Marketing in the Digital Era

Marketers have an adage that states something to the effect of: “half of all marketing and advertising works. The difficulty is knowing which half.” The reality of marketing is that, with the channels available and their associated costs, organizations cannot afford to waste assets on strategies that do not produce results. Moreover, businesses need to be able to compare marketing campaigns and track success and failure. With the technology readily available today, this is not only possible but available by default and is standard in any of the platforms such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. Additionally, businesses with websites can enhance targeting by using a service like this SEO company in South Carolina that further improves campaign outcomes. Such companies provide essential services for businesses looking to obtain improved results from web searches and are able to use techniques to provide immediate feedback that allows high-quality targeted results.

The Death of Traditional Mediums

Decades ago, traditional advertising included television and newspaper ads, magazine advertising, flyers, direct mail, and other avenues. Although these techniques are still available, and some businesses still use them successfully, most companies have shifted away and opted for digital marketing. The main reason seems to be that organizations that use digital marketing can target their specific audience and direct campaigns for customers who are more inclined to purchase their product or service. Also, these organizations can review statistics on the campaigns and adjust according to the numbers. Another important consideration is that consumers are paying more attention to digital mediums than to traditional mediums.

The death of traditional media was primarily caused by technology. More specifically, the shift from old media to new media was the result of the disruptive capabilities of the internet. People began consuming news differently. As this shift occurred, newspaper subscriptions fell. Additionally, alternative sources of news appeared, and the journalist stopped being the middleman and provider of news. The reason that these details are important is that the audience of such media outlets was what attracted advertiser. Newspapers and media outlets generate revenues from advertising and not from subscriptions. Subscriptions are important to advertisers, though. As people stopped reading newspapers and watching commercials, businesses began to see these marketing channels as less appealing.

The Use of Digital Marketing

With the death of traditional media came the rise of search engines and the eventual, current, boom of social media. These forums are important because advertisers shift toward where the highest volume of people frequent. This way, the advertiser’s message is placed in front of the largest possible audience. The fact that the message can then be specifically targeted to a segment of the population is even more appealing. Currently, Google hosts over 3.5 billion searches daily and accounts for almost 75% of overall search engine activity. On the other hand, Facebook has a user base of over 2.20 billion people with 66 percent of the audience considered active daily users. Therefore, experts have no doubts as to where the bulk of consumers can be reached.

 

For example, companies that market software for truck repair shops would generally have to advertise in places where users for such software would frequent or in magazines that the niche market reads. Companies such as FleetPal have a specific type of customer. The organization provides software to truck repair shops similar to how restaurants manage orders, helping handle repairs, orders, and other specific aspects of running a shop. To market this type of software and these types of services, such campaigns would not only be costly, but they would also produce limited information regarding the results. With the new forms of marketing, these types of businesses can be as specific as targeting repair shops that cater only to trucks and specify a budget accordingly. Furthermore, advertisers would know immediately if the campaign is working and make modifications to improve results.

Google and Facebook marketing have additional appeals, which include the ability to create specific marketing budgets and control and adjust every aspect of the campaigns. Therefore, advertisers find it easy to make modifications based on the data obtained from the resulting ads. These mediums also allow companies to use the latest style of marketing techniques, including the use of video. Marketers are no longer limited by the high cost of traditional advertising or its specific forms of communication. Businesses can be innovative in the way that they reach their customer and creative in the type of message that they wish to portray.