Introduction

Sony Play Station 4 is a video game console created by Sony Computer Entertainment. Sony Computer Entertainment is a Japanese company that was incorporated in 1946 and holds the exclusive rights of distributing Sony PS4 under its name (Tech Buzz, 2014). Play Station 4 has been segmented for the market based on three sub groups including Teens, College Students and Adults. The targeted consumers are within the range of 15 to 30 years. Typically, teens are targeted through television advertisements and internet. The teens fall between 15 and 18 years range. College students group falls in the range of 19 to 22 years who have independent purchasing power and demand high quality products at low price (Hoggins, 2013). The adults include 23-30 years working class that is targeted through print media and billboards. This segmented group is focused towards enhancing the home entertainment and look for new technologies. This report has been written to highlight the important of digital media to be used as a marketing tool for reaching the targeted audiences by Sony Corporation for its Sony Play Station 4. The main target audience of PS4 are the hardcore gamers and mainstream gamers (Hoggins, 2013).

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a new kind of marketing widely being used for promoting the products or services for reaching the targeted consumers through use of digital channels. Digital marketing extends beyond internet marketing and also includes the tools for which internet is not required (Yasmin, et al., 2015). The main examples of digital marketing are display advertising, search engine marketing, social media marketing, mobile phone marketing, email marketing, video marketing and search engine optimization. Out of these several types, online advertising along with search engine marketing and social media marketing are of great importance. These two are discussed below:

Online Display Advertising

Online display advertising has the broader aim of getting to a target consumer for having him to act immediately by clicking on advert. It is an important part of digital marketing and is also known as internet advertising through which the organizations deliver messages about the services and products (Jobber & Chadwick, 2016). There are several kinds of advertising tactics used under online display advertising including platforms like Google adwords. The main formats for display advertising used are banner ads, pop-up ads and text ads. The banner ads are the graphic images announcing the name of product and identity of the website along with a description about company or product. It might also include the audio/video content or a picture along with text. Banners are the most widely used format for display advertising as these are most effective for targeting the right audience. Sony can utilize the display ads option by contracting with Google under Adwords which can connect Sony with new customers in short time period. With Google Adwords, PS4 will be advertised through ads designed by the marketers who can also choose own keywords for helping Google to match the adverts to targeted audience (Yasmin, et al., 2015). This will also cut down the budget as Sony will only pay Google when customer clicks on the advertisement (Google Adwords, 2016). Pop-up ads is the advertisement tool that loads between two content pages. These ads create an umbrage in the users and lead to low click through rates as few people click on the ads to visit the website.

The biggest advantage of display advertising is “branding”. A recent study by comScore (2013) showed that display advertising has a strong impact on branding process after viewers are being exposed to display ads continuously. The research also reflected that display advertising impact the user behavior as well. 139 display campaigns were reviewed by the research team of comScore showing that display advertisement gave a 46% rise in websites visits and the visitors were 38% more likely to conduct search related to branded keyword. The graph shows the other findings like 17% of the viewers made an online purchase due to display advertising.

Figure 1: The effect of display advertising

Source: (Jandal, 2013)

Social Media Marketing

Another type of digital marketing tool is social media marketing. It is the most important and popular tool for online marketing. It is relatively a new phenomenon that is shaping the communication system within a society (Jobber & Chadwick, 2016). Since large number of digital natives, serial bloggers and keyboard warriors spend much their lives online, so missing out this media tool can turn out to be a bad move.  The table below shows that 18-24 age group all the social media platforms more than any other age group. It shows that Sony PS4 can use the social media vehicle for advertising its gaming consoles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram (Bennet, 2014).

Source: (Bennet, 2014)

Online Marketing Platforms

Apart from targeting its audience through social media marketing and search engine optimization, Sony can make use of online marketing platforms that are gaining popularity. HubSpot and Exact Target are the two renowned online marketing platforms that are being widely used by many corporations to collect information about the new customers and for gaining the loyalty of the buyers (Issa, 2015).

HubSpot

HubSpot is an inbound marketing platform that helps the companies in attracting the visitors and converting leads and close customers (HubSpot, 2016). It allows creation of blog posts, engaging videos, ebooks and infographics about a product that can help Sony in optimizing and sharing them on social media. Old outbound marketing methods have become unpopular as it required buying of ads, email lists and praying on leads. In this digital age, inbound marketing has gain importance and became effective method for doing business online. HubSpot aids in inbound marketing by creating quality content that attracts target group towards the product (HubSpot, 2016a). HubSpot helps in publishing the right content in right place at right time due to which marketing becomes relevant and helpful for the customers.

Exact Target

Apart from HubSpot, Exact Target also helps in integrating the tools to manage the digital marketing strategies. The main aim of the Exact Target is to improve the customer relationships by easing out the relations between consumers and brands (ExactTarget, 2016). It can help Sony Corporation in email marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing and web marketing automation. It also allows data accumulation and analytics. It can also help Sony in getting the gaming industry trends, making up marketing strategies and igniting the digital marketing through bursting ideas. Exact Target is a global marketing provider of on demand email marketing and interactive marketing solutions. It acts like a platform providing organizations an opportunity to connect with the customers through emails, text messages, voice messages, landing pages and even social media. Exact Target will help the marketers of Sony PS4 to organize, aggregate and integrate the data that lie disparate within and around the organization (Exact Target, 2016a).

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Digital Marketing and Traditional Marketing Mix

The digital marketing can be well-integrated into traditional marketing mix i.e. Product, Price, Place & Promotion. Internet today has influenced the pricing of products in number of ways. Historically, product can be looked at, touched and smelled in stores for determining the value and quality, however, digital marketing has changed this notion (Schenker, 2014). According to Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, 5.2% of total sales in 2014 were made through internet in virtual space (Schenker, 2014). It provided a lesson for the marketers that today’s world is facilitated by highly social shopping environment where consumers are seeking out and finding reviews all over the internet before buying the products. Pricing has also been affected due to virtual selling online as customers who need high-quality products, tend to look and compare prices over internet (Buchner, 2014).

Traditional Marketing vs Digital Marketing

The marketers now are required to be more vigilant when marketing their product pricing. Promotion and Place mark the biggest difference between traditional and digital marketing tactics. Historically, TV, outdoor advertisements and radios were used for promoting the product outside. With digital marketing, customers are more exposed when advertisements are made through social media, content marketing and internet marketing. Moving on to place of marketing, now Amazon, Ebay and Etsy have gained popularity as mega online stores selling almost everything at sales and promotions. This has broken the traditional brick-and-mortar store system where websites are gaining more popularity (Buchner, 2014). Moreover, with internet and digital marketing, the world has become a global village without any boundaries and specific place of product to be sold. Now an Asian customer can buy an American product and get it delivered in Africa, all due to the power of internet and e-stores that allow consumers to skim through variety of products and buy them after comparing the prices (Buchner, 2014).

Conclusion

Digital marketing has become an essential part of strategy for many big companies as well as small business owners. Sony can also use digital marketing in an efficient way to market Play Station 4 by using tactics like SEO, content marketing, email marketing and internet marketing. It should create an innovative customer experience and makeup some specific media strategies for identifying the best path required for driving up the digital marketing performance.

References

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