Welcome in joining me to venture into the Digital Marketing World through the lens of a millennial in Singapore. The Digital World is not something new to the Millennials and Gen Z generation.
I am part of the generation that has seen the transition from Traditional Offline Marketing to Digital Marketing. We used to walk down walls with printed advertisement on bus shelters’ and read them on the printed newspapers. In the present age, the world has gone digital. Walking down bus shelters with digitalised, moving, incredibly interactive and eye-catching advertisements has become a norm. This is the Digital Age we are living in. As the world changes, marketing has to change.
What is Digital Marketing?
We are all guilty of closing advertisements or campaigns sites and pop ups online. There wouldn’t be a day we would not see them popping out. I remember asking myself “Why are they there?”. Almost immediately, my brain replied “Marketing needs an audience. They are there because, WE ARE THERE.” So, what is Digital Marketing?
DIGITAL MARKETING
Definition: The use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) to understand, create, communicate and deliver value to customers and the organisation.
— Wags, 2014
The above definition of Digital Marketing in Singaporean Millennial’s layman term is also: “To Market Digitally.” When thinking of Digital Marketing, we think of advertising through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. While this term covers a wide range of marketing activities, the following are some of the examples of digital marketing:
Digital Marketing Examples
According to Lucy Alexander, a blogger who also works with HubSpot’s Acquisition Marketing team on content creation and optimization testing, gave a list of the examples of Digital Marketing. Let’s look at the list she gave:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Native Advertising
- Marketing Automation
- Email Marketing
- Online PR
- Inbound Marketing
The examples above may look chim (difficult to understand), however fret not! In my following posts, I am going to elaborate on the range of topics revolving Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, and the Internet of Things. As we venture into these, I hope that we become better-informed about the types of digital marketing tools and platforms available, and how to be a highly effective user of digital marketing. Stay tuned!
Impacts of Digital Marketing
Positive Impacts:
Let’s start right here: How does digital marketing benefits us? Why should marketing go digital? We can use the 4Ps of marketing to categorize the advantages of going digital:
Product
• Customers can mass customize products
• Companies can conveniently present their products, giving customers a digital experience
Price
• Customers can compare prices more readily
• Low Cost for Companies
Distribution (Place)
• Increased efficiency of distribution due to less paper work as process of orders are sent immediately to Companies’ system instead of going through physical stores
• Quick to reach out to wider range of Customers audience
Promotion
• Rapid dissemination of information
• More options to promote products through online platforms
• Better interaction with Customers
In companies, brand awareness campaigns and sales advertisements are commonly found on Instagram and YouTube Advertisement Platforms. As individuals, we use Linkedin for Self-branding and it is more effective and efficient than just mass-sending resumes via emails or making calls for a job hunt. I have received 10 job offers so far by just creating a Linkedin account 1 year ago!
Negative Impacts:
While going digital is important for current marketers, What are the negative impacts it has on this generation? Similarly, we will be using the 4Ps of marketing to categorize the disadvantages of going digital:
Product
• Customers may get unfitting or unsatisfied products
• Companies can experience more products returns and exchange
Price
• Customers may experience transactional issues
• Higher training costs for companies to train employees to go digitalize in wide corporate scale
Distribution (Place)
• Increased admin works with wrong and changing orders
• Customers unable to have physical experience to try the products due to absence of physical stores
Promotion
• More admin work for online interactive campaigns
Final Thoughts
Today, Digital Marketing plays a significant role in current marketing industry. According to Pew Research, the number of people going online every day on a constant basis is still increasing. As such, even with the cons of Digital Marketing, the buying behavior of shoppers has already changed along with Digital Age. Traditional Offline Marketing is no longer as effective as it used to be.
While the constant advertisements popping up can be unnerving, Digital Marketing is no doubt the fruit of the revolution that Digital Age brought. Understanding Digital marketing enables us to become wiser users and be a better communicator with one another in this evolving digital reality world.
Today, I want to encourage you to think back on your life and wonder how Digital Marketing has been relevant and useful in your life. In what ways would you like to benefit from Digital Marketing and future blog posts? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Additional Resources
FRONTLINE journalism has created a program that discussed how marketers are converting social media “likes” into big dollars, how teenagers’ identity has been affected by internet, and the possible ramifications for “Generation Like.”. This video is definitely worth watching!
Digital Marketing in a Millennial's World 
Thank you so much for this article. The term “Digital Marketing” has been thrown around so much and having read this, I have a clearer understanding of what it is! 🙂
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Article was very informative and easy to digest. The term digital marketing was clearly define as well. Looking forward to the next post. Keep up the good work!!!
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Great summary about Digital Marketing, would love to hear more about the examples in the next post! 🙂
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Love how you explain digital marketing in such a simple way where it’s so easy to understand! Very informative! Good job!
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Dear Dian Tian
I like how you briefly explained the definition of digital marketing as well as listing a few examples of digital marketing. I do look forward to you elaborating on the range of topics revolving Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, and the Internet of Things in your subsequent posts!
It is great that you mentioned both the pros and cons of digital marketing in the form of 4P’s in such a clear and concise manner. While I do agree with most of your pointers I do disagree where you mentioned that “Higher training costs for companies to train employees to go digitalize in wide corporate scale” I personally feel that the costs of training digital marketers are similar to training any other employee that works in a different role.
In what ways I like to benefit from Digital Marketing and future blog posts? Well, I do look forward to your unique perspective on digital marketing and your views on the various examples you have mentioned previously. And how I would benefit from digital marketing is that I can compare prices more readily for most products and services!
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Yes, digital marketing is really a good tool for business and Individuals! Job hunts became less complex with Linkedin! Which make it efficient and effective! We can also get immediate responses from employer as well!
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