If you’ve heard about digital marketing and are curious about what it entails, you’ve come to the perfect place on the internet.
In this piece, we’ll discuss what marketing and digital marketing are, as well as why I believe marketing and digital marketing skills are critical in the digital age.
Let’s start with understanding what marketing is all about
To understand Digital Marketing, we must first understand what Marketing is. Digital Marketing is a branch of the Marketing tree, not a separate discipline. It is part of a management discipline known as Marketing.
To truly comprehend Digital Marketing, we must first have a basic concept of what marketing entails.
What is marketing?
When it comes to defining marketing, many people have attempted to do it in a variety of ways. but the way Seth Godin defined marketing on one occasion stood out for me. He said, “Marketing isn’t about shortcuts, hustle or deception. Marketing is the art (and the science) of serving the people you seek to serve, to do better work by finding and satisfying needs. Marketing is the practice of making things better by making better things”
This is marketing for me.
However, if you have taken a marketing class at a higher education institution, you may find this definition strange; in fact, this isn’t how most textbooks define marketing; however, on a deeper level, I believe this definition is what marketing is all about or should be: serving the people you choose to serve.
Marketing is about helping people, meeting their needs, wants, and desires, and finding solutions to issues.
Marketing is the process of determining what people want, need, or desire, as well as how they want it, how much they can pay, where they can be found, and the best approach to reach them with solutions to suit their wants, needs, or desires.
It also involves branding, which is the process of projecting a good image of someone or something.
There are various elements that make up the whole activities of marketing, they include:
- Marketing management
- Marketing research
- Marketing strategies
- Marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion)
We won’t be able to go over all of these aspects of marketing here because marketing is such a huge subject that it can’t be covered in a single post, but I hope the brief explanation above gives you a good sense of what marketing is.
For a comprehensive grasp of digital marketing, which we will explore next, a basic understanding of marketing is required, I hope this brief explanation helps you understand what marketing is.
Let’s look at:
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing can be seen as a marketing strategy, it’s all about using digital technologies to carry out marketing activities.
Any marketing activity that is implemented using digital technologies or tools like phones, computers, the internet, television, radio and so on, is called digital marketing.
Categorically, there are two major types of digital marketing, these are different kinds of channels through which digital marketing can be implemented.
They are:
- The offline digital marketing channel (Traditional marketing)
- Online marketing channel (Internet marketing)
Let’s briefly look at these two major digital marketing channels:
Offline digital marketing Channel (traditional marketing)
Traditional marketing is those marketing activities that are done through digital tools or channels that are made up of electronic components but are not connected to the internet.
Examples include marketing activities on channels like television, radio, phone calls, electronic billboards, newspapers, magazines, flyers, posters, etc.
The major characteristic of offline digital marketing is that marketing activities are done or enhanced with digital tools and channels but they are not connected to the internet.
Online digital marketing (internet marketing )
Online digital marketing, also known as Internet marketing, on the other hand, is enabled by the internet, its marketing activities done using digital tools and channels on a live internet.
NOTE: when the term ‘digital marketing is used by most people in most cases what they are referring to is online digital marketing.
There are various components that make up online digital marketing, some of them include Content marketing, Social media marketing, Analytics, Email Marketing, Affiliate marketing, Search engine optimization, Search engine marketing, paid advertising, mobile marketing and so on.
I have written a post where I explained more about these components here
The genesis of digital marketing
Digital marketing history can be traced back to the 15th century when the printing press was established, or back to the 1970s when the first email was received.
Whatever chapter of history you choose to study, one event that will stand out is when digital marketing became viable due to advances in digital technology, tools, and resources.
As digital technologies and tools like the printing press, radio, television, smart devices, the internet, and others improved and became more available to the general public, they offered a new level of ground for marketing activities.
It’s all about the people in marketing, and it’s all about serving them. Marketers recognize that the best way to reach the people they want to serve is to go where they are. As people began to use digital tools and channels, marketers began looking for a method to reach them where they were, and this is how digital marketing was born.
Why marketing and digital marketing skills are important
As social beings, marketing is a crucial part of our lives; practically everything we do as humans has marketing components, and we are all always attempting to sell ourselves.
To truly comprehend this, use your own experience as a case study.
Aside from traditional marketing tactics such as selling things or services, human actions in life are characterized by selling; we literally try to sell something on a daily basis.
Our daily transactions, whether intentional or unintentional, contain certain marketing components, from how parents nurture their children to choosing a job, engaging with people, and even the way we dress.
Consider how you dress for an occasion; when you dress up for that occasion, wearing and applying whatever you feel comfortable with, you are attempting to sell something to the world around you. It may not be a conscious decision, but you are indirectly and sometimes directly sending messages to anyone who cares to receive them. The message could be something like, “I’m beautiful/cute,” “I’m classy,” “I’m confident,” and so on.
Take, for example, a job interview. When you’re sitting in that chair, facing the interviewer, all you’re attempting to do or expected to do is sell yourself; every word you say will be about proving that you have what it takes to accomplish the job.
You may not have considered it in this light, but knowing this offers you an advantage in dealing with the world around you. It also helps you realize why marketing skills are vital, as well as why using digital technologies to maximize some of the marketing activities you already do.
As a job seeker, you should consider digital marketing skills as they can help you to gain the best out of your resume. Use digital marketing to create a professional resume that shows how experienced you are in using social media networks, blogging and online networking.
In digital marketing, one can represent their business with the help of new devices and tools like blogs, websites, Facebook fan pages, Google Adsense etc. If you have never used any of these for your business or just want to learn them then this is the right time for you to join the Digital Marketing class and learn all about it.
It is important for every business owner to have a website that has all the information about your company and your products also so that people can get attracted to your products easily. You can also make use of SEO services if you want people to search for your company easily on a search engine like Google or Bing.
Digital Marketing is an important part of any business and if done properly, it can be profitable for you. So do not wait up and start learning Digital Marketing now!
Marketing and Digital Marketing are skills that no one can ignore if they want to succeed in this digital age; it’s something you’ll have to deal with whether you like it or not, and ignoring it or dealing with it on a low or average level will almost certainly result in low or average output.
I hope you’ve gained a better understanding of why marketing and digital marketing abilities are so crucial.
