Digital Marketing Activities: Advantages and Disadvantages

Subject: Marketing
Pages: 2
Words: 416
Reading time:
3 min

Online interactions are vital for a company in the modern days, as the digital market proliferates. Despite apparent obstacles, such as new skill requirements and high competition, the advantages of this type of marketing make it crucial (Advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing, 2019). This paper discusses digital marketing activities, including analyzing online reviews, social media customer interactions, and targeting customers by their preferences.

Online reviews have gained a significant amount of attention from marketers. Many people search for a company’s online reviews page before deciding whether to interact with it at all (Andersen, 2019). Properly addressing these reviews is a major task, which is also crucial for a company. Social media platforms are not only a popular trend, but they also give companies greater influence over younger generations (Johnson, 2021; Smith, 2011). Personalization of messages to the customer is an essential part of online marketing. The digital environment gives a company analysis tools that can provide extensive data regarding its customers (Kingsnorth, 2019). All these activities should be considered equally important, and the focus of a company’s marketing team must be split among many digital channels for maximum efficiency (Milia, 2021). For example, review-based targeted content can be posted via social media for more cost-efficient advertising companies, assisting customer’s actions during a purchase process (Figure 1).

Customers’ steps in a high involvement purchase
Figure 1: Customers’ steps in a high involvement purchase (Source: Chaffey and Smith, 2017)

These recommendations aim to create an engaging experience for customers. Companies with high-involvement products, such as BMW, have to create ads that will hit close to a customer’s interests, while more general product ads, such as Coca-Cola, do not have to be highly personalized (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). Decisions to make such purchases are not spontaneous, making the depth of information regarding the product the primary concern for a company (Taylor, 2019). The quality of shared with customers must also be kept high, reflecting the value of a product (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). Efficient communication with potential consumers is necessary to establish trust, which is a mandatory requirement for moving onto the transaction phase (Holmquist, 2014). The digital environment changes more rapidly than traditional marketing techniques, and marketers need to follow the trends closely to stay relevant (DePino, 2020). While it could be difficult for a company with high-involvement products to build enough trust solely through online interaction, brand awareness can still be gained (Kingsnorth, 2019). In conclusion, most businesses need to consider online marketing as mandatory and put significant effort into ensuring its quality.

Reference List

Advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing (2019) nibusinessinfo.co.uk.

Andersen, I. (2019) Online reviews vs. word of mouth: Which one is more important?, RevLocal. Web.

Chaffey, D. and Smith, P. R. (2017) Digital marketing excellence: Planning, optimizing and integrating online marketing. 5th ed. London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

DePino, F. (2020) The impact of digital marketing on business growth, Mediaboom.

Holmquist, C. (2014) Rethinking the online path to purchase, Digital Marketing Magazine.

Johnson, T. (2021) The shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing campaigns, The Marketing Folks.

Kingsnorth, S. (2019) Digital marketing strategy: An integrated approach to online marketing. 2nd ed. New York: Kogan Page Ltd.

Milia, A. (2021) 10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy in 2021, Milia Marketing.

Smith, K. T. (2011) ‘Digital marketing strategies that Millennials find appealing, motivating, or just annoying,’ Journal of Strategic Marketing, 19(6). doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1692443.

Taylor, I. (2019) 19 of the best marketing materials to drive high-value business, DIYMarketers.