Marketing in the Digital Age
Most Fundamental Change
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The most fundamental change which faces business is that the buyer is now in control. This means that your marketing has to respond to their needs and match their expectations. The simple "push" to get a response or reaction is less appropriate to the current market-place. Marketing needs to focus on connecting with the buyer and prospect.
The internet lies behind this shift. It has given every individual and company the power to control the buying process. Marketing fundamentals haven't changed in 300 years and they still need to:
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And the thing about Buyers - they do talk. Major brands have used social networking to accept customer criticism and in turn improve their reputation. Yet there are prominent failures among large organisations which have applied "modern marketing techniques".
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New media higher expectations
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Digital Media has developed quickly. Video is Big! The flow of advertising money, branding, and reputation now live and develop "digitally". The opportunity to benefit comes not just from your participation but how you structure your marketing model. It's a potential customer base in a global environment.
User expectations are high and competition is fierce. So the Marketing System you develop has to be at a level which maximises the potential. |
Opportunities continue to grow and offer potential.
As management expert Peter Drucker once said — "The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself." Combining the capability of the internet with traditional marketing can create a very powerful mix. |
Digital marketing is special
By "Marketing" we still refer to everything you do to generate awareness of your product and the process to initiate a "call to action".
What makes Digital Marketing so special is: you are marketing to users who want to buy. Using the data sources you identify needs. This gives a potential customer base in a global environment. And the beauty is that it lets you calculate the potential opportunity before you commit to strategy and investment.
With "traditional" marketing (offline) the problem often is that you are "seeking" potential business. You know there is a need for your product, it is just finding where that is exactly. The techniques which narrow the market are expensive and time-consuming.
With the web it is the user who is searching for you. If you fail to connect, it could be a sale missed.
Please exercise Caution: the web should be a more efficient form of marketing. It is important to measure that the components of efficiency - Input versus Output - are delivering the right results. It is not an automatic form of success. It needs specific objectives to be measured to ensure the returns and expectations are being met.
What makes Digital Marketing so special is: you are marketing to users who want to buy. Using the data sources you identify needs. This gives a potential customer base in a global environment. And the beauty is that it lets you calculate the potential opportunity before you commit to strategy and investment.
With "traditional" marketing (offline) the problem often is that you are "seeking" potential business. You know there is a need for your product, it is just finding where that is exactly. The techniques which narrow the market are expensive and time-consuming.
With the web it is the user who is searching for you. If you fail to connect, it could be a sale missed.
Please exercise Caution: the web should be a more efficient form of marketing. It is important to measure that the components of efficiency - Input versus Output - are delivering the right results. It is not an automatic form of success. It needs specific objectives to be measured to ensure the returns and expectations are being met.
"Internet" BreakdownFor Digital Marketing we break the web down into 3 main areas:
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How you measure web performanceThe main ways to measure are;
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It is a serious businessBill Gates spoke of the internet in January 1996. His fundamental belief was that the internet was going to change the face of business. His core statement was that: "In the future all business will be done over the internet. Those companies not on the internet won't be in business."
The reference was both to the interactions between business and business. and the early development of online ecommerce. The truth is that he has been proved right. Those companies integrating an internet market strategy into their business have proved to be the most successful. And it is likely to stay that way. Companies communicate across the Internet. Consumers connect on the Internet. 
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A brief history of the "internet"The internet started life as a military project in the late 1960's. The objective was to allow secret communications of data. As the project developed in the 1970's so did the infrastructure and the interest of computer scientists. The first email was sent in 1984. In 1988 Tim Berners Lee, while a researcher at CERN, wanted a medium to share documentation with colleagues and collaborators. His solution was to use the internet and build a file sharing system on top. His creation: the worldwide web.
Commercially the ongoing development of the internet helped this idea to grow and along came the first websites. Initially they were non-commercial but business soon latches onto a good idea. The initial "dotcom" revolution showed how to access a worldwide audience from your own bedroom. The implementation of broadband created faster access and user take-up showed serious businesses that this was an effective way to build traffic and generate revenues. |
Connect and promote
Search Enginespaid search
site optimisation display ads click per view |
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See which companies are key in Social Media
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