Digital Marketing

The digital era took off with the internet coming of age, its fiery adoption, and the ubiquitous access to personal computers. The first fully assembled personal computer was sold by Apple in the later part of the ’70s, while the ’80s saw the internet’s introduction. Finally, the ’90s saw the mass usage of the internet by the whole world. This led to a fundamental change in the global communications landscape and prompted wholesale digital marketing changes. Enterprises realized the potential of this new channel. They raced to build their web presence and optimize themselves to pull in higher search engine rankings for brand visibility and generate demand for their products and services. All these developments in the ecosystem led to the birth of several dot com companies. The dot com burst also saw a lot of those companies vanish into thin air.

Post-2000 or the post dot com era saw companies strive to compete and outperform. Digital marketing practices became more complex as they evolved. While digital marketing algorithms underwent massive evolution through decades, the elusive and nebulous Artificial Intelligence (AI) gradually made its way to aid that evolution.

So, what is AI, and how did it become a part of our lives?

The term Artificial Intelligence was first coined by John McCarthy in 1956 when he held the first academic conference on the subject, but the concept was even older. By definition, it refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines programmed to think, react and decide like humans, and mimic their actions. From watching sci-fi movies to conversations with humorous and smart Siri or Alexa and self-driving cars, AI has become a part of our lives every day through the data we feed continuously to the internet.

With AI, marketers can spot micro trends and even predict them to a large extent. They can then make strategic decisions about where they allocate their budgets and who they target. As a result, brands can reduce digital advertising waste and get the best bang for the bucks spent.

For example, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, etc., use AI to predict their consumers’ behavior and present them with relevant products and videos based on their search histories, views, and other demographic data accumulation and analysis. From one-size-fits-all marketing to a one-size-fits-only-one, AI has made it possible to create customized experiences for every consumer in almost every sector now.

AI tools are being integrated with digital marketing to create, curate, and market content, gradually substituting customer service centers through chatbots. Consumer behavior and preferences are also being predicted through email marketing and social listening, which, in turn, help consumers search online through voice search algorithms. AI can also design and develop websites through its algorithms instead of hiring web developers and can provide consumers with compelling UI/UX through buyer persona analyses.

Some of the popular AI-led digital tools include HubSpot’s social media software that automatically creates social posts based on the metadata of the link you copy and paste, saving a lot of time. Anyone subscribed to HubSpot’s Marketing Hub or its higher versions can use the tool, which can be found in the platform’s Social section. Phrasee is another enterprise-level AI copywriting tool for generating increased ROI from multi-channel marketing, including emails, Facebook, and Instagram. Sprout Social enables brands to find, form, and deepen connections with their social audience. Sprout Social’s automated technology can also help generate tweets that can reply to fans, customers, or followers. Acrolinx is another AI marketing that can help businesses develop optimal content marketing strategies and provide scalable AI solutions for content creation.

We are now living in an age of all things data. Digital marketing is evolving every second, from static banners to clickable ones, from a blanket discount to dynamic pricing influencing buying decisions on-the-go. Marketers are now using search patterns to predict their sales and serve customers better.

and this digital age, one method of doing just that is decidedly anti-technology: the flyer. Remember those? A simple, cost-effective way to cement what you're selling or promoting in the minds of your prospect. 

The company I work for offers flyers, among other tangible, non-digital marketing materials. Whether you call them flyers, handbills, leaflets or pamphlets, we've found them to be an age-old, effective form of communication. By following the advice below, you'll be on your way to developing and executing a successful flyer for your business. 

The inherently fast-paced and dynamic forms of digital marketing are making everything possible to the new-age business advertising both pre and post-pandemic period.

However, as per studies the demands for various client and individual business strategies during and after the pandemic will remain constant.

This article talks about how digital marketing will be even more beneficial post-pandemic period and how it will help in the process of crisis management.

How COVID-19 is influencing the digital marketing domain

During the initial spark of the pandemic at the beginning of the year 2020, most of the businesses experienced a severe downfall as normal life came to a standstill.

Work from home became a new normal and people started shifting their business to online.

In all these months, we have noticed how the brick and mortar businesses have made their online presence and generated even more revenue than before.

The entire concept of marketing can be seen reconceptualized during the pandemic period.

Now when everything is getting normalized slowly, we can see how businesses are earning good revenue by applying the top digital marketing strategies in their business.

Top 5 digital marketing strategies post COVID-19

Let’s move on to discuss the top 5 digital marketing strategies that have been providing long term benefits to various businesses post-COVID.

If you are looking forward to finding some real-time and proven marketing hacks, then I am sure, these strategies will take your business to sky-heights:

1. Shift your business online

As already discussed above that most of the physical businesses have shifted their presence to online and are earning more. By this point, you must have understood the benefits of having an online business presence.

With an online presence, you can connect with a huge audience than your brick and mortar business.

Online shopping, being a trend, has proved to be a golden opportunity for e-commerce merchants and other business entrepreneurs for selling their products and services.

It has been estimated by Statista, that online shopping would shoot up to 2.14 billion by 2021. So now you see, why it is so crucial to give your business an online presence.

2. Know your online audience better

For establishing any kind of online business, you first need to know your target audience.

Your potential audience can be your loyal customers if you can sell them your product or services in the right way along with satisfying them.

You must be able to differentiate in various customer behavior, propositions, and their way of communication. Also, you must have a better understanding of the online marketplace.

The foremost thing you have to do in this regard is to spy on your competitors.

Find out what kind of marketing strategies they are applying, to be at the forefront. This will help you in understanding what kind of strategies should you apply to give cutthroat competition to your competitors.

3. Invest in paid advertising

Although you can drive in leads to your business through various tactfully created organic strategies, investing some amount in the paid ads can boost your chances of bringing leads & sales.

One of the remarkable features of paid advertising is that it helps you to showcase your products and services in the form of visual & textual advertisements.

These ads can be shown to both of your previous and new visitors.

Since you are making an investment in Ads especially, you need to come up with a compelling and creative ad strategy, to ensure that it is reaching out to the appropriate audience.

4. Change your communication strategy

If you are following just a single form of communication with your customers in your online business, then you are definitely going in the wrong direction.

With time your audience’s schedule and priorities may change. And that is the reason why you need to change your communication strategies too.

For instance, if you are just sending newsletters via email to your audience, then this might not be the right approach.

You need to come up with several other communication modes so that you don’t miss out on any chance of letting your customers know about your business.

5. Bring in leads with offers

Lure your customers by pulling their attention to special offers and discounts.

What’s next?

AI is the new face of productivity, efficiency, and profitability. It is no longer limited to the usage of more prominent firms. MSMEs and start-ups too can adapt and scale their business through the strategic use of AI. The biggest boon in the future digital era will be the gradual extinction of human errors through AI-enabled processes and systems and detecting frauds and other criminal activities online.

However, the apparent fear that looms is the replacement of specific human jobs of marketers or advertisers. But to embark on a new era driven by AI does not mean so. AI is here to unleash their creative potential and rewire them to plan and execute marketing programs better.