Support for tutors, trainers and teachers
Guest talks [note; not lectures - see below]. It is common practice for authors of business books to use their publication[s] as a route to increased income on the presentation circuit. That was never my aim - my income came from the university I worked for. However, I have now retired and not only do I have some time on my hands, but I travel around the country for leisure purposes ... or following my football team. I also know that universities do not normally pay for guest lecturers - or even expenses. So, if you would like me to come and talk to your students drop me an email [the address is on my profile page] and we'll see if something can be arranged.
Here's some books on digital marketing that I would recommend. Most are not new - but that is where their value lies.
LECTURE SLIDES
The publishers tell me I must have a deck of PowerPoint slides available for the book. This is problematic for me. You see, I gave up on lectures for my modules in around 2005 - they did not suit my style of teaching. I have used slides for talks/speeches, but they are - in effect - simply prompts to remind me what subject I'm covering next. At the other end of the scale are those presenters whose lectures consist of them reading out the contents of their slides [I once stood in for an ill colleague - I was given her ppt for the one hour lecture ... it consisted of 47 slides]. So for this book, a compromise: a deck of slides which are made up of the subjects covered in each chapter. You are quite welcome to use them as is - or add/delete content as best suits your delivery style.
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
THE CASE STUDIES
Throughout the book case studies are used as both examples of how theory might be practiced and as exercises for readers to complete. Although the case studies are fictional, they all characterize real life situations. The cases are not intended to be comprehensive or exhaustive - merely a snap shot of a particular state of affairs within what is normally a complex environment. Although all of the case studies are UK based, their geographic location could be changed to suit readers' needs - as could any of the details. They're all listed on the case study page.
EXERCISES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND CASE-STUDY EXERCISE SUPPORT
When I was teaching - I've retired - a quote from Socrates [the Greek philosopher, not the Brazilian footballer] at the beginning of my module guides reflected the way the module was to be delivered:
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
I have tried to continue that philosophy in my books - particularly the exercises. In the classroom I liked to pose questions that had no single right answer. When teaching marketing that is easy because there is never a single right answer. What is right in one scenario or context is not so in another. Students will find that is true when they get a job - I liked to prepare them for that time. I wanted to help them learn how to find the right answer, not simply give them an answer.
I find it pointless to ask a question whose answer can be found within the text [e.g. what are the 4 elements of what's-his-name's model?] ... hence, the exercises for this book. They are designed to prompt students into thinking. Hopefully, I might challenge some of their preconceived ideas on the subject. They might not realise it, but the questions sometimes act as a kind-of devil's advocate. I make no apology for there not being the same number of exercises for each chapter - but some chapters are shorter than others - and their subject not so open to debate.
If, by chance, you're short of reading or discussion points for classes many of the articles I've added links to in the chapter pages of this site will serve that purpose very well.
Chapter 1
Page 2 MINI EXERCISE The answer revolves around the marketing of the book :-)
Page 3 DISCUSSION A bit of recent research will help here – but students’ own experiences will be relevant.
Page 4 MINI EXERCISE You might need to adopt a flexible approach to definitions to take my side on this. For example, AI might be new, but its use isn’t e.g. to develop content.
Chapter 2
Page 10 JUST SAYIN’ Do students agree with this – again, some flexibility is required to meet my argument.
CHAPTER EXERCISE The answer to this lies in the students’ opinions on integrity and the environment. I suspect they will be very pro the notion – but would their employers agree with them if incomes/profits are affected?
Chapter 3
Page 34 EXERCISE It might be worth re-visiting this question towards the end of the book to see if students’ views have changed. The key to the exercise is that none of the products are like FMCGs – and so their marketing is very different. When I did these exercises in class I found that students had little idea of the cost of these products – something that impacts massively on their marketing.
Page 38 EXERCISE I would expect marketing students to generally agree with my notion, but any that have read the likes of ‘Marketing Twitter’ may offer a different opinion.
Page 39 JUST SAYIN’ This may be an extension of the previous exercise – can techies [who set up the automation] set up software that automates a personalized service better than a person could offer that service?
Page 41 Viral marketing – is this term still used [by students] by the time they read the book? Will there need to be a section on it in the next edition?
Page 58 EXERCISE Some of these will be obvious to students [e.g. the Merchant Model] others not so if only for the reason they have not had a need to access such sites. There may also be an issue with some sites encompassing of several of the models.
