1. Digital Marketing Boon or Bane for Indian Businesses
Mr. Dhiraj Pramod Shirode
Research Scholar,
Jalgaon, 425001 Maharashtra, India
shirodedhiraj@gmail.com
Dr. Madhulika A. Sonawane
School of Management Studies, NMU
Jalgaon, 425001 Maharashtra, India
mssonawane@nmu.ac.in
Abstract - Digital marketing is the rapidly
emerging trend in marketing practices; it is the
drastic redesigning of marketing set of courses
steady with business needs of the 21st century is
required. The vision and aim of this research is to
study the existing awareness of digital marketing in
Indian business. And the contribution of DM trends
is helping to grow all those business who adopt
these trends for their business growth and branding
to generate more revenue.
This paper has been developed to find out the
major difference between traditional marketing and
digital marketing, that can help to prove, Is DM
boon or bane for Indian businesses?
Index Keyword Terms – Social media, smart
phones, internet, digital marketing, search engines,
online & social presence, business growth.
INTRODUCTION
“Driving revenue growth through better
consumer engagement is the goal of every Digital
Marketing campaign."
- Infosys
Marketing using electronic media such as the
internet, e-mail, television, smart phones, tablets,
game consoles and social networks in combination
with digital data about customers characteristics &
behaviors. Digital marketing activity is completely
opposite to the traditional marketing activities such
as print media. This platform is uniquely positioned
to make sure consumer targeting is combined with
audience intelligence, directed delivery, and
configuration technology.
The rapid evolution of digital media has created
new opportunities and avenues for advertising and
marketing. Fuelled by the propagation of devices to
access digital media, this has lead to the vast growth
of digital advertising. Digital marketing' has become
the most common term, especially after the year
2013. Compared to traditional methods of
advertising, Digital Marketing offers rather practical
costs (particularly important for small- and medium-
size businesses and start-ups), precise targeting and
brilliant reporting.
Considering the current level of internet
marketing company, it’s tough to believe how
juvenile the internet marketplace is. While the time
span of internet marketing has been small, the
increasing events leading up to where we are now
have impacted the entire globe sooner than any
marketing revolution in history. Internet marketing
is the practice of making use of the Internet as an
intermediate for a marketing campaign. An Internet
marketing campaign can engross several different
types of advertisements, counting the banner bars
that formed of core of online advertising efforts in
the late 1990s, a newsletter circulated via e-mail, an
interactive pop-up window, links to one World Wide
Web site from any other one, and a Web site itself.
Internet marketing hard work can be designed to
push direct sales, build a brand, encourage repeat
business, and gain customer information. Quite
regularly, the Internet is just one of numerous
mediums-including television, radio, and print- that
companies utilize in their marketing campaigns.
In 1994, spending for internet marketing totaled
nearly nil, but increased to over $300 million in
1995. After a decade later, marketing expenses and
internet marketing business has exploded to nearly
$500 billion (according to Forrester Research).
Today, it’s tough to believe in having an
organization which doesn’t have some kind of
online occurrence.

