Digital Technology in Marketing

Digital Technology is the buzz word of a century! This technology has now become an integral part of the routine life of a vast majority of an individual. The generation today is connected in more ways than one to the entire world via various forms of technology. In fact, Digital technology has entirely altered the manner of communication between people, and how they work, making it more efficient, fast and eventually more powerful. Several countries are fortunate to have their Government taking interest in Information and Communication Technology, resulting in large investments being made for the Technological sector. These are the nations who have recognized how the growth of digital technology can have a simultaneous impact on their country's growth.

Digital Technology is playing a major role in the expansion of Technological Market's span towards Consumer's experience, giving the end user a multitude of variations in the field interactive marketing.

It is most important for the Marketers to understand the role of digital technology and its associated media along with their relevant applicable strategies to play the game of buying and selling in the world of Online Marketing. Large consumer based organizations that have emerged over time need strategic Marketers, who have expertise in understanding the end users, and who are proficient in guiding and influencing them in their decision-making process. The complete expertise in incorporating Online Media Planning and Buying should be the basis of such Client Based Businesses.

Marketers need to adapt cohesive advertising policies to incorporate the relevant media with all the correct combinations for marketing, hence providing the consumers with effective valuable solutions; more campaigns can be formulated optimizing the available procedures for achieving maximum growth and media value.

It is quite an interesting journey how Digital Technologies have evolved over the recent decades. Branding has changed very fast globally in a short span of time, giving us in return solid strategies to work upon. Some of the branding strategies evolved in the past 50 years are as follows:

Unique Selling Proposition: We are finally not just restricted to Newspaper Marketing! The marketers now focus on consuming less space but are working harder on highlighting their features that distinguish them from competitors. These smart Marketers depend on the unique value proposition of the brand to communicate and sell!

Emotive Selling Proposition: Progressing further from the 60's Newspaper trend, 70's brought with it the revolution of TV- which is most popular to date. The reason it gained popularity among the masses was its uniqueness of being able to relate to the end user via the emotional connecting phenomenon, encompassing a huge circle and hence bringing forward the emotional value proposition. It works as a sure shot formula, which reaches out most effectively and often convincingly.

Corporate Selling Proposition: Next have introduced the Publication Houses at large, directing the attention from Brands to the Corporate sector. This was the era in which the Marketer's focus was on the usage of corporate jargon for promotion, to sell the Product instead of Brand.

Brand Selling Propositions: Feeling the increasing need of Brand Marketing once again, the Marketers moved onto radio advertising, which brought along dramatic changes across the globe. With reduced communication time, there were more brand names available for consumers to recognize, hence attracting the marketers' focus on Brand Proposition.

Buyer Selling Proposition: Finally, one of the Marketers' favorite! The world wide web of Internet! This form of Digital Media was an entry that was larger than life for the Sellers, with an increased focus on Consumers and their mentality. Through Internet was introduced the one- to- one communication method, popularly known as Email. The Marketers via this strategy were set to task on convincing the end users how the Products were beneficial to them. Such selling proposition again turns out to be most effective, as it captures the consumers individually. Such marketing tactics capture the undivided attention of the consumers proving to be easy and hassle-free strategy.

Individual Selling Proposition: Social Media Platforms emerged next over the web2.0 platform, and the increase in the usage of search engines brought the consumers closer to the Market and Products. This strategy is taking control over brand marketing as time progresses and is being redirected by the Consumers in the true sense. The basic advantage this selling proposition has is that it does not target a single age group. The end users for such a proposition vary in age, profession, and cultures. For instance, students or the younger group as an audience would aim for Products such as latest affordable gadgets, online music, movies etc. Housewives as an audience would mostly look for home utensils or shopping, which obviously is an addiction since the stone-age for women. Similarly, Business men and women have their own set of Market Products that they most conveniently reach out on the web via the online selling propositions available; this is where we are introduced to the "e-Marketing" concept.

The concept of "e-marketing" also uses Digital Technology as its basis. Digital Technologies' impact has most certainly been enormous within the e-Marketing sector. Keeping the fact in mind, that the usage of Technologies has become ancient for the purpose of marketing Product, the Marketers should work upon equipping themselves with the new Tech-solution available for buying, selling and promotion of their Products.

Using the Internet as a medium, the most successful and most-used medium that the Marketers are gaining in expertise on is the Social Media. It's progression was slow at first, but gradually and with popularity gained within the Marketers of the top notch industries, Social Marketing has become an extremely powerful means of communication and a highly attractive method to grab attention, targeting the young professionals and the Techies of the Business World. Via Social Media, the marketers can bring many online tools to use for marketing. They can use of viral marketing, online advertisements and promotional emails and newsletters from a variety of Promotion Techniques to market their Products. The social networks' audience has had a substantial increase over the past three years. The audience has now gone up to an estimate of over 300 million end users in touch on the Social Networking Medium.

Digital Media is better known as ECM (Enterprise Content Management) in the Corporate World. These Marketers have found their way into the world where the major Global Brands are promoted and managed using Digital Media as their basis. As estimated via major researchers carried out, 1 out of 3 global Internet Users views online Product Promotions.

Over the period of about 50 to 60 years, the World Wide Web has evolved to Broadcast and beyond. Working their way from Newspaper Marketing, to multi-media broadcasting, and finally reaching out to the interactive world of social networks marketing, digital media's growth of raising Digital Content is estimated as reference below:

• 32 Million Books
• 100,000 Films
• 2 million Songs
• 10 billion Web pages
• 1 million Newspapers
• 1 billion Email users
• 3 billion Texters

The Digital Media Market experts have estimated for the Social Media Networks to dominate the future of Marketing. In the years to come, the Marketers have predicted that promotion via Songs, Movies, Web Pages, and Books will face the biggest downfall; Newspaper Marketing techniques though will still be available but would have an audience that would be less than a 100 million. Communication via email would remain existent above a good 300 million end users range, whereas it is the communication strategy being commuted via several marketing strategies that would gain popularity the most with an audience above 500 million.

Conclusion:

Digital technology has undeniably played the most important role in Online Digital Marketing and has covered all aspects of interacting with the Online consumers, successfully reaching out to the target audience market. Denying its presence and its effectiveness will not only retard the growth and future prospects of any business, but standing stagnant will eventually give prove to be fatal.

As the statistics and research have proven the digital technology is sure to stay and all other mediums have in the future receding span of growth, thus, the Marketers need to focus on the long-term growth and target all their strategies towards a future that would be solely dominated by Digital Media.