CHAPTER EXERCISE
1 Students should easily come up with the ‘usual subjects’, particularly for the ‘foremost’ category. The ‘no part’ category might be trickier – though they should be obvious [corner shops and sugar were always my go-to answers].
2 I think this is a valid exercise in its own right – though a problem might be students going through it like a yes/no questionnaire rather than something that needs consideration for each answer. However, I used it as an introduction to the case studies so additional time is required for the exercise to be completed.
Chapter 4
Page 72 EXERCISE Students will generally find the organizations that go on the top pretty easily. The bottom one is also relatively straight forward [if a business does no marketing, it does not need SEO], but putting the rest in order is problematic. The most likely solution is a group that goes at the top, a group that goes at the bottom and a group that sits in the middle – but arguing over 1 to 12 could take forever.
Page 77 EXERCISE It’s likely that the two lists will be 50 to 75% the same – with a number of obvious keywords prominent. The differences are likely to come from [a] the use of terminology learned after becoming a student, and [b] if multiple nationalities are represented in the students. It is also likely that some students – if they’re brave/confident enough – will say they did not use a search engine in seeking their course [I spent several years on student recruitment, many students do not start their programme search on a search engine – or even online]. If so, emphasis should be given to the fact that in a working environment they may well have to identify keywords for a product they have little knowledge of. If any student has a part time job, their employer is another good subject as the employed student may have inside knowledge on appropriate keywords whilst the others will not.
Page 82 EXERCISE Some students will find this easy – others not so. The doing exercise will benefit them in their working life. European and overseas students should be encouraged to participate – their input on how English is interpreted can be instructive.
Page 86 EXERCISE With perhaps the exception of the Tourist Information office, all will be difficult – and some impossible [universities will not normally add links from their website – it is beneficially to me that most digital module guides will include a link to this site]. If students suggest it is an easy task, push them to say exactly [e.g. if they say ‘email’ ask which address] how they will achieve it – then play devil’s advocate in acting as the recipient of their approaches.
Page 88 EXERCISE Generally, the smaller, local organizations may be better using third-party listings. Whatever their answers, they must be able to justify them. There is, of course, one for which third-party is the best option … the one that does no marketing but will listed on the likes of Yellow Pages.
Page 91 EXERCISE The significant issue for universities is that they are made up of several schools [e.g. Business, Education, History etc] and each of those school may have sub-departments [Business may have Marketing, Finance, HR etc] which each have web page for their own programmes and courses. Plus, there are web pages that are generic to the university [student support, accommodation etc] and some for different departments [e.g. library services]. Realistically, the exercise on page 77 must be completed for each page. Good luck with that :-)
CHAPTER EXERCISE Essentially, this is the same question as that in the earlier exercise on page 72 – but with, perhaps, a more strategic consideration [e.g. will the cost of doing SEO properly be worth the investment?]
Chapter 5
Page 102 EXERCISE This exercise requires students to conduct a critical analysis of a university’s website with a view to assessing its management i.e. not necessarily the website itself. Considering the site’s ethos will be a more subjective exercise – different students may perceive the content differently. It is highly likely that given the issues raised in the exercise in the last chapter on page 91 [i.e. fragmented content across departments] the ethos will vary across the entire site. Sometimes this will acceptable – the description of a social media management course could easily have a different tone to that for, say, a law or medical degree. However, all the generic pages should have the same ethos.
Page 112 EXERCISE There is an argument that because its users [students and potential students] are digital natives they will be able to make their way around any website. It’s also the case that they may be very keen to find their way around the site because their future may depend on its contents. That said, that is not an excuse – and as the exercise questions, might the potential student judge a university by the usability of its website?
Page 122 EXERCISE Some [most?] students will simply copy the framework of an existing site – particularly for the Phelps store. This rather defeats the object of the exercise in that they learn nothing – but also because the copied website might not be perfect. Important for any site architecture is to identify the objects of the site and what visitors might be at the site for.
Page 137 EXERCISE This builds on a previous exercise where the usability of a university website is examined. Arguably the content – no matter how good – might not be reached if the usability is poor, but this exercise assumes the content is findable and so questions its influence on a customer. Essentially it should address – in a language they understand – all the questions a potential student might seek an answer to. On a university website the visitor has arrived there for a reason, and so the content will almost certainly impact on the buying decision. A clear case of you are your website. With regard to a relationship between usability and content – I’m not sure there is one, except to say that if one is executed particularly well or badly then that reflects good management and so the other is likely to be equally good or bad.
