Digital marketing is misinterpreted and is defined as sales, promotion and advertising. However, the story is different.
Digital marketing is the same as marketing only in a different medium. What that means? User attention is in the digital world and only the tools by which marketing is conducted have changed, not the definition of marketing. Major advantage of digital marketing is smaller investment and measurable results. Once you learn the principles of marketing, only tools will change.
SEO optimization, advertising on Facebook, Instagram – are part of digital marketing. In addition to digital marketing, you can also call it internet marketing, web marketing, e-marketing, online marketing or even i-marketing.
However, is it actually digital marketing? Is it something that needs to be given a lot of attention and is a future you can’t do without?
The answer is somehow in the middle, that is, that digital marketing is a matter of the future, but that many misinterpret it.
Numerous marketing agencies, define digital marketing as promotion and sales through digital media. Okay, we agree, in order for a company to “survive” it is necessary to make a sale, see the return of invested funds and end the month “in the plus”.
However, there is one big BUT in this whole story. To clarify the point of view, let’s go back and define the term marketing.
Marketing Father, Phillip Kotler, defined marketing as “a social and management process that, through creating, offering, and sharing products of value with others, individuals and groups get what they need or want.”
Simplified, marketing is creating, finding and meeting needs.
The important question is HOW?
To answer that question, we will create a story and return to the golden age of the TV. Let’s remember the situation, sit in an armchair, watch a favorite movie and it’s interrupted because of commercials.
The first commercial is a benefit product, if you call right away you will get another set of knives – Your reaction? You probably switched to a TV show or went to drink water or juice.
However, another commercial appeared later, a favorite drink, a family at the table, an atmosphere, feelings, emotions – Your reaction?
You connect the brand with emotions. Do you see the point?
To be a good marketer you have to be a good salesman too, and every good salesman knows you sell yourself first, and only then a product.
There is a good chance that you have lot of competitors and the main question is – will the buyer select you. Yes, if the buyer prefers your company!
Your customers buy YOU, not your product
For this reason, it is important to position your company as someone with whom your customers can connect. How your digital marketing provides a number of tools is important how you plan to use them.
Therefore, one piece of advice we will highlight is don’t just promote your products, services and discounts, show how you do what you do, why you do it just that way, what customers will get with your service or product and put in the effort and connect your work with emotions.
To explain the term more closely to you, let’s go back to the golden age of TVs. Let’s wonder why the golden age? The answer to that question is the same as the question, why digital marketing? Two totally different questions, and exactly the same answer – ATTENTION!
The key to quality marketing is to be there where your customers are. TV receivers had their golden age for the reason that the whole family gathered in the living room and watched shows and movies, but with the development of the internet attention shifted to other media. These other media are digital media, computers and mobile devices.
Be where your customers are and take attention to yourself
Therefore, we can conclude together that digital marketing at its core is no different from regular marketing but only different tools that reach customers, how you communicate with them and how you represent yourself. The tools you use in digital marketing are already mentioned – SEO optimization, advertising, social networks, but also e-mail marketing, your website, affiliate and others.
While there seem to be a lot of new tools and you’re not sure how to use them, we’re sure you could have concluded that they are a necessity for your business. However, in addition to being a necessity, digital marketing tools provide a number of benefits over the old marketing methods.
Digital marketing has a number of advantages over old marketing methods
The main advantage, and we can’t stress enough how important it is, is that users are online and their attention is currently in the digital world. Consider how many times have you typed on your cell phone while driving a car and when you last noticed a bulletin board along the road that prompted you to buy?
In addition to attention, we believe that you want to achieve the best possible results with as little money as possible? If the answer to the question was yes, then digital marketing is the right thing for you.
In the long run, investing in digital marketing is much more profitable than in ordinary forms of marketing. Investments in TV commercials, radio or bulletin boards require very large cash expenses and you cannot control the outcomes and exactly to which person you want to show the same ads.
The case with internet marketing is different! For a smaller cash you can reach exactly targeted customers who have interests that relate to your products.
Investments in digital marketing are more profitable than in standard forms of marketing
Finally, we want to justify the above claim at the beginning of this text that digital marketing is not just promotion and sales.
Through the text, we were able to conclude together that digital marketing is the same as regular marketing only that the means of communication is different because of the attention of users in digital media.
Therefore, promotion and sales are only part of the marketing mix and there are many more parts of the mix that need to be addressed. Some of them are market research, customer research and competition, and thanks to digital marketing tools, they are much easier to find out than before.
Digital marketing facilitates promotion and sales, but also other parts of the marketing mix
Marketing has always been and will forever be marketing, the only thing that will be the different is the media of communication that will depend on where the user’s attention is.
So today digital marketing is current, while tomorrow may be an actual different form.
We can conclude that if we learn the basic principles that we will always be able to apply them, only different tools and media will be different.
“Marketing is like cultivating the land, it will forever be the same principles, but the tools will facilitate processing”