2. Current Developments in Digital Marketing:
1. Segmentation - more focus placed in
order to target specific market in both
business to business and business to
customer sectors.
2. Influencer Marketing - important nodes
within related communities known as
influencers. so it may be possible to reach
influencers via, Facebook ads, Google
adds, and emails.
3. Online Behavioral Advertising - Online
Behavioral Adverts refers to the practice
of collecting information about a user’s
online activity over time on a particular
device in order to that user’s interests and
preferences.
4. Collaborative Environment - A set up
between the association, the technology
service supplier, and the digital agencies
to optimize effort, source sharing,
reusability and interactions
Digital marketing is a widespread term that refers
to various and different promotional techniques
deployed to reach customers via digital
technologies. The results of digital marketing efforts
can be tracked by reach, views, clicks, visits,
response rates, and conversions. It is the practice of
promoting products and services using digital
distribution channels, getting on targeted consumers,
building iterative relationship with those consumers,
and having the capability to produce measurable
results.
I. TYPES / ELEMENTS OF DIGITAL MARKETING:
1. SEO – (Search Engine Optimization)
Slight focus of SEO has lead to many
people cutting corners to influence search
ranks. It’s true that some searchers look
past the first page, and the first few results
are clicked 60% of the time, but search
engines like Google provide new ways for
you to attract visitors without trusting on
shady tactics
2. SMM – (Social Media Marketing) Social
media has become even much important
as Google and company cracks down on
black-hat marketing strategy. Search
engines have also begun using activity on
these websites as a metric for popularity
and usefulness. Shares on Facebook,
Twitter re-tweets and +1s on Google all
help your position on the search engine
results pages; however, social media
marketing is about additional than that.
Social networking on Facebook and
similar sites allows you to track what
people are really saying about your
company, even if they’re not saying it
straight to you.
3. PPC – (Pay per Click Ads) if your
website isn’t seeing enough organic
traffic, you may purchase ads directly on
Google or on other websites via the many
ad networks that are present. Pay-per-
click, or PCC, ads are typically
appropriate to the keyword that searchers
use on Google.
4. Email Newsletters - e-mail marketing
not only provide another place to link to
your website and products, but you can
attract consumers with special deals or
sales. If you assemble enough user data
when someone subscribe, you can
channel significant information to certain
segments, which helps to raise
conversions.
5. Affiliate Marketing - it can be quite
alike to online advertising, excluding that
the website hosting the advert will be
recompensed only when a sale is made.
The payment will be given to the website
owner and also the incentive to promote
the advert more prominently.
6. Viral Marketing – It combines many
elements of the marketing mix plus
videos on YouTube, blogs, email
marketing, as well as traditional elements,
but the goal is to make sure that the

3. content captures the thoughts of your
market, and that the content spread over
naturally through online communities.
7. Text Messaging – Mobile marketing is
one of the biggest growing areas in digital
marketing. The amplified usage of smart
phones around the world has resulted in a
larger dependency on them for rapid and
timely information. Text messaging is a
move forward strategy that some view as
spam, but if used appropriately, can be an
effective customer messaging approach.
II. MOST POPULAR OPTIONS AVAILABLE IN
DIGITAL MARKETING:
i. Facebook Pages - It offers an easy way to
get a conversion going with your
customers, improve loyalty, ask for
feedback and build a community.
ii. Twitter - It can helps to announce new
products, chat about news items in your
industry or offer discounts, depending
upon your industry
iii. Google Plus - It is a new social network
from Google itself, it's sort of hybrid
combination of Facebook and twitter,
which allows you to group conversations
with some of your customers and
prospects.
iv. Pinterest - It is a digital bulletin board,
which is a highly visual way for people to
share interesting content they come across
online. it is a lighter version of Facebook
wall.
v. LinkedIn Forums - It is the largest social
business network, which developing a
strong reputation by answering questions
in certain forums relevant to your niche
market.
vi. Q&A Sites - A number of sites offering
opportunities to answer questions for
prospects; some of the bese known of
them include Quora and Yahoo answers,
Avvo and travellr.
vii. Email Marketing - It probably won't bring
you a ton of new business, but few
strategies can match email to build
existing customer loyalty.
viii. Reviews / Social Reputation - It plays a
vital role in your local search engine
rankings, but more importantly, they
influence whether ultimately choose to
contact your business.
ix. Offline Ads / QR codes - It allows smart
phone owners to scan them and be
directed to a webpage that contains more
information about the product or service
being advertised.
x. Daily Deals - Daily deal offerings like
groupon, living social and Google offer
offer merchants the promise of
guaranteed customers.
xi. Lead Generation Services - Online lead
generation companies like thumbertack,
servicemagic and redbeacon offer
guaranteed customers.
xii. Location Base Services - Like foursquare
and Facebook places give you the ability
to learn a lot about your customers.
xiii. Social Media Ads - Facebook and LinkedIn
are easy to set up on your own target
demographic, geographic and interest
based ads.
xiv. Search / Display ads - Paid advertising
programs such as Google ad-words and
Microsoft ad-center in which businesses
are charged a fee when a searcher clicks
on their advertisements.
xv. Local SEO - Optimizing your local business
listings like Google places, bing business
portal and yelp is one of the most time
effective opportunity.

