MAKING DIGITAL MARKETING MATTER

What is digital marketing?

The biggest change in our relationship to brands and businesses since the advent of television ads is digital marketing. Organisations now build consumer trust, brand recognition and communication channels using digital platforms and tools including social media, websites, display advertising, email, and search engine optimisation.

Ideally, digital marketing strategies are integrated, using each platform to complement the others and ensuring that consumers have a positive experience without too much repetition. This means ensuring that content is platform-specific but consistently branded, with tone of voice and style made appropriate to the audiences that each platform attracts. It also means creating personalised content and experiences, which are extremely powerful. For example, a 2021 Segment study reported that 60% of consumers said that they will become repeat buyers after a personalised experience.

Why is digital marketing important in the workplace?

At this stage, having an online presence is a must for organisations. Consumers expect to be able to find information, look at reviews and see images and video on their website and social media. In fact, a Google survey showed than more than half of consumers always conduct online research before making a purchasing decision. The shift to digital marketing has been so pronounced in the last decade that according to Pew Research Centre, digital advertising revenue increased fivefold between 2011 and 2020, while nondigital advertising revenue fell by 30%.

But digital marketing is not only a necessity, it also has real benefits over traditional outbound marketing. For instance, it makes it possible to segment and target audiences to a high degree of specificity, enabling a personalised customer experience. By engaging audiences on multiple different platforms, digital marketers can also build deeper relationships and better brand recognition. Additionally, digital marketing campaigns are more responsive and adaptive, allowing for the incorporation of current trends at minimal effort.

Using digital tools to build a holistic and integrated strategy, digital marketing professionals can achieve their organisation’s goals more quickly and more cost-efficiently than ever before. They can build long-lasting and deeper relationships to consumers through social media presence, generate traffic and ultimately drive conversions. Combining digital skills with an understanding of their brand and consumers, digital marketers are a cornerstone of every modern organisation.