One particular reason why businesses pay more attention to digital marketing is that it is in many ways a great equaliser. In other words it provides a level playing field for companies regardless of their size. A solid digital marketing strategy can help small companies achieve the same visibility as that of its bigger competitor whereas in traditional marketing, a small company would struggle. Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing helps in analysing the performance of a campaign in real time. Analytics help marketers to optimise the campaign for improved results. Digital marketing also gives businesses much greater exposure than traditional marketing, even within a single campaign if need be.
Going viral
Another reason why companies and marketers cannot afford to ignore digital marketing is the speed at which interesting content can spread. Going viral is a phenomenon that traditional marketing cannot create. Online media can act as an aggregator for viral content and help in getting a brand visible across a much wider spectrum. The recent viral phenomenon of Ice Bucket Challenge reached far ends of the internet world. A challenge that began in Massachusetts to increase awareness of Lou Gehrig’ s disease or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis( ALS) helped several not-for-profit foundations. They saw a substantial increase in donations from across the world owing to the challenge’ s virality. However, bad news can also be circulated just as fast, so organisations need to keep a watch.
Digital marketing is a win-win for both producers of content and marketers. Any website can generate income if an advertisement column is provided. As traffic increases, income increases. For example, an independent author, or blogger as you would be titled on the internet, can generate income if he / she provides an advertisement column which is outsourced to an online advertising agency like Google Ads.
To make true leverage on the digital marketing revolution, however, businesses and marketers must go beyond adopting a selective method approach, to embracing the phenomenon in its entirety including the transformational changes that have taken place. With the advent of Web 2.0, consumers have turned into“ prosumers”, a word derived by effectively merging“ producers” and“ consumers”. In the past, although there was the internet, communication was still one way.
There was a set of“ consumers”, simply users, who were restricted to only seeking information from the Internet that were made available by the“ producers”. Today, the Internet is filled with“ User Generated Content”( UGC) that paved way to the era of“ produsage”; producers and usage. The portmanteau word Produsage simply refers to any kind of user-led content development that takes place anywhere in the digital media. The concept of produsage erased the boundaries between active production and passive consumption.
Mass media exploited this situation by creating“ citizen journalists”. Multinational news media organisations such as BBC, CNN and Fox News created exclusive platforms that encouraged citizens to actively produce user-generated news. In 2006, Time magazine’ s person of the year was“ You”, acknowledging every single person who contributed towards usergenerated media. Consumers today have the power to initiate a remote production process by the click of a button, which is what happens when you order a laptop online according to your specifications.
If you are seeing an advertisement on shoes on your Facebook feeds, chances are it is because you recently commented or posted a status on shoes. The more traffic your website creates, advertisements begin to increase. In spite of all the benefits of digital marketing, it is unlikely that digital marketing will ever completely marginalise traditional marketing. Traditional marketing may remain superior to digital for the sole reason that it provides a“ feel good factor”.
As an employee or a consumer, I feel good when I see an outdoor / print advertisement of a brand I am involved with because“ I can see people seeing it”. Digital marketing could get you much wider visibility, your advertisements are accurate to the target market and you can increase sales which are unlikely with outdoor print marketing but“ you can seldom see people viewing it”.
STAR 15