4. xvi. Link Building - It is a key component of
traditional SEO. it is the most successful
long-term strategies on most time
extensive to execute.
xvii. Blogging - It is a great way to demonstrate
your expertise and build relationships
with prospects, peers and existing
customers.
xviii. Text Message Ads - Like email, test
messages ads probably help you to keep
existing customers who have opted in to
receive message coming back.
xix. Digital Loyalty Programs - it is rapidly
going digital with companies like punchd,
offering easy to manage loyalty programs
for your customers with smart phones.
xx. Online Video - Video is a fantastic way to
engage with prospects both on websites
and search engines like YouTube and
vimeo.
xxi. Website SEO - On page SEO making your
site more visible in the search engines for
keywords related to what you sell. it
requires technical knowledge for link
building and coding in limited effect.
xxii. Mobile apps - Most small businesses dont
need to develop their own app, but in
certain high value industries developing
own app to make sense as a customer
recruitment tool.
III. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH:
 To study the awareness of digital marketing
in business sectors
 To study the impact of DM in business
sector (real estate and IT industry)
 To analyze – Is digital marketing boon or
bane?
 To compare traditional and digital marketing
campaigns.
IV. AIMS TO IMPLEMENT DIGITAL MARKETING
The basic aims and purposes of implementing
digital marketing elements in an organization is to
gain higher ROI.
A.Sell – Grow Sales
Start with your most vital transactions that lead to
revenue and profit! By using conversion models you
can set targets of more quantity to hit.
B.Speak
Get closure to customers through dialogue and
participation - Digital channels are not only great
sales channels, they do extremely well as
communications channels to connect your audience
through digital marketing tools, detailed conversion
or budget models which allow you to set goals by
channel for getting on to and influencing your
audience.
C.Serve – Add Value
The business website and social customer service
are a normal place for customers to go and to get
their questions answers or to complain… Paying
interest to the quality of service you offer is also key
to support your potential to Sell, Speak, Save and
Sizzle.
D. Save – Save Costs
Less exciting than the sizzle of building your
brand and social media engagement, but you should
show the value you get by using online cost savings

5. to reduce service costs and save on traditional media
like print and post.
E.Sizzle – Extending your Brand Online
Sizzle is about building your own brand online.
Think, what makes for a positive online brand as
experience is for your audience and you.
If the experience you generate is effective, the
advantages of engaging with your digital presence
will be clear; the interactions within the site and
with other channels will be leveled and the visitor
will wish to use your online services again further,
and tell their friends circles and colleagues about it.
V. DRIVERS OF DM
a) Level Playing Field - Any business can
fight with any competitor regardless of size
with a firm digital marketing plan.
b) Reduced Costs - Your business can develop
its online marketing strategy for very small
cost
c) Simple to Measure - Unlike traditional
methods you can notice it in real time what
is or is not working for your trade online and
you can familiarize yourself very quickly to
improve your results.
d) Real Time Results - You can see large
numbers of visitors to your site and its
subscribers increase, crest trading times,
conversion rates and much more at the touch
of a button.
e) Refinement of Your Strategy - Marketing
online allows you to practice your strategy
at any point in time and see any
improvements or opportunities for further
refinement almost immediately.
f) Brand Development - A well maintained
website with quality content targeting the
demands and adding value to your target
audience can provide major value and lead
generation opportunities.
g) Far Greater Exposure - Your trade can be
seen anywhere in the world from one
marketing operation and once you have
optimized the keyword search content in
your website you should see a long-term
return on your savings and will be fairly
small cost to uphold your ranking.
h) Viral - Using social media share buttons on
your website, email and social media
channels make your message able to be
shared quickly, just look how useful it is for
sharing breaking news. If you consider the
average Facebook user has 180 friends of
which an average of 10% see their liked
posts – your one message has in reality been
seen by 15 new prospects, now visualize a
number of them also like and share your
message and their friends do the same?
Great isn’t it?.
i) Not Intrusive – Online, people get the
option to opt in or out of communications
and usually it is appropriate because they
were the ones searching intended for it in
the first place.
j) Greater Engagement - With digital
marketing you can promote your prospects,
clients and followers to take action, visit
your website, read about your products and
services, rate them, buy them and give
feedback which is noticeable to your market.
VI. Barriers of DM
a) DM campaigns can be copied
b) It can be get drowned by too much online ad
mess
c) DM will not be taken sincerely if not done
proficiently
d) It may not be correct for some product or
services
e) It has large competition
f) Digital Marketing status can be dented due
to negative review or feedback
g) DM is largely dependent upon technology
which can be level to errors

