Traditional Marketing Impacts the Digital Marketing Landscape
Technology advancements have greatly impacted the marketing landscape in today’s world. Fifteen years ago, social media didn’t exist. According to Martin Bryant in his article, “20 Years Ago Today, the World Wide Web was Opened to the Public,” the internet was invented in 1991, but became more widely-known in the early 2000s. The internet has more information on it now than ever before. It is user-friendly and is now accessible on devices that fit in one’s pocket. As technology and information have evolved, so has the marketing landscape.
Traditional methods of marketing include billboards, magazine ads, and radio commercials. These methodologies are more established and contain fundamental principles of how to successfully market and sell a company’s product. These fundamental principles also carry over to the digital marketing world. Traditional marketing methodologies impact the digital media landscape through creating brand awareness, targeting a specific audience, and creating more credibility.
“Creating brand awareness is the first and most important stage of marketing communication” (?izmeci, 2015). Brand awareness is composed of many different components. Those creating brands must be aware of the environment. It will be most successful when all factors of the culture are taken into consideration. The location’s politics, religion, cultural traditions all factor into the brand. With those considered, the media platform that is best for the company is also considered. In traditional marketing a location of a billboard, a magazine ad, or the time of a radio commercial were crucial to spreading the word of one’s company. In digital media marketing, because each platform serves a different purpose, choosing the best one for the company is vital.
“’Behavioral targeting’ is an Internet-based targeting strategy that uses several elements of a consumer’s online behaviors to piece together a user profile” (Summers, 2016). Like traditional marketing, digital marketing must also target a certain audience. Data is collected in order to help analyze and predict a consumer’s behavior. The more the companies can know about the consumers, the easier they can market towards a specific consumer group.
Creating brand awareness and behavioral targeting consumers are both important in creating credibility within a company. Traditional marketing methodologies have proven to be successful. A company able to target a specific audience, causing profits to increase, also helps a brand become more credible. This concept is also vital in digital marketing.
Building relationships and networking are other key principles in marketing. “Emotions have always been significant to marketing. These days, emotional appeals are heavily employed (on-line and off-line) to improve loyalty and build relationships” (Dua, 2017). Those two elements are important in marketing; constantly finding connections, becoming aware of other companies as well as selling your own by talking to people is absolutely vital.
The traditional marketing methodologies have definitely impacted the digital media marketing landscape. Creating brand awareness is one of the most important things a company can do in both aspects of marketing. Behavioral targeting is mostly used in digital marketing and has transformed from traditional marketing targeting. It’s able to focus on the trends of the consumer and can more easily predict future habits. Credibility is necessary in many fields, especially in marketing. Without credibility, the purpose is lost.
Having an understanding of these fundamental principles, in addition to applying them in a company, will better lead to success. As these principles have been used in the digital marketing landscape, we can see how they originated from traditional marketing. The principles of creating brand awareness, target a specific audience, and create credibility are universal marketing principles that have impacted digital marketing today.
References
?izmeci, Füsun; Ercan, Tu??e. (2015). The effect of digital marketing communication tools in the creation brand awareness by housing companies. Megaron 10, no. 2
Dua, S. (2017). Digital Communication Management: The World Is Going Digital. International Journal Of Recent Research Aspects, 4(3), 50-53.
Summes, C. A., Smith, R. W., & Walker Reczek, R. (2016). An Audience of One: Behaviorally Targeted Ads as Implied Social Labels. Journal Of Consumer Research, 43(1), 156-178. doi:10.1093/jcr/ucw012