Introducing Digital Marketing
To kick off this post it might be helpful to define the term ‘digital marketing’. Digital marketing simply means achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media. In order to survive in today’s competitive environment, companies have to adapt and stay up-to-date of the latest developments. Since the first website went live in 1991, the internet evolved into one of the strongest tools for companies to reach new customers or to maintain relationships with them. It opened up new ways of doing business and completely new industries evolved. Today, Alphabet is the most-valued company of the world. A multi-industry conglomerate with several internet-based businesses. This clarifies the importance and immense leverage of digital marketing, nowadays.
DIGITAL MARKETING PLATFORMS
As the term ‘digital marketing’ reveals, platforms for this kind of marketing are digital. The desktop platform remains dominant here, though mobile and tablet visitor sessions are becoming more and more common. To gain a clear overview of marketing technology platforms available today, a look on the following website might be helpful: http://chiefmartec.com.
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Decisions that have to be made are common with traditional marketing and business traditions. Key features of digital marketing strategies are the interaction and integration between internet and traditional channels. Therefore, digital marketing needs to be part of a multichannel marketing strategy. The application of an internet-based marketing strategy is multifaceted. Companies have many options to choose, in which way they want to communicate with consumers or how they want to attract new costumers. Online marketing platforms can operate as advertising or direct-response medium, as platform for sales or distribution or as customer service websites, with the aim to build long-lasting relationships. To describe the benefits that can come with a well-established online presence the ‘5Ss framework of internet marketing’ appears helpful: 1 SELL — grow sales through direct online sales. 2 SERVE — add value for the costumer through extra online benefits. 3 SPEAK — get closer to the costumer, creating a two-way dialogue. 4 SAVE— save costs through online communications which reduces staff. 5 SIZZLE — extend the brand online through new propositions, offers and experiences.
A good example of how a small company can drastically increase its awareness through the help of digital marketing is Tatu Couture, a British luxury lingerie company. Four steps helped the firm to increase its online presence: Taking control over own websites (to save costs on external resources), make the most of their contacts (costumer data), promote (for free if possible) and search engine optimization (SEO).
DIFFERENT FORMS OF ONLINE PRESENCE
The internet offers plenty of possible ways for interaction between businesses and consumers. Though, the five main categories for an online presence remain: Transactional e-commerce sites, service-oriented relationship-building websites, brand building sites, portal or media sites and social network or community sites. Besides the huge potential and advantages an online presence can offer, some challenges come with it as well: The responsibilities for the many different activities may remain unclear or no specific objectives for the online presence are set at all. Many companies still struggle with financing digital marketing strategies in a sufficient way and results are often not measured adequately. Companies are introducing digital transformation programs to help manage there challenges.
The internet revealed major opportunities for both, businesses and consumers. In order to fully exploit these opportunities, firms need to develop strategic approaches and organize themselves in efficient ways. On the other hand, one has to bear in mind that with an ever-increasing online supply, competition will rise and companies will never stop trying to outbid each other.
