Before digital marketing came along, professionals had to rely on print, radio and television advertising to reach customers. All of these channels are essentially one-directional modes of communication, requiring clever thinking to generate a response and ensure customer engagement. With the advent of mobile telephones, the Internet and other forms of interactive communication; professional marketers can today enter into a two way dialogue with the customer.
When it comes to marketing, digital marketing is one of the most effective and cost into account in comparison to all other media. Digital marketing includes advertising or marketing strategy to use in advertising on mobile, Internet and other electronic media or digital. His importance to the advertising community is growing day by day, led many people to take their digital marketing profession.
What is Digital Marketing?
“The use of digital technology and processes in the development, distribution, and promotion of products and services”.
“Is the practice of promoting products and services using database-driven online distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner”.
What are Digital Marketing Media?
The digital marketing sector uses many different digital marketing media channels, such as:
Cell phone Short Message Service (SMS) – text messages
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds
Podcasts
Voice Broadcast
Video E-mails
Banner ads on affiliate websites
Outdoor digital displays
Websites
Blogs
Strategies for Digital Marketing
There are two basic digital marketing strategies used by current and potential customers. These two types of digital marketing are called the “Push” and the “Pull.” Their methodology for providing information to customers works as follows:
Pull digital marketing – the customer seeks information about products and/or services by visiting the company’s sources of information searching for the specific product or service information. They are basically requesting to view this specific content. These are typically located in websites, blogs, streaming audio and video sources. Customers have found related information on other websites or been directed to the company’s sources by a referring website to find the information.
Push digital marketing – customers are provided information by receiving or viewing advertisements digitally, such as: SMS, RSS, cell phone calls, etc., as subscribers of the latest product and service information provided by the company.
Advantage of Pull
Pull has no restrictions on file size, no opt-in requirements, and low technology requirements for the company.
Since requests are inherently opt-in, the size of content is generally unlimited.
No advanced technology required to send static content, only to store/display it.
Disadvantage of Pull
Marketing required, little tracking of visitors and no personalization to keep the visitors coming back.
Considerable marketing effort required for users to find the message/content.
Some types of marketing content may be blocked in mixed content scenarios (i.e.: Flash blockers)
Advantages of Push
Personalization of messages, high conversation rate, and detailed tracking of customer choices.
Faster delivery - push technologies can deliver content immediately as it becomes available.
Consistent delivery - some push platforms have single content types, making it difficult for the user to block content by type.
Better targeting - since push technology usually justifies subscription, more specific marketing data may be collected during registration, which allows for better targeting and more personalization.
Better data - marketing data can be correlated to each request for content, allowing marketers to see information such as user name as well as demographic and psychographic data.
Disadvantages of Push
Requires Can Spam Act 2003 compliance, most customers must opt-in, can be blocked, simply opt-out, and requires delivery technology.
Smaller audience - push technology not implemented on common platforms generally need client and/or server software before content can be created, distributed, and/or viewed.
Higher cost - less popular platforms may have higher implementation costs.
Lesser discoverability - smaller audiences mean fewer views mean less visibility in search engines.
Important of Digital Marketing
In today’s business world, businesses have numerous opportunities to reach their potential customers through 3G-enabled mobile phones and DTH connectivity. With large groups of consumers hooked up to the internet or other digital mediums, digital marketing solutions have an edge over conventional marketing techniques.
If a business is to participate in a digital marketing campaign it is important to figure out the right campaign that will appeal to the target audience.
When it comes to the selection of the right digital marketing medium, the internet stands out as the cheapest and most effective option. Online video advertising, blog and forum postings, e-mail and RSS feeds are just a selection of advertising tools that have stemmed from the internet and its ability to reach to a wide, global customer base with speed and minimal cost compared to traditional marketing techniques.
The internet and mobile telephone technologies have revolutionized the marketing industry; providing the means to track consumer interests and obtain an inexpensive link direct to the customer.
A click on a website can capture customer details and ask key questions to assist with market profiling. The voluntary provision of email or mobile telephone contact details allows the marketing professionals to 'get in front of' the customer without breaching privacy regulations. The more closely consumers become connected to digital technologies, the greater the power of the information channel for marketing professionals. With mobile telephones and other electronic devices kept on the person, the rate of 'hits' is likely to be far higher than the scattergun approach of traditional media.
Digital marketing helps your company increase its exposure to consumers who are actively seeking your product or service, making it much more effective than other forms of advertising.
Marketing Solutions
Digital marketing solutions include the use of multiple channels of delivery, along with the use of both Push and Pull digital marketing techniques. Both of these are used to deliver messages and information about products and services to customers, along with any others who submit inquiries.
Conclusion
With many companies going into social networking now as a form of marketing strategies; Social networking media do not necessarily increase leads, nor do they populate a company's prospect database. But they do give organizations the opportunity to share information in a one-to-many format authenticated by consumer and peer reports. It give customers the ability to research companies more thoroughly, read peer reviews, and develop a comprehensive business profile before they ever make a purchase.
Digital marketing campaigns have yielded greater conversion rates for affiliates than e-marketing strategy alone, because it is not restricted to the Internet. It may seem to be hard to believe, however, there are many people in world today who do not have access to a computer or have access to the Internet. Although almost everyone has a cell phone, MP3 player, iPod, and views outdoor digital displays.