Page 140 EXERCISE As well as the usual problems in translating text, a further issue is that of medical terminology, which is based on Latin – a language not recognised in many countries. Problems with images and video might include such things as showing mixed male and female doctors/nurses and patients in countries where this would not be accepted. Having overseas students in the class will help with the discussion of this exercise.
CHAPTER EXERCISE Another exercise where students should be discouraged from simply performing a tick-box process. There are examples where clear textual content is vital [e.g. the university] and others where images hold sway [e.g. the women’s clothes shop]. For others, some elements will carry little or no relevance [e.g. translation]
Chapter 6
Page 147 EXERCISE The answers to this exercise will depend on when the chapter is read. At the time of publication [November 2022] it seemed as though the pandemic-induced spike in online shopping was just that – a spike, with sales returning to pre-pandemic levels. However, this may prove to be a reaction to lock downs with shoppers wishing to get back out to shops and online sales may return to growth.
Page 150 EXERCISE Lists produced will probably be divided into two categories; channels that students have experienced, and channels that are rather fanciful e.g. Google’s much-hyped drone deliveries.
Page 157 EXERCISE
1 This exercise will test students’ understanding of the business models used by hotel chains.
2 Insurance is an obvious answer – older students may offer a better insight as they will remember life before the Internet. Asking younger students to source services – like insurance – without the Internet can be amusing.
Page 160 EXERCISE It is possible – if not likely – that students have never used a genuine DTC seller, though some will name purchases the identify as DTC, but it isn’t.
Page 169 EXERCISE Discussion on this exercise should consider the products sold on the various sites e.g. expectations for a fashion site would be plenty of pictures – but is this the same for basic white goods? Also, students are asked to visit their favourite sites – perhaps they are favourite sites because they meet student’s requirement.
Page 176 EXERCISE This should prompt discussion, but the objective is to assess the impact of fulfilment and returns on customer loyalty.
CHAPTER EXERCISE This is another exercise that is business-oriented rather than digital-marketing specific. Ultimately, it should be identified that a local store can go online relatively easily and inexpensively [using WYSIWYG-style software], but for a chain to develop an e-commerce is very expensive. Management for both is important.
Chapter 7
Page 184 EXERCISE Rather than identifying specific periods of time, the objective of this exercise is to encourage students think about – and so become aware – of lead times. Needless to say, the answers spread from days [a small number of polo shirts] to years [parts for a new car], with the answers also varying by customer, seller and market.
Page 191 EXERCISE Essentially the sites should be very similar – they’re both self-service shops. The key differences will be in methods of payments and delivery.
Page 193 EXERCISE Easy answer to this one … a lot! If the content of this site is not professionally written by industry experts its credibility will be vastly reduced.
CHAPTER EXERCISE Once again, it is the process of arriving at the answers that is more important the answers themselves. Hopefully, students will appreciate that there is more to marketing than the likes of Nike, Coca Cola, TikTok and influencers.
Chapter 8
Page 202 EXERCISE
1 This should be relatively easy to marketing students [who may well have studied advertising as a separate subject]. Generally, a positive message is branding and a call-to-action [of any kind] means it is direct response.
2 Another exercise where a class discussion on students’ responses, with the make up of the group determining any disparity in answers. Note that the question doesn’t make clear whether SERP ads are included – I would let students raise the issue. It’s likely that many have clicked on search engine ads, but not so many on others forms of ad. Also, it’s not covered until chapter 10, but influencer ‘advice’ is an ad.
Page 207 EXERCISE This is too expansive a question to cover all potential answers. Any discussion could take a whole session because it should include all the issues covered so far.
Page 213 EXERCISE Students may be tempted to leap straight in with images and video here – and to a degree they may have a point. However, I have chosen a holiday resort deliberately and students will naturally apply the question to themselves. Older holiday makers may prefer more text describing what is seen in images and/or video. For example ‘that hill at the end of the beach seems steep’.
Page 221 EXERCISE
1 Two key issues would be [a] as per the previous exercise on university website development, there are multiple schools/departments with their own keywords, and [b] universities offer very similar products [courses/programmes] and so they will all be competing for the same keywords.
