Digital Marketing Presents Opportunities and Challenges to Organisations
From an average client to a fully fledged marketing division, digital marketing is the new trend. Present-day companies require to apply digital means for the sake of continuity and longevity.
Mobile devices and applications are being used in the world of trade and commerce, because customers and clients consider them more comfortable and convenient (Brabeck, 2007). This fact forces companies to adopt sensible digital marketing strategies for being able to remain relevant and effective in the market.
The Five Element Formula for Digital Marketing
Use of the Social Media
When you are considering a permanent marketing strategy, you require a comprehensive social media. This is the quickest way to communicate to masses of people from all geographical locations and backgrounds. In the United States, more than a fourth of the total internet users log on to Facebook every day (Hollis & Fitch, 2009).
Facebook and other social mediagive you the advantage of communicating with potential customers in real time. You can also use the social media to post photos of yourself as well as picrtures of your smiling clients. This creates the impression that people are happy with whatever you sell.
Use of a blog
Another effective way of keeping your audience abreast of your activities is blogging. It makes your clients and potential customers prioritise your business by keeping you at the top of their minds. A blog updates your audience on the events in your business and sets you apart as the expert in the industry (Lagace, 2007).
Customers always tend to prefer going for the crème in the field, therefore, a blog could benefit your business with the required uniqueness. Blogging eliminates the necessity to hard-sell because it acts as a reflection of your business personality.
Maintain a simple web page
Search engine optimisation has become more and more humanized especially after the Google Panda update became a trend. Now, as opposed to the previous version, a top website in a search engine is the one which offers the best user experience (Sorrell, 2006).
Ensuring that, your website depicts client satisfaction. The web copy has to be kept simple as well. Keywords should be well positioned and used in the title so that you can be easily noticed in the search engine. However, you should tailor your keywords to a human audience and not a computerised search spider maintaining the professional touch and user friendliness.
Keep your e-mail active
Be keen on the new developments and applications provided by the email systems. Avoid keeping your customers in the dark and ensure that you reply to all their queries. Create e-mails that communicate with your audience right from the subject.
For instance, if you communicate to your audience through newsletters, ensure that the headline is attractive enough. Avoid using fonts and images that are too large because that could change the whole thing from being a sale to an opt-out message.
Re-market
You can use a marketing program that avails a marketing message to a customer, who had gone through it online but never bought it (Martin &Todorov, 2010). This technique explains what Re-marketing is all about. It also serves as a retention effort in case a customer buys something that is no longer promoted.
For instance, it is necessary to make an old customer feel that whatever they have bought a long period ago is still relevant today. That would even motivate them to buy updated versions of the same product.
Opportunities for Digital Marketing
Political support for internet access
Policies that create opportunities for digital marketing have been made by various governments. The Obama administration, for instance, virtually affirmed an accessible internet open to citizens. This has made the internet in the United States uncensored and open to everyone as long as a person pays the required tolls.
Online marketers have thus been provided with a level of playing ground that can reach billions of people. This has also provided people with an open access to information in any field.
Improvement of the search engine optimization services
Search engines have continued to be the best ways with the help of which people can source for information online. They provide an opportunity for customers to navigate the internet. Whether search marketing is organic or paid, it is highly effective because apart from being economical, it reaches a very wide audience.
The recent wave of this form of marketing has made many small and medium-sized businesses get involved. It has, therefore, become quite easy for a customer to purchase their desired items and services in just a click.
Challenges of digital marketing
The challenge in creating a lasting impact
When an advertising campaign is done online, it gets turned off once the media that supports it is stopped. It is very necessary to establish a lasting relationship with the audience while using digital and social media. These avenues should be made long-term if they are to produce a lasting impression. Once you have initiated a dialogue with a client, turning it off would be just wrong.
Countering real-time process concerns
In a real-time marketing, you can see user’s reactions to whatever you put up online immediately. While this may come off as an opportunity, it also presents the challenge of having to respond to the issues raised at once.
Many companies lack the processes and resources to enable them to provide immediate solutions to the issues that have been raised. Some companies handle this by providing a message that handles related groups of queries. It is, however, difficult to find a solution for every query.
How Organisations Can Learn to Use Digital Marketing
Fulfilling customers’ needs
In order to use the digital media effectively, a brand has to be relevant to not only customers’ needs but also to their preferences. Unless you do that, the customer will definitely find another brand that will step up to the task.
Communicating with the customer frequently
Maintaining a frequent communication with a customer keeps them abreast with the events in the organisation. Customers tend to lose interest when they are not engaged (Levitt, 1983). The communication has to be two-way traffic for the best results.
Flexibility
An effective organisation will be flexible enough to adapt to any change in the behavior of the customer. This could involve modifying the language to satisfy a particular segment or just noting the behavioral trends of the customers.
The main reason why organisations should adopt digital marketing is because it keeps customers tuned in and integrates them in real-time. It strengthens the organisation-customer relationship and improves customer loyalty to the organisation. Social media is the most effective form of digital marketing because it reaches more people, initiates conversations and can be considered as the most cost-effective strategy.
References List
Brabeck, P 2007, The Global Brand, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Hollis, N & Fitch, D 2009, ‘Global brand marketing as rewarding as it first appears?’, Journal of Sponsorship, vol. 2 no. 3, pp. 206-214.
Lagace, M 2007, ‘Businesses beware: The world is not flat’, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, <https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/businesses-beware-the-world-is-not-flat>.
Levitt, T 1983, ‘The globalization of markets’, Harvard Business Review, May–June, pp. 92–102.
Martin, K &Todorov, I 2010, ‘How will digital platforms be harnessed in 2010, and how will they change the way people interact with brands?’, Journal of Interactive Advertising, vol. 10 no. 2, pp. 61-66.
Sorrell, M 2006, ‘The Advertising & Marketing Services Industry: China and the Internet’, WPP 2006 Annual Report, WPP, London, p. 85.