Digital Marketing

 

In modern digital age, marketers are facing new challenges as well as opportunities. In Digital Marketing, electronic media is used to promote the products and services in the market. Various digital technologies are used for such promotion of products. Marketers can facilitates their customers with the help of digital marketing tools. On the other hand, Digital marketing media provides an interactive platform to customers and also allow them to communicate with the manufacturer. Customers can get information about the product, complain the problems, enquire, and resolve their problems through the digital marketing. The main objective of this article is to study concept of digital marketing, to compare traditional marketing with digital marketing and to explore various channels of digital marketing. This study also describes advantages of digital marketing. 

Digital Marketing:

Digital marketing refers to marketing through digital technologies. With the increasing use of technology, digital marketing has become more important and its effectiveness is also increasing rapidly with time. In digital marketing, various channels, media and electrical gadgets are used for marketing and promotion of products or services. Digital marketing is the use of digital channels to promote or market products and services to consumers and businesses. It has both advantages and disadvantages. The significant advantage is, it reaches to large number of customers in very less time and it is also cheaper, thus it is time and cost efficient one.

Digital marketing helps in analyzing the effectiveness of campaign, as it provides a complete record of number of views, duration of views of any particular advertisement, feedback etc.  Digital marketing also helps in analyzing, buyers behavior. As it keeps a complete record of customers’ preferences, responses to various products, buying tendencies etc. it also helps in determining the marketing strategy. Digital marketing is the promotion of brands using the internet, mobile and other interactive channels. It is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach customers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.

Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing:

Traditional marketing is the most common form of marketing. In traditional marketing non-digital sources are used to promote the products or services in the market. It includes print, direct mail and telephonic communication. In traditional marketing, there was no interaction with customers. In traditional marketing, it is difficult to measure response of customer. In traditional marketing the advertising campaigns are planned over a long period of time.Traditional marketing is an expensive and time consuming process. Traditional marketing is one way type of communication. In traditional marketing, the proprietor can respond only in working hours.

On the other hand, in digital marketing the digital channels are used to communicate with customers. It includes online advertising, emails, social media communication, text messaging, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click.  There is direct interaction with the customers. Under digital marketing the advertising campaign is over a short period of time. It is cheap, convenient and rapid way of promoting product and services. In digital marketing any time feedback can be entertained hence it is two way communications.  In digital marketing it is easy to measure the customer’s response.

Advantages of Digital Marketing:

With the rapid changes in technology, digital marketing has changed customers buying behavior. It has brought various advantages as given below;

1.      Detail and updated information of products: digital marketing allows customers to get detail and updated information of product or services. Today customers can access internet at any time, any place. Companies are providing detail and updated information about the products. Through digital marketing, customers will get detail information about products or services. Websites provides comprehensive information of products, on which customers can rely on and can take purchase decision.

2.      Engagement: due to digital marketing, customers get engaged with companies’ website, information about products, services, online purchases and can also provide feedback.

3.      Easy to compare: nowadays, almost all companies are promoting their products by using digital marketing. So it’s very easy for customers to make comparison among products. Customers need not to visit counters to collect information about such products.

4.      24 hours shopping facility: As the internet is available 24 hours, there is no time limitation for customers to buy a product online. Customers can access internet and purchase products or services online.

5.      Sharing of content of products: customers can share content of products or services with others. One can easily transfer or get information about the product or services.

6.      Transparency in payment: as the prices of the products are available on websites, a kind of transparency in trading is maintained by digital marketing.

7.      Instant purchase: due to digital marketing, customers can purchase the products or services instantly.

8.      Affordable: digital marketing is affordable than the traditional marketing methods. An email or social media campaign can transmit message to customers for a fraction of cost as compared to a TV advertisement or print campaign. It reaches to a wider audience.

9.      Easy market research: instead of conducting expensive marketing research, companies can quickly review customers’ response, rates and also can measure success of their marketing campaign.

10.  Quick feedback: customers can give their feedback quickly. It helps the companies to upgrade themselves and communicate with target viewers at a faster rate.

11.  Time saving: it helps in promoting business through digital medium like net or mobile, thus it reaches to millions of customers in fraction of seconds. It also monitors things, like customers views, how often and how long, content which works, which doesn’t work etc.

