Welcome to Digital Marketing & The Modern World. The purpose of this blog series is to examine as well as discuss how digital marketing, in the past decade, has altered how businesses and organizations develop and implement their marketing strategies.

Technology has had a significant impact on the marketing industry. In the past, traditional marketing such as billboards, television, and print used to dominate the industry. However, these techniques have become outdated. People do not look through magazines or newspapers anymore to search for advertisements or product reviews, instead they look online. Now, the emphasis is on reaching consumers through the digital world.

In case you are wondering what digital marketing is, in today’s topic I will be providing you with a brief description and guide to what this industry is all about.

What is Digital Marketing?

Definition: According to HubSpot, “Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device and internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers (Alexander, 2019).”

In other words, digital marketing is online and internet marketing using digital tools.

Today, digital marketing is about businesses reaching customers across all platforms with personalized messages. Preferably, marketing teams want to be able to track the role of each of these messages in order to reach their ultimate goal, conversions.

Why Is Digital Marketing Important?

Think of the last purchase or two that you made. Perhaps you purchased a sofa, ordered food to be delivered to your house, rented a new home, or hired someone to fix your AC?

Regardless of what you purchased, you most likely began your search online to learn more about the product or service, price, as well as the various options on the table. The final decision was most likely formulated from the ratings and reviews you have read, consultation from friends or family members, and your own research.

In this age, most purchases start online. Therefore, an online presence is vital.

As the Internet intertwines with almost everything we do, digital marketing becomes more and more important.

Why is that so? Well, according to Statista,

1. As of October 2020, around 4.6 of 7.6 billion people in the world use the internet
2. 30% of consumers prefer to interact with a brand on online rather than in store

In order for businesses to be competitive, they must be present across all digital channels and devices to meet consumer needs (Clement, 2020).

Types of Digital Marketing

There are many types of digital marketing to consider. Below I have listed the five common forms.

Social Media Marketing: Promoting brand and content on social media channels to increase brand awareness and engagement, drive traffic, and generate leads.

Email Marketing: Email is often used to promote content, discounts, events as well as to direct people toward the business’s website.

Search Engine Optimization: This process of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results pages, which results in increasing the amount of traffic (visitors) to the website.

Influencer Marketing: An effective way for brands to reach their target audience is through influencer marketing. Brands can partner up with macro, micro, or nano influencers to reach influencer followers with their content and offers.

Content Marketing: This method involves creating and sharing relevant content (texts, images, graphics, videos, social media posts) to attract and retain the audience.

The list goes on…but for now, I will leave it at here. I hope you all gained a brief overview about industry. Please stay tuned for my next post, where I will be discussing the history of digital marketing!

References:

Alexander, L. (2019, February). The Who, What, Why, & How of Digital Marketing. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-digital-marketing

Clement, J. (2020, November). Internet users in the world 2020. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide

HubSpot. (n.d.). Digital Marketing Made Simple. Retrieved from https://www.hubspot.com/digital-marketing