We live in a fast-paced world, and there are no excuses for being second in the race. The internet provides equal opportunities for everyone. To utilize it the right way and in our favour is in our hands. Gone are the days of traditional marketing methods where the seller was the king and customers bought what was available in the market. Times have changed, and now the customer is the king. The producers have no other option but to produce as per demand, tastes and preferences of the customers.
Previously the seller would go door to door to advertise and sell his products. Later came the newspaper ads as newspapers were and are one of the options to have the widest reach. Sellers found this as a new prospect to put in their advertising pamphlets and advertisements in the local area newspapers. Television ads later replaced this. Since the time movies and commercials became a hit, brands started telecasting advertisements to promote their products on televisions and movie theatres.
The world keeps moving forward and faster. Technology keeps improving every day and with great leaps. One such advance in technology is the creation of a social space for people to communicate and connect with each other. This not only is helping people as individuals but also as brands to expand their horizons. This online marketing was later coined as digital marketing. Digital marketing allows sellers to promote their products right from where they are. They can now sit and watch their sales growth, and their business expands with powerful online tools. Various Digital Marketing Agencies help individuals grow their brand.
Let us understand how and when did this whole new concept come to picture. Digital Marketing can be called as a 2.0 version of the marketing methods. It has made life simpler for businesses thereby helping them to concentrate better on decision making. The world of the digital platform works based on various algorithms that help you understand how your business is performing. Thirty years now, and we have come a long way. In the beginning, the World Wide Web project did not seem so successful until people understood how effective it could be. Isn’t it obvious? The web connects people from across the world. Let us see how it has evolved over a period of time.
The Internet
Adopting the internet was one mass thing that has happened in all these times. It gave people the power to connect and interact. However, there was a peak in the number of users of the internet after 1994 when Netscape was released. In the following years, the number of people using the internet doubled. With growing internet space, then budding companies like Yahoo and Google in search engines and e-commerce sites like Amazon and ebay started their work online. It was an email that was first used as a marketing tool. The one thing that gave way to many customers was getting information on products and knowing more about them at the comfort of staying at home. After all, these came into play.
Big Data
The creation of big data helped people in many ways. The algorithms were able to study human behaviour, and this helped businesses to understand their customers in a better way. The patterns helped to analyse the market place in a better way, and that helped in better decision-making.
Mobile phones
Smartphones have made things simpler and also as more and more apps started emerging with time. This gave a better functionality to the businesses to channel their activities and also on business expansion right from where they are. Smartphones are like having a world in a small pocket. They can take you places and make you meet people. With an introduction to smartphones, e-marketing has become stronger than before. This has increased the dependency on the new marketing method. Pretty soon, everyone seemed to be having a phone and working on their brand right from their homes.
Understanding Traditional Marketing
Traditional Marketing involves age-old methods of marketing. Traditional marketing methods include these:
Billboards
Broadcasting on Television/ Radio
Print Media
Sending out catalogues
Telemarketing
Signs
Many things make traditional marketing worth it.
Pros :
Effective – Traditional marketing methods are impactful. They provide better visuals and make the viewer long for the product. A visually appealing billboard or posters on a train are what people see in their daily life. They thus can have an impact on how people perceive and remember it.
Constant – Pictures have better impression than long texts, and that’s the reason why most big brands opt for visually appealing advertisements or impactful copies.
Long-lasting – Seeing something again and again can create a deep memory in your mind. Brands spend to telecast their advertisements regularly on television.
Cons :
Difficult to measure – Probably one of the many challenges of traditional marketing is that you cannot measure people’s satisfaction or the way they perceive the advertisement. It is challenging or at times impossible to measure the success of a campaign.
Costly affair – Not all brands would have the money to spend and advertise their product in a big magazine. This is another drawback and also the reason why most brands do not choose this except for highly successful brands.
No connection with the customer – In traditional marketing, there is no way you will be able to see one customer in particular. You wouldn’t know what your audience thinks of your marketing efforts. This might also leave a void where you might not get to know your customers well. This can also impact business decisions.
Understanding Digital Marketing
Living in the internet age has its perks. One of the surveys states that on average, people spend close to six hours a day online. Comfort is one of the most significant factors that is giving away reason to choose Digital Marketing over traditional marketing. The various forms of digital marketing are:
Social media
Website Marketing
Content Marketing
Email Marketing
Affiliate Marketing
PPC Pay Per Click)
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
Pros :
Targeted – One of the most significant advantages of digital marketing is that you can enormously narrow down and focus one particular set of customers. This enables you to save much money over advertising and also gives the right set of customers to your product. This provides a high chance of product success.
Measurable – Most of the digital marketing methods are run through algorithms, and they have numbers to measure. The analytics provided in various platforms give better insights to understanding customer behaviour and appeal to the brand and the product, which is otherwise not possible in traditional marketing.
Customer Interaction – Digital marketing is the only method that has customer engagement. Customer engagement is critical to know how customers see your brand. When you know people are sharing and spreading a word about your product or service; you know you are growing. Digital marketing is one of the most efficient ways to check your product growth as it connects you directly to your customers.
