Master of Management Studies (M.M.S) Digital Marketing Strategy Syllabus - Mumbai University 2026

Course objectives

• 1 To introduce foundational concepts, strategies, and tools of digital marketing.
• 2 To equip students with practical skills for managing digital marketing channels including SEO, SEM, social media, and email marketing.
• 3 To enable analytical evaluation of digital marketing campaigns, including web analytics and conversion optimization.
• 4 To develop strategic thinking around content marketing, online reputation management, and digital branding.
• 5 To foster understanding of ethical, legal, and privacy considerations in digital marketing practices.

Course outcomes

• CO1: Understand the issues in transitioning from traditional marketing to digital marketing
• CO2: Analyse outbound and inbound marketing programmes and impact on consumer behaviour through frameworks
• CO3: Apply the learnings to critique F2C and D2C communications and its effectiveness on company revenues and profits
• CO4: Evaluate digital marketing programmes across channels using and frameworks learnt in the course
• CO5: Design a comprehensive digital marketing strategy integrating multiple channels to achieve business objectives

Unit 1 CO1, CO2, · 3 hours

Fundamentals of digital marketing – challenges for traditional firms to go digital; consumer adoption and radical changes in consumer behaviour online; new tools for consumer research – micro-blogging, blog posts to monitor social chatter and buzz online; measure of consumer exposure, interest, reactions to advertising messages, offers, purchases across a variety of contexts

Unit 2 CO1, CO2 · 3 hours

Frameworks for Digital Marketing – Outbound (Firm initiated) marketing – traditional: print, radio, TV advertising; digital: search, display, video advertising. Inbound (Consumer Initiated) marketing – firm websites aligned with consumer’s search process, search engine algorithms, search engine optimization process; Social Media – digital platforms where consumers actively create content on X, Facebook; Native Advertising - preview of websites, influence on other consumers’ buying behaviour; role of mobile phones in consumer search and purchase process; alternative to online/offline ads, emulate voice of unsponsored editorials by third party writers, reporters on website

Unit 3 CO2, CO3 · 4 hours

Search Engine Optimization – On page, Off page SEO, bidding on keywords, budgeting for search advertisements, Metric – Cost per Click, Click Through Rate (CTR), Impressions, Conversion rate, Profit Margin, quality of landing page, Relevance to Consumers; keyword portfolio, keyword proliferation, Branded versus generic keywords; impact on consideration set of buyers, repositioning of keywords to auction ; respond to competitor tactics; generalized Second Place auction; bids v/s Willingness to Pay

Unit 4 CO2, CO3, CO4 · 4 hours

Digital Advertising and Promotions – bi-directional communication, gathering attitudinal and behavioral feedback in real time, real time market research -online tools to talk with and listen to consumer to consumer conversations; role of social networks like X, Facebook; purpose of online communication – understand what customers value, communicate value to them, provide value; advertising v/s promotions – display ads, viral ads; benefits of online ads – interactive, finer selection of audience, D2C access, speed of updating; Objectives of consumer promotions – product trial, repeat purchase, brand switching

Unit 5 CO3, CO4 · 3 hours

Firm – to Consumer (F2C) and Consumer – to – Consumer Advertising (C2C): F2C – firm creates, consumers consume content, C2C- consumers propagate and others consume content; use of text, static messages, audio/video content, use influencers to talk with other consumers through viral marketing or modified content through electronic Word of Mouth (e WOM)

Unit 6 CO3, CO4 · 3 hours

Framework for Selection of Digital and Social Media – purpose of the medium – listen/talk?; persuasion element – deals/arguments?; ; who initiates contact – firm/consumer? content provider – frim/ consumer? ; select from a broad class of tools; identify precise tools; importance of high-involvement versus low- involvement products in deciding tools

Unit 7 CO1, CO3, CO4 · 5 hours

Transition from 4P’s to Digital 3 P's- for traditional companies, issues are - speed of transition, change in business model; Gupta & Deighton Framework for transition; Digital 3P’s (Wagonfield & Deighton, 2012) – delivery of product/service, Market Research, Posting and testing prices; Digital Product – digital content, hybrid products (Digital + Physical); problem of copying/piracy in digital products/services; crowd sourcing of products; Digital Distribution – choice of channels, stratification of online channels – own channels, retailer website, auction websites; evaluation of channel options – coverage, channel conflicts, cost of channel, control over offering to end consumer; managing different channels with different cost structures, usage of mobile phone and channel decisions; Digital Pricing – by individual, discounts, schedule of payments, impact on revenues, profits, cash flows, non-financials- brand image, customer profile, distributor relations; price discrimination, dynamic pricing, cross-subsidization of consumers.

Unit 8 CO3 · 3 hours

Digital Storytelling – blogging, video podcasts, visual storytelling, user generated content and interactive content; content distribution and promotion strategies

Unit 9 CO4 · 2 hours

Web analytics and performance management – Google analytics and UTM tracking; attribution models and conversion funnel analysis

Textbooks

• 1 Digital Marketing for Dummies – Ryan Deiss & Russ Henneberry
• 2 Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital – Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, Iwan Setiawan
• 3 The Art of Digital Marketing – Ian Dodson
• 4 Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach – Melissa Barker, Donald Barker, Nicholas Bormann, Krista Neher
• 5 Google Analytics Demystified – Joel Davis

Reference Books

• 1 Driving Digital Strategy. A Guide to Reimaging Your Business. Sunil Gupta. Harvard Business Review Press
• 2 Starting Small to Winning Big: The Definitive Digital Marketing Guide for Startup Entrepreneurs. Shishir Mishra. Business Expert Press