 

Disadvantages:

Online marketing, like all forms of marketing, has one big disadvantage. The marketer must make good first impression. The first impression of the potential customer can seldom be erased, and it will mold the customer’s response to any marketing efforts. Fortunately, this disadvantage can be largely overcome by using the fact that the internet does not have space limitations. Attention to the fact that the internet does not have space limitations is one of the important online marketing strategies. It demonstrates an understanding of why people use the internet. They turn to the internet for information. The wise website owner finds a way to give the potential customer lots of information. Internet marketing online follows a very simple formula. More information means more copy on the website. The longer the amount of copy is on a website, the greater the chances that an internet user will stay on that website and read. The longer an internet user stays on a website, the greater the chances that some product or service might be purchased from that website.

Such formulas need to be incorporated into any planned online marketing strategies. The use of such formulas must also take into account the keys to holding the interest of the website viewer. Strong advertising copy, copy that includes action verbs and emotion laden messages, will hold a reader’s interest. That is why strong advertising copy has been listed among the important online marketing strategies. 

 

Digital Marketing Channels:

Digital marketing channels means two way communication medium through which marketers as well as customers can communicate with each other. There are various digital marketing channels such as:

1.      Affiliate Marketing: In this type of marketing, a company rewards the ‘affiliates’ for each customers, they attract by marketing efforts, they create on behalf of company. Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other’s products. The affiliate marketing can be seen as the process of spreading product creation and product marketing across different parties, where each party receives a share of the revenue according to their contribution.

2.      Display Advertising: It is advertising on websites or social media through banners or other add formats made up of text, images, flash, video and audio. The main objective of such advertising is to display general advertisement and messages to online visitors. It is a form of online paid advertising that is typically designed image or a photo and copy.

3.      Email Marketing: E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. In simple word, when information or message about products or services is mailed through electronic mail, to potential customer, it is defined as email marketing. Companies can promote its products and services by using this channel of digital marketing easily. Companies can attract potential customers’ attention, by creating attractive mix of graphics, text and links on products and services.

4.      Search Marketing: It is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. It is the process with a goal of getting more visibility in search engines either by getting more free traffic or paid traffic.

5.      Search Engine Optimization (SEO): It is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via “natural” or un-paid search results as opposed to search engine marketing which deals with paid inclusion. It is the process of optimizing your website for the purpose of getting free traffic from search engines. An optimized website is more easily understood by search engine crawlers.

6.      Social media: It is computer based tool that allows people to create, exchange ideas, information, pictures, videos about company’s product or services. Today, internet users spend more time with social media sites than any other type. Social media includes, face book, what’s app, twitter, linked in and Google +. It is a term that describes use of social networks online communities, blogs, wikis, or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include.

7.      Social Networking: It means the use of dedicated websites and applications to interact with other users or to find people with similar interest. Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one’s business by making connections through individuals often through social media sites. Social networking is the use of internet-based social media programs to make connections with friends, family, classmates, customers and clients. It can occur for social purposes or business purposes or both.

8.      Mobile Marketing: It is promotional activity designed for delivery to cell ones, smart phones and other handheld devices, usually as a component of multi-channel campaign. It is the interactive multichannel promotion of products or services for mobile phones and devices, smart phones and networks. It is similar to electronic advertising and in this there are text, graphics and voice messages.

9.      Text Marketing: It is a source to send information about product or services from cellular and smart phone devices. By using phone devices, company can send information in the form of text (SMS), pictures video or audio (MMS). Though text messaging companies can create a questionnaire and obtain valuable customer feedback essential to develop their product or services in future.

10.  Pay per Click (PPC): PPC Marketing is a way of using search engine advertising to generate clicks to your website rather than “earning” those clicks organically. Pay per click is good for searchers and advertisers. It is the best way for company’s advertisements as it brings low cost and greater engagement with the products and services. It is an internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. Cost per click (CPC) is the amount of money, which an advertiser pays to search engines and other internet publishers for a single click on its advertisement that brings one visitor to its website.

            Digital marketing means promotion of products by using electronic media. There are various digital marketing channels such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, email, phone, print media, television, radio, internet etc. As the world is rapidly transforming from traditional to digital. Customers are consuming more and more digital content. Corporates also have recognized this trend and have adapted digital marketing strategies. Through digital marketing, retailers and marketers can increase awareness about product or services. Digital marketing is also helpful in analyzing the effectiveness of campaign, sale, demand etc. it also provides detail record of number of views, feedback, duration of views of any particular product and buyer behavior.