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Top1. Introduction
In Asian countries, the service industry contributes 60% or more of their GDP (Park & Shin, 2012). In the Philippines, the service industry contributed 52.9% to its 2004 GDP (Mitra, 2013). The growth was steady, with a GDP share of 56.7% in 2014 and 58.8% in 2015 (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, 2015). One important component of the service industry is the hospitality sector. Meanwhile, the increasing use of the Internet promotes the dramatic growth of online marketing. Companies are now using the Internet to reach their target market (Smith, 2011). For instance, in the hospitality industry, online reservation systems (Guo et al., 2013; Ozturk et al., 2016) and websites (Gan et al., 2007) have become increasingly dominant. Those that have online leads are growing more than those without online leads. Also, they are generating up to 45% of profits compared to those with zero online leads (McGlaughlin et al., 2012), making today the most dynamic period in marketing history (Valos et al., 2010). The growing awareness of the potential leverage when implementing online marketing is now seen, as the service industry is putting in more resources to it as the industry sees it tantamount to increasing company's brand awareness and sales (Mustafi et al., 2011).
Numerous online marketing strategies are prevalent in the service industry. The most popular platform is social media. Lorenzo-Romero et al. (2014) pointed out that social media allows marketers to directly market their product and reach their target audience while at the same time serving as a public relations channel of the company. A study by the University of San Francisco highlighted that 72% of U.S. adults who are online use Facebook. This implies that Facebook is the primary destination among other online networking sites. Another online strategy that dominates companies is online content marketing. Unlike social media, content marketing can be present in any online platform as its primary is focused on the quality of the content that the companies would communicate to drive profitable customer action (Ahmad et al., 2015). Video marketing, on the other hand, is considered a pillar in content marketing. In video marketing, marketers can make use of text, graphics, or videos to be more effective in their strategies.
Due to the potential leverage companies could take, an increasing number of businesses nowadays are engaging in online marketing in doing business. One of the striking advantages is a low-cost advertisement online marketing incurs compared to the traditional ones. For example, they can get a free listing in many online business directories. They could connect to customers more than they usually would, and contact is more affordable than methods, such as sending mail, printing brochures, and paying for postal costs. Another advantage that businesses acquire when implementing online marketing is the ability to track the results of advertising efforts, with insightful analytics and visualizations, which would provide traffic growth, leads, and sales conversions (Linton, 2016). With the use of online marketing strategies, distance is no longer an issue. It is possible to sell and advertise anywhere with the presence of the Internet. Such ability enables businesses for global reach. Also, a significant portion of the population now relies on social media as a reference point before product or service purchase (Kim & Ko, 2012). The most important advantage of online marketing is its ability to connect and build relationships with customers. The Internet provides an essential platform for building relationships with customers and increasing customer retention levels.