It’s no secret that where modern marketing is concerned, digital is where it’s at. Over the past twenty years or so, companies have slowly shed their traditional marketing tactics in favour of email, web advertising, and more recently, social media.
That said, enough time has passed since the dawn of digital marking that it is no longer a “new and different” offshoot of traditional strategies. Digital has now been around long enough that it is actually the center of what marketing is all about, the default of what we mean when we’re talking about
reaching customers and building relationships.
This is why it’s time to stop thinking about strategies in terms of “digital” as a separate thing, and just focus on the most effective marketing techniques that will help you find the customers who need you, and who can help you grow your business. The digital part is now a given.
You can already see this mental shift happening in the way that
search engines are prioritizing results. Gone are the days when you could use coding tricks and workarounds to fool the system into ranking your page higher than your competitors. Now, the search engine algorithms are smart enough to understand what quality content is, and to reward those who provide real value rather than those who simply try to plug in some kind of magic formula.
Internet users are becoming more savvy, as well. Today’s online consumers are smart, and they see through blatant attempts to have products and services pushed on them. What they actually want and need are for companies to step up and provide comprehensive information, opportunities to communicate, and products that help them solve problems in their daily lives.
The good news is, this provides an opening for smart marketers to stop worrying so much about the digital aspects of marketing, and start honing in on raising the value of the content they’re providing for their audiences.
That’s not to say that the technical factors of marketing aren’t important – of course you need to pay attention to your
analytics tools to make sure you’re on the right track. But that’s just what they are: tools to
assist you in your marketing journey, the goal of which is to make real, human connections that lead to customer relationships. It’s a means to an end rather than the end itself.
Digital marketing is no longer the new kid on the block. It is now firmly established as the norm, and it’s time to start thinking of it as such. Just as with any other type of marketing, focus your energy on helping your target customers, get your knowledge and expertise out there, and provide the best products and services that you possibly can.
