Why Digital Marketing is Here to Stay

For many years, marketing and sales went hand in hand. They used a lot of the same techniques: push a message onto a consumer so forcefully that they'd feel compelled to buy. These days, though, these kinds of techniques are more likely to result in loss of sales than any significant gain. People aren't interested in having messages pushed on to them forcefully by a company anymore. Digital marketing rose to address this issue.

The Rise of Digital

Digital, or nontraditional, marketing is the practice of using inbound marketing techniques. What this boils down to is that the company doesn't just throw messages at a consumer and hope they stick; instead, the company gently pushes messages subtly, and hopes to draw in the consumer. It's also known as "permission-based" marketing because the consumer usually grants permission to receive the messages, such as connecting on social media or signing up for a newsletter. These kinds of interactions are much more valuable, as the customer has already expressed interest in receiving information from the company.

The picture here shows a perfect example of the digital marketing process. Once the initial consumer is attracted enough, they will pass on to their friends, who will pass on to their friends, and so on. Word of mouth is incredibly important for digital marketing. So if you are a baby food distributor, you may rely on social media for your customers to rave about your product to their friends. This can help to drive people to your website, where you would be able to close the sale as well if they are in that phase of the buying cycle.

In fact, by 2016, more than half of the dollars spent in the United States will be influenced by the Internet (source: Forrester Research). Also, according to Experian, 91% of adults online today use social media regularly. You can see just by these numbers how large of an audience there is online; if you aren't targeting these potential customers, you may be missing out on some huge opportunities.

The other factor that must be considered is that many people are more likely to trust the opinions of their friends and relatives than messages sent by a company. In this way, social media plays a huge role, as people are able to ask for and give reviews on products, effectively creating a massive word of mouth campaign if a company is able to successfully take advantage of the platforms.

Is Traditional Marketing Dead?

This is all not to say that traditional marketing is useless. It does have its uses, and a company should utilize all marketing channels it can. Limiting itself only to digital marketing can be just as detrimental as using only traditional marketing. You might hear many marketers talk about the "spider" or the "octopus" - creatures that have many arms or legs. A business must be designed the same way, with each 'leg' representing a marketing channel. Relying only on traditional media, or only on non-traditional media, will give your business a very lopsided approach. Instead, a balance has to be made in order to achieve the highest success possible.