6. h) DM is not yet hold and made in use by all
business people
i) Outdated information on website is serious
issue over here
j) Boundaries for posting content
VII. LITERATURE REVIEW:
1. International companies perception of
digital marketing strategies and their
implementations.
- By Lund University in 2011
2. Internet marketing boon or bane for Indian
businesses.
- ISSN: 2320-0901
VIII. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research is based on empirical study and the
primary as well as secondary data, however primary
data gathering was given more importance since it
is overhearing feature in attitude studies.
For the research approach I had made a
choice between deductive and inductive research
methods. Conclusion over deductive method can be
comprehended after taking into consideration the
theory and the related hypothesis. As the hypothesis
is firstly constructed and later tested, the
formulation is called testing theory. On the other
hand, as the theory gets created as per orderly
assessment over some well grouped information,
then the formulation is called inductive method.
This is also termed as building theory.
Qualitative research methodology and
quantitative research methodology are two
classified form of primary data. Data collection ion
qualitative study is forwarded taking into
considerations interpretations that are appropriately
expressed to develop internal details followed by the
complete analysis and outcome data, which need to
get categorized into groups or classes. Quantitative
research methodology speculates data from figures
and statistical derivations. It leads the collected data
to numerical and consistent forms. Assessments are
forward taking place the basis of diagrams and
statistical graphs.
In this research, the researcher uses
questionnaire to understand the approach of selected
section. He further examines it mathematically.
Thus it is a quantitative approach. To get the
dissimilarities and similarities among customers and
for this culture groups, statistical tests and graphs
are followed.
IX. DATA SOURCES
Primary Data - It is gathered for a research on
the basis of practical means of questionnaires,
interviews and under the focal point of certain group
debates. The primary data is incidental through the
process of statistical calculation and analysis. This is
a kind of precise methodology that gets followed to
accurate end-results.
Secondary Data - The process to gather
secondary data is much easier than the primary data
collection. It is here that the information is gathered
through the way of using sources that already exist.
These sources are represented by various white
papers, articles, internet and various kinds of print
media; especially. newspaper & research editorials
along with academic journals.
X. SAMPLING METHOD
Sample selection is the method with the help of
which the participants for the interview are filterd.
The sample was selected of them who were the
people lived in NASHIK district, Maharashtra and
belongs to real estate and IT industry.
XI. SAMPLE SIZE
The sample size of my paper is limited to 20
people only. Out of which 13 people had already
adopted the digital marketing instead of traditional
marketing. Other 04 people have the oral idea of this
plans and ideas and its benefits. Rest of the people
did not have any idea of such technology and its
uses.

7. XII. DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION:
1. Which industry you belongs to?
a) Real Estate - 33%
b) I.T. -
58%
c) Others - 09%
Industry
Real Estate
I.T.
Others
2. Do you use internet?
a) Yes (Regular) - 47%
b) No -
17%
c) Sometime - 26%
d) What is that - 10%
Internet Users
Yes (Regular)
No
Partial
3. Do you have website for your business?
a) Yes (Regular) - 56%
b) No -
44%
Business Website
Yes
No
4. Do you have social profiles?
a) Yes (Regular) - 58%
b) No -
35%
c) What is that - 07%
Social Accpont Profiles
Yes
No
What is that
5. Do you use your social accounts for your
business?
a) Yes (Regular) - 47%
b) No -
39%
c) Partially - 14%
Social Account for
Business
Yes
No
Partially