Cons :
Too many to annoy – Most people tend to get annoyed by seeing your ads multiple times. This is especially when they are watching any videos on YouTube or listening to music online. This can create a negative impression of your brand in their minds.
Less stable – Digital ads are smaller and quicker and hence does not create a lasting impression on a customer’s mind.
Never-ending – Digital marketing is an ever-evolving space, and there are so many things to learn and understand. You have to continually keep knowing and studying the market trends to keep in pace with customer preferences. This can often become tiring at times.
9 Ways Digital Marketing has Reformed Businesses
Instant reviews :
Imagine taking a paper that has some random ten survey questions. You are instructed to go to a handful of people and get the survey done. Once it is over, you come back and jot down the results. Isn’t this all extremely time-consuming? It sure does take much manual effort too. We all had a time in the past when salespeople came knocking on our doors to collect feedback about the products that they have sold earlier.
Businesses found this as a great hindrance to growth as it did not give desirable results. With the evolution of digital marketing, communicating with customers has become a cakewalk. You can now sit right at your office or home and get to know in real-time about what customers think of your brand. You can send messages, emails and newsletters to customers to keep them involved to your brand. In return, they too get to see all about your work either on your website or on your social media handles.
Loaded with Content :
We all know the rough estimate of the world population. More than 70% have a Facebook account. Then imagine the number of Facebook posts that come up every day! Facebook, Instagram or any other social media handle for that matter has millions of users, and you are just a click away from sharing about your brand to those many people. You get mainly noticed. Also, customers love innovative content. Digital marketing gives you that space. You get to create incredible content and visuals. Such content has a lasting impression on the customers.
The magic of Analytics :
Every social media handle has its set of analytics that help you understand your customers, a better way. Digital marketing enables businesses to gain great results by taking decisions based on the metrics. Everything in this field is measurable.
There are customer-centric metrics that will let you know what customers think of your brand, and there are metrics to measure the engagement of your customers towards the brand. All these help in framing better decisions for the business. Another best thing about this is you need not spend all your time studying these results. Some people understand analytics better and help businesses. Many digital marketing agencies take up this work, thus making your life simpler.
Transparency :
Customers these days demand transparency. A customer builds loyalty towards a brand only when they know that they are genuine. They believe that the brand must make them aware of their products. This thus leads to many campaigns that brands lead focusing on their product and its specialities. Another way on how customers form opinions is through customer reviews. Brands must keep this part open so other customers can find feedback about their products.
Better Connection :
Customers feel special when they are given attention. This, in turn, makes them fall for the brand. Personalized products, messages and rewards make them happy. Digital marketing has helped businesses take this to a different level.
With e-marketing, you can now send across emails, wishing them on special occasions or conducting contests and providing things like cash back or digital cash prizes or coupons. E-marketing has also made the connection with customers more accessible, simpler and faster.
Influencer marketing :
Social media has given opportunities for regular people to raise to the level of being an influencer. An influencer typically inspires many people. Some even make money out of it. What the brands get out of this is advertisement in minimal amounts. When influencers vouch for a brand, the brand receives substantial publicity.
Influencers charge a minimum amount for this collaboration. While some look into the money aspect, other influencers just need recognition and hence might even collaborate for free. Affiliate marketing is another method to advertise your products easily.
Something new every time :
The digital platform is enormous and has great space and opportunities. People need something new every time. Often there is a trend and brands to keep in pace with the users go hand in hand to live up to the directions. These creative grounds give competition to companies, and they are expected to come up with something new every time. They also are expected to find new ways to attract customers and find better ways to reach them. Digital wallets are one such example. They came into being by helping people by making them go cashless which, when adopted, widely gave great benefits.
Diverse :
There are so many options to choose from when it comes to market your brand digitally. There is no hard and fast rule to keep things in order. Each platform works differently. Depending on the nature of your brand, you can choose what suits best for your brand. You can also reach out to specific customers depending on the nature of your approach.
Extremely Cost-effective :
Digital marketing is extremely cost-effective. With the amount that you might spend on one billboard to hand on the street can be put to pull many customers online. It becomes cheaper than that. Digital marketing has become a need now as people are focusing more on economical methods, and so are the customers.
Everyone these days is glued to their smartphones, and it only makes sense to approach customers accordingly. E-marketing has proved exceptionally useful for small businesses as they wouldn’t be able to spend so much money on traditional marketing.
With the demand this field has got, people are now moving to take this up as their career option. Digital marketing training institutes are emerging everywhere to educate people about this new development in the field of marketing. Educational institutes have started focusing more on this topic in their syllabi.
Digital marketing has made lives better. With the growing demand, there have emerged many digital marketing institutes that help businesses work the right way. Digital marketing agencies look after a brand’s digital needs and help them in growing their online presence. The field of marketing is exceptionally diverse and ever-evolving. It took a lot of time and effort for us to reach where we are today. We will never know what the other surprises that the internet has in its bag are! All we can do is keep continually learning and embrace the change.