Sachdev’s seven A’s of digital marketing

Hello there, welcome to strategic digital marketing. We are now in Talk 3, and I'm Dr. Raj Sachdev, the author of Digital Marketing with McGraw Hill. Today we're going to talk about Sachdev's seven A's of digital marketing. These are an important aspect of analyzing various aspects of digital marketing. We'll get into those details today.

So what are we going to cover: The seven A's of digital marketing, but also how they can strategically be used in digital marketing.

Here are the seven A's. Traditionally in marketing, we speak about the 4P's of marketing. There have been various ways of looking at marketing traditionally through the 4P's of marketing and many variations since. The seven A's are specific to digital marketing and are also known as the digital marketing mix, as introduced in Sachdev's Digital Marketing with McGraw Hill. The first of the 7A's is Add. This concerns what value we're adding for consumers or customers as a digital brand or organization. But also, we need to consider that we need to go beyond the customer and also create value for society. Some believe that there's an ethical element to digital brands and that includes giving digital value to society. But also, it would be useless not to provide value to the organization themselves. So digital brands will always need to ensure they are capturing value for their organization. For example, Amazon adds customer value; they do this through various means, including convenient online shopping 24 hours a day, and two-day shipping options are also available. Companies should also think about digital social responsibility, a concept that is really important, whether that means providing digital benefits to society or digitally giving back in other ways. All in all, adding value is an important element of the seven A's, but it should be considered from various perspectives. The second of these A's is Allure. This is a particularly important one because we want to make sure that we are attracting consumers and customers. We are potentially fascinating them in important ways that are valuable. We're enticing them. Or we're alluring them by providing information that is easily digestible. In other words, allure allows the digital marketer to attract a customer in ways that are valuable. For example, Best Buy allures consumers with exciting deals, membership perks, and showcases digitally the various new technological products they offer. Advance is a third of the seven A's. In advance, it is important to keep consumers moving. Digital marketers need to provide assistance and help that will allow the consumer to keep moving through the process of ultimately reaching a decision and making a purchase or otherwise engaging in an activity that is desired by the digital marketer. To do this, it is very important to anticipate consumers' needs, and anticipate their digital actions that they are going to take. For example, IKEA helps customers advance through the buying process, and they do this as they indicate on their digital sources, ideas and inspiration. This can help consumers move along. They also provide, as they indicate, design and planning services. In fact, they use various methods to get the customer to engage, help them along and then ultimately have them engage in that process that the digital marketer wants them to engage in, such as a purchase.