Role of Digital Marketing on Post Covid-19 Business Atmosphere

 Executive Summary
This report is mainly based on personal reflective comments over a qualitative interview process regarding the Role of Digital Marketing on Post Covid-19 Business Atmosphere. Aim of this interview is to investigate various dimensions of the role of digital marketing in this post pandemic situation. Semi structured interview has been followed to indicate the actual benefits of the qualitative research method. Observations, in depth exploration and meaningful analysis have been considered as the primary developed areas of the researcher after compilation of this interview process. Theoretical perspectives have been used to outline the systematic approach of organizations in digital marketing and assessing consumers’ behaviors.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Interview schedule
Overall aim of the interview
Objectives of the interview
Recording of interview
Reflective comments
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Due to the strike of Covid-19, every industry across the world has been experiencing tremendous breakdown mainly regarding marketing. This report is based on an interview process with a respondent under the qualitative research approach to collect and analyze his viewpoint over the particular research topic namely Role of Digital Marketing on Post Covid-19 Business Atmosphere. Semi structured interview will be the form of this interview to gather in depth information over this research topic.

Interview schedule

Table 1: Interview schedule

Overall aim of the interview

The trend of digitalization has been widely adopted by every organization with an aim of fostering business sustainability. The interview is the core part of a research that will be conducted to understand the role of digital marketing in the post Covid-19 business atmosphere in project of AAA Pvt. Ltd. As per the opinion of Alghizzawi (2019), major developments in the field of communications can be noticed due to the intensive emergence of technology and information through the internet by different communication mediums. Thus organizations have stepped forward to make effective utilization of technology in their marketing field to reach a broad range of customers. This marketing approach using technology is known as digital marketing. Digital marketing is a complex approach of promoting organizational goods and services by using digital channels (Girchenko and Ovsiannikova, 2016). Due to the shadow of Covid-19 and National Governments' instructions to break the coronavirus spreads, focus of organizations has been put more on digital marketing considering other forms of marketing. The purpose of this research interview is to conduct a detailed investigation over this complex digital marketing processthrough qualitative information. In addition, it will investigate the influence that digital marketing has casted on organizational marketing viewpoints and consumers’ purchasing decisions in the post Covid-19 business atmosphere. Under the light of qualitative research method, this research is aimed to assess the skills needed for a qualitative researcher.

Objectives of the interview

With observations of the aims of this research, the interview will be conducted with some specific objectives that will define the detailed purposes of the research. Thus, this interview is objectified:

1. To understand the role of digital marketing on modern day’s organizations.
2. To explore and evaluate the trend of digital marketing for assessing consumer behaviors
3. To understand the way organizations are responding to digital marketing trend
4. To understand those theoretical concepts that are used by organizations in this complex marketing approach
5. To investigate the future strategy that is required to conduct this form of marketing in the post era of Covid-19

Recording of interview

This interview will be conducted with one respondent under the help of some preliminary codes to formulate the interview questions. Record of this interview is provided below:

Table 2: Transcript of the interview

Reflective comments

The interview process outlined above has been conducted under the light of qualitative research methodology to make in-depth exploration of the current state of digital marketing in the post Covid-19 business atmosphere.

Observation skill has helped to look at how organizations are practicing to gather customers’ behavioral information and utilize this information in product and service strategy formulation. In this process, I have observed that organizations are using Planned Behavior Theory to design their behavior in the interaction process with customers. As per the opinion of Steinmetz et al. (2016), this theory argues that intention is the main driver for functioning behavior.  Thus, under the light of this theoretical concept, organizations are redefining theory product and service strategies in the digital marketing campaign to plan their behaviors in order to attract consumers’ purchasing intentions. In the post Covid-19 era, it became an indispensable part of digital marketing to support the demand of intensive audiences for achieving a higher level of consumer trust and brand loyalty. This has been understood through the use of qualitative research strategy. This research strategy has not only helped me to understand the theoretical grounds in the digital marketing aspect but also improved my prediction strategy. As per the communication with the manager in this interview process, I have understood that most of the organizations are using 4P’s of Marketing Framework in their digital marketing strategy. Product, price, place and promotions are the four components of this framework (Resnick et al. 2016). Product is the core element for which every aspect of digital marketing is formulated. The type and concept of product and price are based in consideration with customers’ perceptions and current demands. Place indulges organizations to choose digital platforms like social media and search engines (SE) to reach intensive audiences as much as possible. In the context of the UK's e-commerce market, Google SE is possessed with a highest market share of 86.36% in June 2020 (statista.com, 2020). This clearly indicates the huge involvement of people in search engines and how organizations can take advantage in placing their products by the help of this search engine. Under the post Covid-19 era, the promotional criteria that includes advertisement has transformed into an informative approach. Product statements and promotional content have now formulated in an informative tone to attract huge numbers of customers. Therefore, this qualitative research method and strategy have highly improved my observation ability on theoretical grounds of digital marketing in both before and after Covid-19 pandemic.

This interview has strikingly intensified my knowledge to manage the digital marketing aspect in a global pandemic situation. The communication with the manager will guide me how to observe the existing market situation and to make marketing strategy in accordance with current market needs. In this concern, my decision making or problem solving skills have still remained unfurnished. As opined by Lewin et al. (2018) qualitative research aims for exploring respondent’s experience and perception over the research problems. I was completely unable to understand actual perceptions and experience of the manager in explaining roles of digital marketing in the post Covid-19 business atmosphere. The lack in decision making skills mainly emerged from understanding the priorities and opinions of the managers. It is due to the fact that responses given by the managers were not much informative in explaining the existing and future contributions of digital marketing in this pandemic situation. A qualitative research approach not only requires the skills to predict answers of research questions but also aims to observe the future areas of the topic. After this interview, I am still in an unresolved state to understand how digital marketing can improve business sustainability in the post Covid-19 era. In this regard, accurate observation to the responsescan be denoted as the main areas of improvement as a qualitative researcher.

