Digital Marketing: A change that creates opportunity for branding
- Digital Marketing has wider scope since the field not only deals with online marketing but in fact permits the use of electronic devices that can be used offline
- According to Forrester, the US digital marketing size will reach $146 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 9%
- Online marketing tools such as YouTube, Instagram, SEO and email as well as content marketing have been preferred by various businesses to build up customer relationships
- The market is growing drastically due to increased number of app users. However, marketers need to identify challenges in this field and solve them using various marketing strategies
Businesses these days have become the victim of digital Darwinism because people no longer buy products but buy better version of them. Digital Marketing has created scope for self-initiated communities, word-of mouth trust and branding through human stories.
The brands who are gaining more market share are those adding actual value, particularly through video and Instagram stories. Digital marketing is not only about using online advertisements and other forms of online marketing. The field of this marketing is extended to use electronic devices in order to build local businesses marketing strategy which makes easier for marketers to focus on target customers.
Aimee Tariq, COO of “Web Matrix Group” shares “You-Tube” commercials being the most effective form of paid traffic advertising because it uses Google “Artificial Intelligence “to leverage the search engine history of the user. “ Instagram” uses features such as location tags and hash tags by our city or state to increase followers, build the relation with potential customers and similarly offer free product or service in return.
These advertisement strategies help to boost up business internet presence even more by optimizing website (SEO: Search Engine Optimization.) Another great place to appeal local customers is through content marketing which assists in SEO ranking by adding blog posts to company’s website. Similarly, building email lists of customers (email-marketing) helps to retain customers in creative way where messages can be send to their mails.
According to Forbes, the average Internet user has at least 7 social media accounts where 97% of US adults under 65 are on social media at least once a month. The vast majority are on it every day. Forbes also mentions that 22% of the world population is on Face book where there is vast trend of spending over 2 hours a day on social media by average person (Teenagers average 9 hours.) People spend around 37% of their social media time interacting with branded contents.
As per Gartner, there is strong and continued growth of E-commerce in digital marketplaces of countries like US and UK (Around 12% year-on year-growth). Artificial Intelligence is sure to be at the heart of global business and industry. For example: The use of K5 robots by Microsoft and Uber (American multinational ride-hailing company) in order to predict and prevent crime. The strong security mechanism of companies has increased reliability among customers.
According to Fomster, Reynolds’s building Solutions- a Web FX client increased organic traffic by 43% through the use of SEO services. Reynolds is a private corporation providing business management software and professional services to car dealerships. A popular travel booking platform, Expedia uses PPC (Pay-per click) as a marketing tool that has serviced customers for booking flights, hotels or bundle deals.
As mentioned in Fomster, a new eBook by Website “Builder Wicks” looks at the challenges of digital marketing. As per the panel discussion of Wicks, 50% of the agencies indicated increasing competition as biggest challenge. 25% of the agencies mentioned adapting to new technology an emerging challenge. 17% faced challenges in hiring the right people while 8% of them had fear on maintenance of privacy and standards. Moreover, the nature of all the businesses is different. So, the companies might face difficult times as to focus on which specific services (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO etc.)
Marketers must take local markets rather than global markets to offer their product and services as the test and preferences of the global market changes rapidly and is very difficult to segment the entire market. They must understand the needs and values of customers and develop such programs (customer-driven marketing strategy) so as to retain the ex-customers and attract the potential customers even if the various challenges are emerging in the field of “digital marketing.”