2 Students will get out of this exercise what they put in [as should be the case with all the exercises], but it is just the kind of task they might be asked to complete in an employment scenario. It might also be worth asking students to look at the web page for a programme in a different school.
Page 224 EXERCISE
1 Simply a quantitative exercise – it would not be unusual for students to get two, one or even nil out of 10. Whatever the result – good or bad – it will reflect the skills of the advertisers.
2 A subjective assessment – but the student is representing a potential customer, so their opinion is valid.
3 Ask students to be specific e.g. rewrite the copy on the landing page.
Page 224 MINI EXERCISE A good discussion-started – but make sure students consider the views of people not in their demographic e.g. what do their siblings, parents or grandparents think? International students may also offer a different opinion.
Page 233 EXERCISE This is – effectively – a follow up to the previous exercise, but with a wider context e.g. is it possible that the general public do not even notice these issues?
Page 236 EXERCISE Students will have a more informed view on this subject if they have followed the links on the web page which covers this issue.
CHAPTER EXERCISE I make no apology for the similarity of this task to previous exercises. Too many articles and stories on the subject of online advertising are about global brands in the FMCG market. The case studies – deliberately – present organizations that are different to this and represent the type students are likely to find employment in. This exercise should make them think about real-life advertising issues.
Chapter 9
Page 246 EXERCISE
1 Another exercise that requires students to question their own behaviour. Encourage students to be specific – if they say ‘because I like them’ question why they like them.
1 Again, try to get students to be specific – perhaps one day they’ll be on the sending side of the problem, and this will help them,
Page 250 EXERCISE Writing good copy is often a case of ‘you can do it or you can’t’, but students should practice so when they are asked to do so in a work environment they have a chance of completing the task.
Page 254 EXERCISES
1 More doing. Students will be tempted to choose a retailer they know and like [try to discourage them from picking one they get a newsletter from]. Retailers of products that solve problems could be the better choice, e.g. ‘how to …’
2 Try to steer students away from FMCG-related industries, this includes service industries.
CHAPTER EXERCISE By now students will be used to this type of exercise – and know the organizations pretty well. Top and bottom of the league should be obvious, but not so the others. Thinking outside the box should be encouraged.
Chapter 10
Page 266 EXERCISE Answers will vary from class to class – it’s the ‘whys’ that may create discussion.
Page 271 EXERCISES
1 Reviews could make or break the business.
2 This does not mean marketers should write their own reviews! Instead, there should be a concentration on marketers being involved with the service offered, plus influencing visitors to complete reviews [on- or offline].
Page 277 EXERCISE This is not Facebook and Twitter! Tech/software companies are one source of private social media, also gaming sites.
Page 280 EXERCISE It is likely that students will refer to organizations they like or dislike as examples. Discussion should be around what is good and bad e.g. how long is acceptable for responses to questions.
Page 291 GROUP EXERCISE Hopefully your class will have students who follow influencers. Discussion may become a debate between followers and non-followers.
Page 298 EXERCISE As I allude to at the end of this exercise, this is the kind of analysis that managers should expect to be completed before investing in marketing on social media. Although the examples offered are on Pinterest, students could use other social media platforms.
Page 316 EXERCISE Results will vary depending on the class – but it is unlikely to match the presented data exactly. Discussion will come when students’ opinions vary.
CHAPTER EXERCISE I make no apologies for presenting another league table – but the objective is to have students assess the advantages and limitations of marketing on social media against real-world examples which differ from those usually presented as examples of good practice.
Chapter 11
Page 338 EXERCISE There are a number of examples presented throughout the book [e.g. likes and followers in social media], but students should be encouraged to think of others. If offline examples are suggested it would help students to understand the issues.
Page 347 EXERCISE All presented metrics and analytics should be considered, but the purposes – that is, objectives – are key. If the data can’t be used to increase sales, collecting and analysing it is a waste of time. Other considerations will include either/or decisions. For example, if sales are low in a country should marketing be increased or abandoned?
Page 351 EXERCISE In general, I tend to agree with Scott’s assertions – I prefer to call them pragmatic rather than negative. I would encourage students to disagree, or if they agree parrot fashion, ask them to explain why. Perhaps Scott and I are wrong?
CHAPTER EXERCISE Well, you just knew there would be another league table to end up with ... but I feel it is the best way to assess students’ understanding of all aspects of the chapter is through application of theory into real-life practice.