Just for interest I looked up digital marketing in my favourite old marketing books from back in the early 90’s when I had very long hair and lots of free time at University. Not surprisingly ‘Digital Marketing’ was nowhere to be seen in my fifth edition of ‘Marketing’ by G.B Giles, and the closest I got was computer assisted trading. I guess this had something to do with the fact that, even in London, we only had a library computer and all our essays were written by hand!
Now before I start to get out my sepia toned photographs and reminiscing about ‘where has the time gone’, I’d better get to the point. My point is that things change and marketing is an area of business that changes at a faster pace than many other areas, such as accounts.
Not only does digital marketing allow us to become more scientific in our approach to marketing, it helps us to measure our marketing performance and therefore create better informed marketing plans. However, digital marketing isn’t just about SEO, placing skyscraper or banner adverts on websites or sending out e-newsletters. To be an effective digital marketer we have to be a marketing all-rounder. Deborah Porter, a specialist in this field, summed it up perfectly; “The world is changing and the boundaries are blurred between online and traditional techniques.
To create an effective digital marketing campaign we need to have PR skills – to give the bingo words, marketing management – to give the overview, and direct marketing – to give us the communication skills. Pulling all of this together is content that we have to intelligently write and find appropriate platforms for.”
So digital marketing may not be for everyone, but it is something we all need to be working with and it can be very rewarding if co-ordinated and delivered in the right way.
One of our clients has recently seen an increase in visitors to their website of 300% through a combination of SEO, ad-words, improving website content and social media engagement. That’s an exceptional return on investment and one that isn’t always apparent when we place adverts in magazines or get articles published in tabloids.
Digital marketing is the science behind the fiction.
