What is Digital Marketing? Lessons from the Pros

By Imeru Wambui

Today, most purchasing decisions begin online. That being the case, an online presence is absolutely necessary regardless of what you sell or the size of your business. The world is in a digital age, technology has also helped the modern buyer to seek out their solutions and research products and services that they're interested in. Millions of people spend so much of their time poking around digital platforms searching for answers online, researching your industry, checking out your competitors, and trying to decide if they really need your service or product making digital marketing an entirely new endeavor that requires a new way of approaching customers and new ways of understanding how customers behave.

Technological convergence and the multiplication of devices have led to an opening up of a variety of ways in which we can market on the Internet and pushed the boundaries towards a new concept that is user-centered, more measurable, ubiquitous, and interactive known as digital marketing

What is Digital Marketing

1. Digital marketing is defined as the use of the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach consumers and it encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet.

2. Digital marketing is any action carried out using any electronic media for the promotion of goods and services. This is a primarily internet-based activity aimed at selling goods or providing services.

Digital marketing is basically applying all marketing techniques to digital channels. Different sources can be used to promote services and products like SMS, search engines, email, websites, social media, and mobile devices.

Today digital marketing has become a new phenomenon that brings together customization and mass distribution to accomplish marketing goals. This revolution has completely changed the internet and consumer behavior with tools like Analytics which have grown to the level where you can understand your consumers’ behavior in real-time, including their usage statistics, their demographics, and even interests. Mobile has also gone smart and tablets have stormed onto the scene and both of these changes have brought along applications that can be used.

The History of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing first appeared as a term in the 1990s but, as mentioned above, it was a very different world then; Web 1.0 was primarily static content with very little interaction and no real communities.

One of the technologies which really brought information revolution in the society is Internet Technology and is rightly regarded as the third wave of revolution after the agricultural and industrial revolution” (Gangeshwer, 2013 )

1998 saw the birth of Google. Once Google started to grow at pace and Blogger was launched in 1999 the modern internet age began. Blackberry, a brand not connected with innovation anymore, launched mobile email and Myspace appeared Myspace was the true beginning of social media as we define it today, but it was not as successful as it could have been from a user experience perspective, and ultimately that is what led to its downfall. Myspace was the first social networking site followed by Facebook. With this, companies realized that all these new sites are opening new doors of opportunity for them to market their products and brands.

Soon, Google began to expand and along with this social networking sites began to emerge Microsoft launched the MSN search engine and Yahoo brought to the market Yahoo web search. In 2000, the internet bubble burst, and all the smaller search engines were either left behind or wiped out leaving place for the giants. Then in 2006, the digital marketing world saw its first steep surge. At that time, search engine traffic grew to about 6.4 billion in a single month.

The Future of Digital Marketing

The COVID-19 pandemic halted global economic order, but it managed to speed up digital marketing operations. For many entrepreneurs and small businesses, digital marketing has become an opportunity to gain a competitive edge in the market. The future of digital marketing is bright because now there is more market and consumer awareness.

Marketing is all about connecting with customers in the right place at the right time and digital marketing offers just that because it's the use of numerous digital tactics and channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their time. Effective marketing allows businesses to stay competitive and relevant by engaging with customers through different digital media channels.

Marketing, in whatever form, is one of the key activities that every business must partake in, as no business can survive without effective marketing and some type of online presence. The digital marketing industry is dynamic, evergreen, constantly evolving, and changing so it is very crucial that you must keep up with new advancements or changes happening in the industry and stay on top of the latest industry developments. This way you can adapt your marketing strategies, plans, or techniques by embracing the technologies and tactics of tomorrow.

Major Trends in the Digital Marketing Future

They include the following major trends in digital marketing to know in 2022

1. Content Marketing is the first thing businesses are doing in marketing because Google told us content marketing is the best way to rank for buyer search. The Content Marketing Institute did research that showed that more than two-thirds of marketers are increasing their content marketing budgets in 2022, with 1 in 5 increasing by double digits.

2. AI-generated content. We will begin to realize the opportunity of an AI-driven content marketing strategy. If 60-70% of the content we create goes unused because AI will force us to reconsider what we create and why.

3. Employee activation. AI will tell us what to create, but our best storytellers are our existing employees from across the business. Every company needs a strategy to activate these employees as both creators and as the most effective distribution channel to share that content

4. Influencer marketing has recently risen and becomes really popular on social media already surpassed print marketing in terms of popularity on Google Trends. The most important thing to note here is that it’s not only the influencers with massive fan followings who enjoy the popularity of the brands but, also the so-called micro-influencers who have fewer followers but higher engagement among their audience.

5. Shorter video content for a couple of years now, many marketers had already anticipated that video content was going to take over as the primary form of visual content. However, nowadays the shorter the video is, the better for marketers to capture their audience’s attention. Generally speaking, it usually takes a maximum of 10-15 seconds for the viewer to decide if they’re interested in the content or swipe away from it

Here are the two ways to utilize video content that is rapidly rising in popularity:

• TikTok has become the primary source of video content, especially after the launch of TikTok Business which allowed for paid ads to be implemented.

• Instagram Reels has recently gained huge popularity among businesses and can heavily impact the flow of traffic to your Instagram account as video content becomes of higher interest.

6. Voice search optimization What is voice search? Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa are the biggest examples of the most renowned voice assistants. Nowadays, voice search has started to play a valuable role in your business's search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. According to Forbes, a recent public survey among online consumers showed that “76% of consumers, ages 18 to 34, had used voice search to find information for a local business in the last 12 months.” And this makes this rising phenomenon something definitely worth thinking about.