It is a sign of the changing times and we are all witnesses to it one way or the other. The business, management, and marketing principles penned at the beginning of the twentieth century are finding few takers today. So the natural question to ask now is – whether all marketing will be digital marketing soon? Quiet likely!
Watch this Video on Digital Marketing Course:
The way things are moving forward wouldn’t be surprising if the phrase “Digital Marketing” loses the keyword “Digital” sooner than later and the professions with Digital Marketing skills will have to cover both online and offline marketing.
Gartner Research on CMO Spend in 2015-16 throws some very interesting facts:
- 98% of marketers agree that online and offline marketing is merging
- A third of all marketers say digital techniques are fully incorporated into their marketing operations
- 10% of marketers say they are expanding marketing’s role to create new digitally-led business models
Internet penetration is reaching hitherto unheard levels, more people are getting online via their smartphones than desktop PCs, globally internet bandwidth is getting faster, internet charges are getting cheaper and there is an all-around bonhomie. It is an acknowledged fact that digital marketers never had it so good!
Holding Marketing Accountable and Making it More Human is the Key!
A technology doyen once commented, “the web hasn’t changed what customers want, it has merely empowered them”. Well, this is a powerful statement & message rolled into one and definitely needs a good amount of reflection on the part of any marketer worth his/her salt.
Today technology companies like Amazon and Apple are dictating what is the Gold Standard for user experience and customer service. The best part of today’s digitized economy is that you can take what is good in one industry and apply it to your industry with minimal changes to the underlying concept. Customers surely are expecting that you service them like the Amazon’s and the Apple’s of the world who are doing it with such panache!
Sometime back Hubspot which is an Inbound Marketing software platform coined the word “Smarketing” which is nothing but an amalgamation of the two departments which were until now at arm’s length – Marketing and Sales. What this term signifies is that marketing is being held accountable for the first time and it dictates that marketing has to be an active participant in the sales process too.
It is no wonder that Hubspot which is a digital marketing platform came up with this game-changing concept. Digital marketing is definitely going to change the rules of the game in more ways than one and old-fashioned marketers better beware.
Customers today want an Omni-channel experience which means regardless of the platform, device, or other such nuances they are demanding an integrated and uniform experience, and rightly so. Never has the phrase “Customer is King” been so paramount than today.
A Deep Dive into the Digital Marketing ecosystem!
For beginners here are the major components that make any organization’s digital marketing world go round:
- The Company website
- Social media channels
- Business Blog
- Search Engine Marketing
- App Marketing
- Online video content
- Interstitials and display ads
- Email marketing
You can surely add to this list since this is just a cursory list and not a laundry list of things that constitutes Digital Marketing.
The organization’s website is the most important digital asset and hence it needs to be treated that way. What you do with your website and the content that you upload on it definitely defines who you are as an organization and comes to represent you everywhere. Social Media Marketing channels are also a very important part of your Digital Marketing strategy. Today nearly two billion people are already on social networking channels and any brand worth its salt is already on these channels targeting its core audience and searching for its next brand advocates and brand influencers alike.
The blog that you publish as part of your business venture is also very important especially if you are part of the B2B ecosystem. Did you know that in this B2B space your customers would already have made 60% of their buying journey before they even speak to your sales personnel, how? Two words – InboundMarketing!
Then we have multimedia content like video, images, and display ads that are also equally important. Did you know that people who watch your product videos are 64% more likely to buy your product?! That is the power of digital media and you better get cracking if you are just marketing in the brick-and-mortar world and wondering where did all the customers suddenly go?
The legacy media companies like New York Times which thought that their position was unassailable until a few years ago are today coming up against some very harsh realities. Facebook which came into existence a little over a decade ago is today light-years ahead of the old-school media giant New York Times. It is surely fighting for the same ad dollars that a few years ago were the sole share of NYT. Today NYT is starving and craving for its once rich ad dollars which are being ruthlessly cornered by new-age media companies like Facebook and their ilk.
Digital is the new frontier and the faster you realize this maxim of business, the better it is for your organization!
So what do you think about Digital Marketing becoming all-pervading in the not-so-distant future? Share your comments and thoughts.