What is digital marketing?

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers and retain them.The key objective is to promote brands, build preference and increase sales through various digital marketing techniques. It is embodied by an extensive selection of service, product and brand marketing tactics, which mainly use the Internet as a core promotional medium, in addition to mobile and traditional TV and radio.

Digital marketing activities are search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing,influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, and e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e–books, optical disks and games, and any other form of digital media. It also extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback and on-hold mobile ring tones.  The fundamental concept in digital marketing is based on the inbound marketing approach or generally it's called customer centric approach.

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, Digital Marketing is the use of digital channels to promote or market products and services to consumers and businesses.

History

The term 'digital marketing' was first used in the 1990s. In the 2000s and the 2010s, digital marketing became more sophisticated as an effective way to create a relationship with the consumer that has depth and relevance. While the term 'digital marketing' may not have been used until the 1990s, digital marketing itself has roots to the mid-1980s when the SoftAd Group, now ChannelNet, developed advertising campaigns for several major automobile companies, wherein people would send in reader reply cards found in magazines and receive in return floppy disks that contained multimedia content promoting various cars and offering free test drives.

• The rapid evolution of digital media has created new opportunities and avenues for advertising and marketing. Fueled by the proliferation of devices to access digital media, this has led to the exponential growth of digital advertising.

In 2012 and 2013 statistics showed digital marketing remained a growing field.

Digital media growth is estimated at 4.5 trillion online ads served annually with digital media spend at 48% growth in 2010. An increasing portion of advertising stems from businesses employing Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) to tailor advertising for Internet users. Though an innovative resource, OBA raises concern with regards to consumer privacy and data protection. Such implications are important considerations for responsible communications. Digital marketing is often referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'. The term 'digital marketing' has grown in popularity over time, particularly in certain countries. In the USA 'online marketing' is still prevalent, in Italy is referred as 'web marketing' but in the UK and worldwide, 'digital marketing' has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.