Digital Marketing – Is It the Next Traditional Marketing?

Digital Marketing – Is it the next traditional marketing?

The era of the Internet has brought about a revolution of sorts in a gamut of diverse sectors such as communication, finance and banking, information technology and trade and commerce to name a few. The key objective for most businesses is to engage their target markets on appropriate platforms. Staying on the pulse of the consumer is the only way to achieve full visibility and retention.

Digital Marketing first appeared as a term in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the World Wide Web was not the complex, dynamic marketplace back then as it is today. It was more static and involved very less interaction as the concept of personal internet use was relatively new and the world was still heavily relying on physical advertising or communication. By the end of the decade, concepts of email, and social networking sites appeared on the personal internet use front whereas, web crawlers for search engine optimization and banner advertising slowly started on the backend for sellers.

As the technology further simplified for a consumer, it was now easy to own a personal computer, purchase an internet connection, sign up for an email account and socialize with people all over the world, all in the privacy of their own homes. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Instagram and YouTube have made it possible for people sitting in different corners of the world to instantly connect to each other. The next phase of evolution for brands came in the early to mid-2000s. Brands now faced (and still do) the challenge to develop online extensions of themselves to be connected to this mammoth consumer base. I.e., staying on the pulse of the consumer. It was crucial for brands to make an appearance, and a good appearance at that, in this new digital space where consumers were spending most of their time interacting with one another, exploring new avenues and looking for new information.

Digital marketing invariably is about people. It merely involves the use of platforms distinct to traditional advertising to connect people (marketers) to other people (consumers). Ryan (2017), further mentions in his book, that digital marketing is “not about understanding the underlying technology, but rather about understanding people, how they are using that technology and how you can leverage that to engage with them more effectively” (Ryan, 2017).

Digital marketing encompasses a variety of tools such as Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Display Advertising and Email Marketing to name a few.

The following fig 1.1 depicts the penetration of internet usage around the world.

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Fig 1.1. Internet World Penetration Rates by geographic regions (June 30, 2017)

As one can observe from the figure (World Internet User Statistics, 2017), more than half the world’s population is actively engaging on the internet for different purposes. It is only obvious that businesses all over the world follow suit and tap these target markets and integrate their online presence as a healthy extension to their brand image and positioning.

Ryan further quotes seven ways from Jupiter Research in which the Internet and technology is significantly affecting consumers and their behavior.

1. Interconnectivity:

Networking digital platforms are increasing interconnectivity of global masses as we speak. Consumers are using portals such as Facebook, email, Twitter, Instagram or even LinkedIn to connect to one another and build new social communities online. The technicalities of geographic distances, time zones or even the sheer costs of communicating are all a story of the past. Social networking and communicating has become the new social norm.

2. Information Availability:

New information can be created and circulated, present information can be searched for and found to be re-used all in a matter of seconds, thus making today’s consumers some of the most well-informed individuals and buyers are the same time. Uninfluenced information transmission and no agenda setting are making consumers powerful by equipping them with all the required knowledge.

3. Relevance Filtering:

With the gigantic amount of information being bombarded to consumers, they have developed a mechanism of filtering which enables them to retain information they need and leave out what they do not require.

4. Niche Aggregation:

Information and content on the internet is so vast and rich, it is giving rise to consumers being able to indulge in specific interests and needs. Other individuals with similar interests team up to form social communities online with distinct personalities.

5. Microblogging:

The ease of access and execution has made microblogging incredibly common and normal. Publishing own content costs nothing and individuals of today are constantly relying on each other for advice, reviews or simply want to know your thoughts. Be it a picture on Instagram, a 140 character tweet or a restaurant review on Yelp.

6. All new ‘Prosumers’:

With the great information exchange, we are also witnessing a massive shift in the power balance between producers and consumers. This means that consumers are proactively participating in the production process by being very specific about what they want. This effects the communication being projected to the consumers because now, the content has to be tweaked in order to satisfy the ‘prosumer’ mind.

7. The new WWW:

The head of Branding and Consumer markets, David Black redefined WWW as: ‘what we want, where we want and when we want.’ The rapid growth in availability of digital resources has given rise to the corresponding development of business processes to address consumer needs quickly and with lesser restrictions. Consumers have truly become the Kings.

The need for brands’ presence on the digital medium has been well established. Let us further take a look at what are the core advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing.

Advantages

1. Cost Effectiveness

This is one of the most important advantages of digital marketing. According to Weinberg (2009), most tools such as social media advertising and display advertising work at fraction of costs as one would spend on a traditional TV or Radio spot or even Billboard rentals. Some social media marketing tools are even free for businesses to use. Location targeted posts cuts out irrelevancy and fine tunes your marketing campaign for optimum results. This helps not only big businesses but also small-medium sized businesses which do not have big marketing budgets.