Digital Media Marketing! Is it Just a Marketing Strategy?

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Digital media marketing refers to all the activities a business performs online, utilizing all the available online resources, to promote something in any way, to acquire a business, or to engage with the audience. It is known as web-based marketing and internet marketing as well. Digital media marketing includes social media marketing, website marketing, email marketing, sharing videos through online resources, podcasting, blogging, referral marketing, search engine optimization, and other similar things.

Digital media marketing has become a complementary activity for businesses. The major purpose of every marketing plan or collective marketing activity is to convey the corporate or business message to the target customers. Marketers choose the specific ways and means to convey this message most effectively, with minimum cost, and within the desired period. Digital media provides all the mentioned facilities to marketers. It is the only source that your target customers and audience frequent almost all the time somewhere. There is no other place than the digital media to provide such an opportunity. 

The Contribution of Digital Media Marketing to Overall Marketing

Digital media has an unbelievable reach. It is the means to convey a message with the least time and cost. It has the fabulous characteristic of getting spontaneous and instant feedback or some traces of quick feedback. Because of its mammoth reach, minimum cost, and quick feedback qualities, digital media is rapidly dominating marketing efforts globally. There is no other media to match its distinct features, effectiveness, and unstoppable spread.

The share of digital advertising in the overall global advertisement (based on the data of USA, China, Germany, UK, and Japan) is expanding at a rapid pace. According to eMarketer, this share has been almost 35% in 2016. It’s a huge portion and growing fast.

It should be remembered that digital advertising is a part of digital media marketing. Advertising represents the promotional side, while overall digital marketing deals with every activity being performed on digital media, relevant to and between the business and the audience and target market.

Marketers keep digital media as an inevitable part of their marketing strategic planning. Because of the unparalleled qualities of digital media, it is capturing the major part of the marketing focus. Comparing the share of digital media advertising to the overall advertising, which is 35% as depicted above, the engagement level of marketers in digital marketing is astonishing. According to an estimate by SmartInsights, on average, 60% of a marketer’s time is spent managing digital marketing activities. 

According to a forecast by McKinsey & Company, the spending on digital media advertising would cross 50% of the overall global advertising expenditure by 2019. 

The same report predicts that digital media advertising will dominate by 2017 as compared to traditional TV advertising.

Is Digital Media Marketing Only a Strategic Option?

As the above discussion establishes, and by looking at the key importance and place of digital media marketing in overall marketing efforts, it doesn’t seem appropriate to take it as just a strategy or strategic option. The trends clearly prove that digital marketing in the future will dominate the marketing arena of almost every business across the globe. So, declaring digital marketing as a strategy would be something to ignore its role and undermine and underestimate its value and importance.

1.   Digital Media Marketing is not an Option, It’s a Must: 

    

    When we talk about an option, we clearly mean that:
  
    i. We have more than one way to choose to achieve a target or reach a desired destination. 
    ii.   We have multiple ways to go ahead with. It's up to us either to choose the most optimal ones and to ignore or discard the ones we think are not relevant or less useful to meet the objectives.

    Do we have an alternative to digital media marketing, especially when it’s very clear that without digital media marketing, doing business would be a futile effort in the coming years? So, it’s beyond any doubt that digital media marketing has not remained a choice or option now. The businesses have to adopt it or be ready to quit.

2. Digital Media Marketing is not a Means to Promotion, It’s a Representation: 

    There is a huge and very basic difference between traditional advertising & promotions and digital media marketing. The basic objective of using ads and promos is to give a product introduction to the target customers, spread awareness, strengthen the image and brand, remind, induce, and do other purposes. Traditional advertising and promotions are one-way processes. A Business speaks to the customers and stakeholders according to the business’s own will and time. The stakeholders, especially customers, have no way to reciprocate properly and on time. In digital media marketing, businesses and brands do not attempt just for the purpose of promotion. They present and justify themselves and their value to the target audience. They directly talk to the audience and adopt ways to keep themselves positively engaged with the audience. Digital media marketing is a two-way conversation, not a one-way communication.  

3.   Digital Media Marketing is not a Part, It’s a Whole:  

     Digital media marketing is normally taken as a part of a business’s overall promotional efforts. This mindset and practice are harmful in the long run, as digital marketing is a full-fledged and complete set of activities that should be taken as an independent area. For example, there are a large number of businesses that depend only on digital marketing to survive. Besides others, e-commerce businesses are the most prominent example. By considering digital media marketing as a whole set of its own unique activities, the marketers' focus would be very clear to manage this area independently and quite effectively and to attend to other marketing areas with more ease and without any ambiguity.

4.   Digital Media Marketing is not a Short-Term Activity, It’s a Long-term Commitment: 

   Digital media marketing is a perpetual continuous process, unlike a strategy. Its magnitude and volume depend on the nature of the business and the requirements of the circumstances, but it’s always there and will remain there. Because of its permanent nature. The requirements of digital media marketing are far more different than the traditional promotional approaches.

 What is the Place of Digital Media Marketing in Marketing Planning?

Taking all the points into consideration and witnessing the ever-growing role of digital media marketing in the marketing process, it is very clear that digital marketing is not a mere strategic option or just a part of overall promotional efforts. Its role is bigger than what most businesses think about. It’s not an approach to promote business; it’s a part of the business. 

"By taking into account its width, breadth, spread, and permanent nature and role; we can conclude that Digital Media Marketing has become one of the core marketing objectives in a marketing planning process."

 

This might look something weird and strange to take digital marketing as a core marketing objective, but this is what digital media marketing deserves the most. Businesses will never leverage the true benefits of digital marketing unless they recognize the true value and place of this mammoth and key activity. By considering digital media marketing as a core marketing objective, marketers will be able to formulate proper strategies to achieve the goals set within the parameters of digital marketing objective. The overall marketing strategic planning, along with all the other marketing objectives and strategies, can and should be harmonized and adjusted with the strategies formulated to meet the digital media marketing objective or vice versa.

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