Our SEO Company offers best SEO services, content development, online brand management, PPC management, SMM and many more. We are considered as the best Internet marketing company of India that works with the enthusiasm of 100% client satisfaction. Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.
The way in which digital marketing has developed since the 1990s and 2000s has changed the way brands and businesses utilize technology and digital marketing for their marketing. Digital marketing campaigns are becoming more prevalent as well as efficient, as digital platforms are increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people use digital devices instead of going to physical shops.
Digital marketing such as search engine optimization, search engine marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing and e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, optical disks and games, are becoming more and more common in our advancing technology. In fact, this extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as mobile phones, callback and on-hold mobile ring tones.
History
The term digital marketing was first used in the 1990s, but digital marketing has roots in the mid-1980s when the SoftAd Group, now ChannelNet, developed advertising campaigns for automobile companies, wherein people would send in reader reply cards found in magazines and receive in return floppy disks that contained multimedia content promoting various cars and offering free test drives.
Digital marketing became more sophisticated in the 2000s and the 2010s,; the proliferation of devices’ capability access digital media at almost any given time has led to great growth of digital advertising; statistics produced in 2012 and 2013 showed that digital marketing was still a growing field.
Digital marketing is often referred to as ‘online marketing’, ‘internet marketing’ or ‘web marketing’. The term digital marketing has grown in popularity over time, particularly in certain countries. In the USA online marketing is still prevalent, in Italy is referred as web marketing but in the UK and worldwide, digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.
Digital media growth is estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend at 48% growth in 2010. An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising to tailor advertising for internet users, but OBA raises concern of consumer privacy and data protection. Exchanges are more non-linear, free flowing and both one-to-many or one-on-one.
Using an omni-channel strategy is becoming increasingly important for enterprises to adapt to the changing expectations of consumers who are wanting ever-more sophisticated offerings throughout the purchasing journey, in which the internet is becoming an essential component. Retailers are increasingly focusing on their online presence, including online shops that operate alongside existing store-based outlets. This leads to the idea of “endless aisle” within the retail space, as retailers can lead consumers to purchasing products online that fit their needs without having to carry the inventory within the physical location of the store. Solely internet-based retailers are also entering the market, and some are establishing corresponding store-based outlets to provide personal services, professional help, and tangible experiences with their products. It has become increasingly popular for businesses to utilise and encourage these conversations through their social media channels to have direct contact with the customers and manage the feedback they receive appropriately.
Word of mouth communications and peer-to-peer dialogue often have a greater effect on customers, since they are not sent directly from the company and are therefore not planned. Customers are more likely to trust other customers’ experiences.
Brand awareness
Ease of access
A key objective is engaging digital marketing customers and allowing them to interact with the brand through servicing and delivery of digital media. Information is easy to access at a fast rate through the use of digital communications. Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. Through Digital communications it creates a Multi-communication channel where information can be quickly exchanged around the world by anyone without any regard to whom they are. Social segregation plays no part through social mediums due to lack of face to face communication and information being wide spread instead to a selective audience. This interactive nature allows consumers create conversation in which the targeted audience is able to ask questions about the brand and get familiar with it which traditional forms of Marketing may not offer.
Competitive advantage
By using Internet platforms, businesses can create competitive advantage through various means. To reach the maximum potential of digital marketing, firms use social media as its main tool to create a channel of information. Through this a business can create a system in which they are able to pinpoint behavioral patterns of clients and feedback on their needs. This means of content has shown to have a larger impingement on those who have a long-standing relationship with the firm and with consumers who are relatively active social media users. Relative to this, creating a social media page will further increase relation quality between new consumers and existing consumers as well as consistent brand reinforcement therefore improving brand awareness resulting in a possible rise for consumers up the Brand Awareness Pyramid. Although there may be inconstancy with product images; maintaining a successful social media presence requires a business to be consistent in interactions through creating a two way feed of information; firms consider their content based on the feedback received through this channel, this is a result of the environment being dynamic due to the global nature of the internet.
Latest developments and strategies
One of the major changes that occurred in traditional marketing was the “emergence of digital marketing”, this led to the reinvention of marketing strategies in order to adapt to this major change in traditional marketing .
As digital marketing is dependent on technology which is ever-evolving and fast-changing, the same features should be expected from digital marketing developments and strategies. This portion is an attempt to qualify or segregate the notable highlights existing and being used as of press time.
# Segmentation: more focus has been placed on segmentation within digital marketing, in order to target specific markets in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer sectors.
# Influencer marketing: Important nodes are identified within related communities, known as influencers. This is becoming an important concept in digital targeting. It is possible to reach influencers via paid advertising, such as Facebook Advertising or Google Adwords campaigns, or through sophisticated sCRM software, such as SAP C4C, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage CRM and Salesforce CRM. Many universities now focus, at Masters level, on engagement strategies for influencers.
To summarize, Pull digital marketing is characterized by consumers actively seeking marketing content while Push digital marketing occurs when marketers send messages without that content being actively sought by the recipients.
# Online behavioural advertising is the practice of collecting information about a user’s online activity over time, “on a particular device and across different, unrelated websites, in order to deliver advertisements tailored to that user’s interests and preferences
# Collaborative Environment: A collaborative environment can be set up between the organization, the technology service provider, and the digital agencies to optimize effort, resource sharing, reusability and communications. Additionally, organizations are inviting their customers to help them better understand how to service them. This source of data is called User Generated Content. Much of this is acquired via company websites where the organization invites people to share ideas that are then evaluated by other users of the site. The most popular ideas are evaluated and implemented in some form. Using this method of acquiring data and developing new products can foster the organizations relationship with their customer as well as spawn ideas that would otherwise be overlooked. UGC is low-cost advertising as it is directly from the consumers and can save advertising costs for the organisation.
#Data-driven advertising: Users generate a lot of data in every step they take on the path of customer journey and Brands can now use that data to activate their known audience with data-driven programmatic media buying. Without exposing customers’ privacy, users’ Data can be collected from digital channels, brands can also collect data from real world customer interactions, such as brick and mortar stores visits and from CRM and Sales engines datasets. Also known as People-based marketing or addressable media, Data-driven advertising is empowering brands to find their loyal customers in their audience and deliver in real time a much more personal communication, highly relevant to each customers’ moment and actions.
An important consideration today while deciding on a strategy is that the digital tools have democratized the promotional landscape.