Monday, July 19, 2010

Digital Marketing: A Changing and Challenging Platform

A meticulously monitored marketing mix does not necessarily ensure a steady growth in the ROI. Curve of a growth chart can take a sharp nosedive if a perfect fusion of online marketing concept and innovative approach cannot be done. As digital industry is ruled by flux and as change is its main characteristic, it is quite evident that formulating a compact digital marketing plan is not a walk in the park. It has to be powerful, engaging, interactive and highly interesting so that an effective communication can be built with the targeted audience. An ideal marketing plan should include all marketing channels such as mobile, print, web search, email, social etc to ensure a better outcome at the end of the day. Spearheading an online marketing campaign is much more typical and complex than traditional form of offline marketing, as virtual industry does not adhere to any strict rules or regulations. Obviously, there is a standard but that does not guarantee success at all. Here, marketers have to deal with expected problems, unexplained behaviors of the visitors and unpredictable turnaround. Success always eludes here and therefore putting a rein on success is somewhat a nerve-wreaking task. One can draw inspiration from the success story of Twitter, the fabulous rise of Facebook or from the illustrious journey of MySpace, but these inspirational stories might not prove as effective as you have taken it to be. The only way, a difference can be made is by making a difference. One has to offer something different or at least in a different way otherwise, things might not turn up exact the way that was supposed it to be. However, digital marketing has its own unique advantages. It offers an alternative option to promote and project brand image of an organization. Splurging money on advertising blitzkrieg has become a passé courtesy the unprecedented boom in the sphere of digital marketing. It has seen that a number of lesser-known brands have made their presence felt in the hot and happening digital world without spending money lavishly on their respective marketing campaign. Instead, they have tamed and treated all the spheres of digital marketing by exploring and exploiting different genres of digital marketing such as online games, video, music and more. Creativity will play a decisive role here but the entire marketing campaign has to be presented in an interesting and engaging way.

Though the importance of print media has fallen evidently from the past, it should not be discarded completely. Print media and digital platform have to be treated differently to yield better outcome. Though a sizable section of targeted audience is still ignorant of online media, they are outnumbered by those who are getting into internet lately. It is a fact that digital platform has posed a serious threat to traditional media by dint of its interactivity and flexible nature. Therefore, a clash is inevitable.

As Digital platform is getting clogged with more and more interesting, innovative and engaging applications to rise up to the expectation of the visitors, it has become imperative if not necessary for a digital marketing expert to review the strategy of a marketing campaign on regular basis. One has to track every single change with minute attention and try something different which are very critical as far as digital marketing is concerned.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

The generation shift from TV to Social Networking

With the shift in networking technologies the phenomenon of social networking sites has evolved to be the Gen-X ways of communicating and sharing information. Today more than half of the youth spend more of their waking hours on the internet rather than on playing or in from of the 'stupid idiot box'.
Since, social networks connect people at low cost; it is beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact base. They are also increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook has been time and again used by police officials to prosecute users of said sites. Families who have lost touch with near and dear ones are utilizing such sites to get back in touch with each other.
Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services. Users can upload pictures of themselves, create their 'profile' and can often be "friends" with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked.
From earliest social networking sites Classmates.com (1995) and SixDegrees.com (1997) ,with time the popularity of these virtually small sites attracted bigger players like Indiatimes, Google, Yahoo etc. Thus came into existence networking sites like itimes, Orkut, Yahoo 360 degree, Facebook, My Space etc. As many as 200 social networking sites exist with about millions of users catering to various divisions and strata of society.
In recent times, there have been growing concerns about users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators on large social networking services. Furthermore, there is an issue over the control of data—information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to 3rd parties. Thus the relative freedom afforded by social networking services has caused concern regarding the potential of its misuse by individual patrons.