The business has been something, which is prevalent ever since the inception of mankind. Although our transaction mediums have changed over the course of history, the basic fundamentals of a business have remained the same, which were to give a product or service in exchange for some commodity of an equal value. Where this commodity had been either goods, valuable materials like gold or silver, or the modern-day paper currency, still the basic workings are intact.
Another thing that is as old as business itself is marketing. Marketing in simplest terms is to advertise your products or service to a potential set of customers in order to attract those customers to buy those products or services. In ancient days, merchants used to shout about their product’s benefits or price discounts while standing in the open markets in order to attract customers’ attention, this was the earliest way of marketing and dates back to ever since humans started formal ways of business.
Change in Business Dynamics
With time, there has been a change in everything that makes up a business as we discussed above, only the basic methodology of how a business is conducted remained the same, the rest of everything changed with time. This move made sense because businesses needed to adapt according to changes in customer behavior in order to thrive and stay relevant in the market.
This shift was also necessary because any business runs because of its customers, and the customer psyche changes with every generation. For example, if you go with gold coins today to buy something people will automatically consider you stupid, however, back in the day, this was the legitimate way of purchasing anything and doing a business.
Similarly, it won’t make sense in the modern world to go in the streets and shout out the name of the product and its benefits, instead of doing any good it will only harm the reputation of the business, but this was the basic medium of marketing in early humans. So with the passage of time and the change in business dynamics, our marketing strategies have also changed.
Influence of the Internet
A modern customer likes to spend most of their time on the internet since this technology has become quite cost-effective and easier to access, plus the immense applications and fields in which the internet is used today have compelled people to use and adapt this service. This ease of access can be demonstrated in such a way that internet providing companies are streamlining their operations so much so that they have developed separate channels for different ethnic consumers living in a said marketplace.
Talking about the US, where Spanish is the second most dominant language after English, thus service providers like Cox have launched dedicated portals for Spanish speaking consumers through which they can get internet services and get their issues resolved, this Spanish entity of Cox goes by the name of Cox communications en español.
Need for Digital Marketing
When this is the level of a modern customer’s immersion on the internet it only makes sense to create marketing channels that use this technology for effective advertisement. Nobody is interested in looking at billboards or television advertisements regarding the products they don’t want in this fast-paced society. Rather, customers of today are only interested in that kind of advertisement which aligns with their interest and niche, this is where digital marketing comes in.
As the internet has benefited humanity in so many avenues of life the same is the case with marketing, digital marketing is a sub-branch of the bigger marketing infrastructure that basically uses modern technologies (mostly the internet) to market products and services to relevant customers. Digital marketing is a channel that connects brands with their relevant customers by analyzing a user’s activity on the web.
How Digital Marketing Works
The major benefit of such a work model is that by analyzing each individual’s online activity tech giants like Google classifies individuals into consumer sets. Then companies like these offer their services of advertisements to relevant brands so that customers only see those ads regarding the products in which they are interested, instead of seeing jargon everywhere. This allows better targeting for brands and better customer conversion since only those products are being displayed in which the customer has shown interest previously.
This is how the paid aspect of digital marketing works. On the other hand, there are other organic ways to get to customers through digital marketing. Techniques like SEO and Content Marketing also have huge potential to attract relevant customers without spending little to no money.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique in which digital marketing experts use certain algorithms to rank their business’s website in the top search results of popular search engines, mostly the Google search engine. First, they analyze the keywords regarding their product niche and then work on those keywords in order to reach the relevant audience.
On the other hand, in content marketing. businesses plug their products or services in attractive pieces of content which attract potential customers and make them aware of those products which a business is trying to market. These contents can range from anything to recreational or informational content, the basic idea is to just catch the eyeballs with the ultimate intention being to market a product.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has lots of benefits that range from efficiency to cost-effectiveness. Talking about cost, these techniques are quite cheap compared to other physical marketing strategies like print or television marketing.
Another benefit is that digital marketing aims to target the relevant consumer instead of just broadcasting a product to the masses which is both expensive and inefficient. Plus businesses can effectively manage their marketing budget as every lead and sale is recorded through digital marketing channels allowing for a better ROI (Return on Investment) calculation and maintaining a marketing budget. This kind of tracking and record-keeping is only specific to digital marketing.
Summing Up
This article aimed to briefly shed light on all aspects related to digital marketing. From explaining earlier marketing practices, and why there originated a need for digital marketing due to the rise in the popularity of the internet. We also discussed how different digital marketing techniques work and their benefits over their physical counterparts. In short a brief guide to digital marketing practices.
Feature Image Credit: Photo by Mikael Blomkvist from Pexels
