people also tend to trust them more(Richard et al., 2015). A Youtube video presents the product in all possible angles, and the customer can view it from all sides. Youtube’s algorithm features the advertisement for our product in other videos present on the platform. When a social media user taps on a video on Youtube, a small advertisement related to the product is played. First, this helps in greater scope for the brand, as a lot of people come across their advertisements. So, the brands can promote their products on social media with very fewer resources as compared to that of traditional market expenditures.

Conclusion
Digital marketing is a very powerful means of product promotion. The market is free to use and easily accessible. There are various types of digital marketing strategies, but out of all of the social media marketing is the best. It is free to use, easily accessible, and almost everyone is on it. This mode of marketing is cheaper as compared to traditional marketing, and is more far-reaching and helps the organizations to come directly in contact with the customers and build a strong relationship and loyalty.This mode of marketing provides various advantages over the traditional market as it is cost-effective, improves interaction, and enables companies to get feedback directly from the consumer. The Q/A section and direct message option have enabled the companies to build a strong relationship with the customer by providing them with supports and by designing their product strategies as per the requirements and desires of the consumers(Scott, 2015).

The Instagram and Youtube marketing strategy have been successful for all organizations, especially the fashion industry. People tend to like and trust what they see on social media, and their likeness is greatly influenced by the influencers present on these sites. People also prefer to see a visual advertisement or a short video clip rather than reading a text. These problems have been solved by Instagram and Youtube, respectively. Instagram is free to use a pictorial form of social communication where people share photographs. Brands upload photographs of their product on it, and it goes in the feed of thousands of customers. On the other side, Youtube provides a means for advertisements. So, using digital media for product promotion is an excellent business strategy as it saves brands millions of dollars, and the products of the company reach to audiences in other parts of the world. To remain in the competition, it is a must for all brands to actively participate in social media activities as people tend to opt online shopping more than ever.

References
Asheq, A. Al, & Hossain, M. U. (2019). SME performance?: Impact of market, customer, and brand orientation. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal.

Ducange, P., Fazzolari, M., Petrocchi, M., & Vecchio, M. (2019). An effective Decision Support System for social media listening based on cross-source sentiment analysis models. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2018.10.014

Enyinda, C. I., Ogbuehi, A. O., & Mbah, C. H. (2018). Building pharmaceutical relationship marketing and social media impact: An empirical analysis. International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPHM-02-2017-0007

Fávero, M. B. (2019). Marketing digital. In Marketing digital. https://doi.org/10.33872/edufatecie.mktdigital.2019

Järvinen, J., & Karjaluoto, H. (2015). The use of Web analytics for digital marketing performance measurement. Industrial Marketing Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.04.009

Kannan, P. K., & Li, H. "Alice." (2017). Digital marketing: A framework, review, and research agenda. International Journal of Research in Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2016.11.006

Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Hooi, D. H. (2019). MARKETING 4.0: MOVING FROM TRADITIONAL TO DIGITAL.Digital marketing assignment In Asian Competitors. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789813275478_0004

Laing, K. R., & Khattab, U. (2016). Social Media: Commentary, Extrapolation, and Development of a Mediated Communication Analysis Model. Journal of Social & Behavioural Research in Business.

Lancaster, G., Massingham, L., & Ozuem, W. (2018). Digital marketing. In Essentials of Marketing Management. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315177014-11 Nadda, V. K., Dadwal, S. S., & Firdous, A. (2015). Social media marketing. In Handbook of Research on Integrating Social Media into Strategic Marketing. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-8353-2.ch021

Scott, J. (2015). Digital communications. In Fundamentals of Public Relations and Marketing Communications in Canada. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429020216-4 Stephen, A. T. (2016). The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer behavior. In Current Opinion in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.10.016

Taiminen, H. M., & Karjaluoto, H. (2015). The usage of digital marketing channels in SMEs. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-05-2013-0073

Wei, Y. C., Gu, Z. H., & Duan, J. (2016). Design and realization of middle and small-scale clothing enterprises evaluation system through social media. Textile Bioengineering and Informatics Symposium Proceedings 2016 - 9th Textile Bioengineering and Informatics Symposium, TBIS 2016, in conjunction with the 6th Asian Protective Clothing Conference, APCC 2016.

Yanes, P. A., & Berger, P. D. (2017). HOW WECHAT HAS CHANGED THE FACE OF MARKETING IN CHINA. In British Journal of Marketing Studies.

Yasmin, A., Tasneem, S., & Fatema, K. (2015). Effectiveness of Digital Marketing in the Challenging Age: An Empirical Study. The International Journal of Management Science and Business Administration. https://doi.org/10.18775/ijmsba.1849-5664-5419.2014.15.1006