8. 6. On which social site you have business
profile?
a) Facebook - 58%
b) Google + -
21%
c) Twitter - 23%
d) Pinterest - 05%
e) YouTube - 06%
f) Instagram - 08%
g) LinkedIn - 29%
Social Media Platform
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Pinterest
YouTube
Instagram
7. Are you aware about Digital Marketing?
a) Yes - 46%
b) No -
38%
c) Partial - 16%
Awareness
Yes
No
Partial
8. Which element you preferred in digital
marketing?
a) SEO - 50%
b) SMM -
34%
c) Text Message - 06%
d) Email - 05%
e) PPC - 03%
f) Affiliate Mktg.- 02%
DM Element
SEO
SMM
PPC
Email
Affiliated
9. Do you have any type of online
advertisements
a) Yes - 33%
b) No -
67%
Online Ads
Yes
No
10. If you preferred one of the elements of DM
in your business then what will be the
impact of DM in your business growth?
a) Revenue - 22%
b) Sale - 48%
c) Online Presence - 40%
d) High Competition - 08%
e) Wastage of money - 06%
Impact of DM
Revenue
Sale
Presence
Competition
Wastage

9. 11. What is digital marketing for your business
a) Boon - 68%
b) Bane - 26%
c) Nothing - 06%
What is DM?
Boon
Bane
Nothing
12. Is traditional marketing still helping for your
business growth
a) Yes - 26%
b) No -
51%
c) Partially - 23%
Traditional mktng for
Business
Yes
No
partially
XIII. FINDINGS:
a) For this research I gave preference to real
estate, information technology and
manufacturing industry, within all these
industry around 73% business peoples are
using internet and rest of the people not.
b) From the above 73% business peoples 56%
of business peoples have their own websites
for business purpose.
c) 58% of the business peoples from above
industries having their own social accounts
and from all of them around 61% peoples
used their social account for business
purpose.
d) Business peoples preferred multiple social
accounts for business purpose but the
Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter
mostly likable.
e) 62% of business peoples are aware about
digital marketing, and they mostly followed
SEO and SMM element for their business
growth respectively. as these both are
element has organic elements they does not
requires to pay for advertisements, rest of
the paid elements could not adopted by most
business peoples.
f) From above 62% DM users 33% business
peoples referring online advertisements for
promoting their products. (OLX, Gumtree,
Hubspot, Locanto, Quikr, Clicks etc)
g) Around 48% + 40% of business peoples
adopted digital marketing for increasing
sales and online presence of their business
respectively and they got 22% growth in
their revenue due to digital marketing.
h) With the help of this research I found that
68% business peoples thinks that digital
marketing is boon and rest peoples are not
satisfied.
i) After this research I found that traditional
marketing is still helping to 26% business
peoples only, 51% peoples thinks that
traditional marketing is just wastage of
money and time and rest 23% peoples think
it is partial helpful for business.

10. XIV. SUGGESTIONS:
According to this research and study I have few
of suggestions for all business peoples, all the
suggestions are as given below…
a) As the smart phone, social media accounts
and internet usage is rapidly growing in our
country, it directly makes very positive
impact in business promotion.
b) India is becoming second largest country
where internet and smart phones user’s ratio
is very high.
c) Digital marketing trend is also rapidly
growing in India, so start adopting DM for
business growth.
XV. CONCLUSION:
According to the findings of the above
research and study I would like to conclude that,
a) Traditional marketing has become outdated
trend of marketing and business promotion.
b) As compared to TM; Digital marketing is
getting huge round of higher results in very
short span of time.
c) 62% of the businesses & marketers are
aware and acknowledge the importance of
Digital Marketing to their businesses.
d) As an e-entrepreneurship, FDI is going to
take place in current market of India; Digital
marketing is the major helping hand for the
growth in Indian economy.
e) DM has proven that it has made positive
impact for business owners in terms of
increasing online presence, branding,
revenue and sales.
f) With the help of overall study I can say that
Digital marketing is definitely boon for the
Indian businesses
XVI. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
A.References from books
1. Business research methodology
by – C.R.Kothari
2. Personal Interviews.
3. Questionnaire
B.Online Database
1. Wikipedia
2. www.yahooQuestions.com
3. www.google.com
4. www.moz.com
5. Literatures