Author: jgroundwater

The Digital Divide

What is the digital divide? The digital divide is the the divide between the people who are using the widespread IT intensely and those who don’t often or not at all. This can be impacted by gender, race, social status, language, location, disability, education and age (Penderson, 2015).

This chart above shows the internet usage by region. This demonstrates the sheer immensity of the digital divide. With some regions having as high as 81% and some as low as 12% it is evident in some areas why the digital divide is apparent.

If we take Britain for example, there is no obvious area which explains the digital divide and how the public are or are not attempting to break through these barriers of access. 9/10 adults in the UK have indeed used the internet but the number on people that are rejecting the use of using the internet is a growing number. This can be down to a lack of motivation of needing to using it which has left 54% of households in the UK without internet. Another access issue is technology discomfort. This is common with the older generation who have no grown up around this digital invasion. But even though this is a common issue throughout the UK it is combated with the amount of youngsters using the internet now and it is still growing, with 99% of under 34 year old’s having used the internet and 5.2% of 1097 UK teens have been reported with online addiction and a further 15% at risk it. This counter opposite with the age divide is keeping the number of online users at an increasing pace as more youngsters than ever are constantly joining the digital world and this will soon become a normal process in households around the country. This can arise to be a problem though as it widens the divide between the old and the young, providing an ever growing social seclusion between the two (Penderson, 2015).

When coming to online marketing events, this digital divide is something that companies have to be very careful to consider. When deciding on their target market for their event they will have to investigate to see if they are currently online users and if the percentage is high enough to take this route. After those investigations more will have to follow to see if their target market is on certain social media sites, which is more common with the younger generation or email, which the older generation would more likely to have access to and other various digital media platforms. This is when promotion, advertisement, communications methods, feedback collection and other marketing details can all start and the digital world can be a companies oyster.

REFERENCES

DIJK, J, V., 2012. The Digital Divide in Europe. [online]. London and New York: Routeledge. Available from: http://www.utwente.nl/bms/mco/bestanden/digitaldivide.pdf [Accessed 10 April 2015].

KEMP, S., 2014. Social, Digital & Mobile Worldwide in 2014. [online]. London: We Are Social. Available from: http://wearesocial.net/blog/2014/01/social-digital-mobile-worldwide-2014/ [Accessed 10 April 2015].

PEDERSEN, S., 2015. How, when and where we are using Digital Media?, BS1288. [lecture]. Digital Media Practices and Platforms.The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen Business School, room 224, 13 February.

Events and Marketing

Over the years the amount of relaxation time and disposable income that the public have has grown. This resulting in a wide market for a vast range of events (Bowdin et al 2011). With these events, just like any other product or service, they have to be marketed to the public to gain interest. However, marketing events has to be taken with a more unique approach and this is because an event is neither a product nor a service, it’s an experience.

Marketing, what is it? The Oxford dictionary states marketing is “the action or business promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising” (Oxford, 2015). Marketing is a tool used by all businesses which finds out the demand for its product or service, or in this case experience. By a business segmenting the market then and analysing consumer behavior the market it will define their own target market. Further then fine tuning the four P’s for a product (product, price, place and promotion) and the extended seven P’s for a service (people, physical environment, process) and after doing this the business is on it’s way to selling their product or service.

But as said before, the marketing of an event is somewhat different than other products and services, and in this blog I will be exploring the promotion, research, feedback as well as much more from events marketing online. Choosing online marketing to research is a obvious one, how many social media accounts, Youtube coverage and sponsored advertisements do you see daily from various companies? Nearly every business possible have taken to the storm of online marketing. This an effective way to inform the public of your company being out there as only 13% of British citizens haven’t used the internet, meaning an astonishing 87% of us are online. Online marketing is also a cost free marketing strategy for the business, and who doesn’t love free stuff right? So events marketing as you can imagine is mostly online, whether this is promoting their event, communication with attendees or potential attendees, video content to raise awareness or feedback.

This simple way has taken international marketing like a wildfire and is one I feel should be explored and analysed. Throughout my posts I will discuss online promotion, the digital divide, social media, case studies, advertisement and much more.

REFERENCES

BOWDIN, G. ET AL., 2011. Events Management. 3rd ed. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

OXFORD DICTIONARIES., 2015. Marketing. [online]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available from:  http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/marketing [Accsessed on 1 April 2015].

PEDERSEN, S., 2015. How, when and where we are using Digital Media?, BS1288. [lecture]. Digital Media Practices and Platforms. The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen Business School, room 224, 13 February.