Digital marketing, at its basic definition, is all online marketing efforts in a digital format. Businesses can leverage digital marketing tools and services to become empowered by enormous amounts of data at their fingertips. The service provider generally aggregates that raw data into clean easy to reports or dashboards, where trends can be analyzed and targets adjusted for weak performing efforts.
What about print media?
Not long ago, print media was the go-to all things advertising. With the maturity of the internet, and the instant availability on mobile devices, digital marketing has taken out the hammer to print media marketing budgets. When was the last time you held print advertising that didn't come in a Valpack mailer? Phone book anyone? I can't remember the last time I received my local phone book, when not long ago it used to arrive at my doorstep like clockwork with a new year date-stamped on it. It reminds me of the Encyclopedia subscriptions that you can only find in the library anymore. Yellow Pages is littered with print advertising, but even that is available online now.
Okay, okay, so there is still plenty of "print advertising" that we didn't talk about. Billboards, bus stop shelter walls, the sides of busses, and on vehicle wrappers and signs on company owned vehicles advertising their own service. But you have to admit, the volume of advertising you see online undoubtedly surpasses that volume you see in print media.
Give me an example!
How much time do you spend in a given day with one or more of the following: Surfing the Internet; Scroll through Social Media; Free apps/games littered with 30 second ads for other free games. Now compare that with how much time you are in public view of print advertising. And then how much time that in that same public do you get distracted by an alert, surf the internet, scroll social media, or play an ad bundled game? Those are lost opportunities for print advertising and every opportunity to put your product into digital. Print media won't ever go the way of the dinosaurs, but it is heavily impacted by the instant-on digital world.
So what is digital marketing you ask? It is any method by which to target and present a product or service to the eyes of someone who wants or needs it in an era where digital presence is dominating.