Decision making and accurate observation skills are much needed for synthesizing information talent from the interview process. In a qualitative research strategy, synthesizing and analyzing qualitative information require appropriate observation over the various dimensional insights of that information. Alongside observation, I have noticed that decision making skill is also required to make appropriate conclusions of the research problems. These two skills of mine are still under the process of development observed after this interview has taken place. The following interview has been conducted in the form of a semi structured interview to create a two way communicative environment. As opined by Evans and Lewis (2018), this type of interview allows researchers to explore subjective points of view along with gathering in depth accounts of experiences of the respondent. Data collected from this interview will not only help me to understand the role of digital marketing in this pandemic situation but also provide me deep insights by flourishing my personal knowledge regarding digital marketing and its theoretical grounds. This is the primary advantage of qualitative analysis that allowed me to look deeper into the current marketing position of every business sector in the post Covid-19 era and how organizations are re-formulating their digital marketing strategy to drive business sustainability. By using the qualitative analysis approach, I have synthesized the useful information regarding the research problem which will drive me to provide suitable recommendations to every business that follows digital marketing strategy.

Annotation of preliminary codes
As per the opinion of Mohajan (2018), the nature of qualitative research can be considered as inductive in which researchers try to explore the insights and nature of the topic. I have effectively utilized collaboration, curiosity, ethical maintenance and preliminary coding skills to conduct the interview. The preliminary codes that have been undertaken as the forms of question themes in this interview are directly linked to digital marketing and its various aspects in modern days’ business context. As a qualitative researcher, my aim was to investigate demands of the research topic through these preliminary codes. Qualitative research inquiry aims to construct insights for researchers upon the research topic (Saldaña and Omasta, 2016). Thus, this research interview has unfolded my inquiry ability to make in depth investigations over any research topic. I have used my collaborative skills to produce a sense of empathy as well as to create a professional environment for this qualitative investigation. I have undertaken observations as the primary tool to collect information regarding all the preliminary codes forming interview questions. The primary qualitative information collected from the respondent has helped me to observe how digital marketing has been positively influenced by the Covid-19 outbreak. This interview has not only given me insights into the research topic but also helped to intensify some of my personal skills mainly regard to the marketing field and its various criteria. Understanding consumer behavior and utilization of this information in product strategy formulation are the two main skills developed after this semi structured interview process. In this regard, the qualitative research skills namely observation has helped to make cognitive exploration of information in these two areas.

Conclusion

The qualitative analysis helps researchers to look deeper into the research problem instead of recording respondent’s points of view. In such a business situation under the threat of global pandemic, it is necessary to conduct deep exploration for gathering detailed information over the problems. This research is an example in using qualitative methods to explore particular problems. Thus, it can be concluded that understanding various dimensions of research problems will provide deep insights to both existing and future state of the research problems.

References

Books
Evans, C. and Lewis, J., 2018. Analysing semi-structured interviews using thematic analysis: exploring voluntary civic participation among adults. United States: SAGE Publications Limited.
Saldaña, J. and Omasta, M., 2016. Qualitative research: Analyzing life. United States: Sage Publications.
Journals
Alghizzawi, M., 2019. The role of digital marketing in consumer behavior: A survey. Int. J. Inf. Technol. Lang. Stud, 3(1), pp.24-31.
Girchenko, T. and Ovsiannikova, Y., 2016.Digital Marketing and its Role in the Modern Business Processes.European Cooperation, 11(18), pp.24-33.
Kaur, G., 2017. The importance of digital marketing in the tourism industry. International Journal of Research-Granthaalayah, 5(6), p.72.
Mohajan, H.K., 2018. Qualitative research methodology in social sciences and related subjects.Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, 7(1), pp.23-48.
Resnick, S.M., Cheng, R., Simpson, M. and Lourenço, F., 2016. Marketing in SMEs: a “4Ps” self-branding model. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.
Steinmetz, H., Knappstein, M., Ajzen, I., Schmidt, P. and Kabst, R., 2016. How effective are behavior change interventions based on the theory of planned behavior?.ZeitschriftfürPsychologie.
Online articles
Heggeness, M.L., 2020. Estimating the immediate impact of the COVID-19 shock on parental attachment to the labor market and the double bind of mothers. Review of Economics of the Household, pp.1-26. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11150-020-09514-x [accessed on: 25th October, 2020]
Lewin, S., Booth, A., Glenton, C., Munthe-Kaas, H., Rashidian, A., Wainwright, M., Bohren, M.A., Tunçalp, Ö., Colvin, C.J., Garside, R. and Carlsen, B., 2018. Applying GRADE-CERQual to qualitative evidence synthesis findings: introduction to the series. Available at: https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-017-0688-3?optIn=false [accessed on: 25th October, 2020]
Website
statista.com, (2020); Market share held by the leading search engines in the United Kingdom (UK) from January 2015 to June 2020;available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/279548/market-share-held-by-search-engines-in-the-united-kingdom/ [accessed on: 25th October, 2020]