Effectiveness of Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital marketing is one type of marketing that is widely used to promote products or services and to reach consumers using digital channels. It includes mobile phones, social media marketing, display advertising, search engine marketing and many other forms of digital media (Financial Times, n.d.). Digital marketing strategies build on and adopt the principles of traditional marketing, using the opportunities and challenges offered by the digital medium.

• According to Hoge (1993), digital marketing is a transfer of goods or services from seller to buyer involving one or more electronic methods or media. It began with the use of telegraphs in the nineteenth century. With the invention and mass acceptance of the telephone, radio, television and then cable television, electronic media has become the dominant marketing force.
• According to Chaffey (2011), digital media marketing involves “encouraging customer communications on company’s own website or through its social presence”. Digital marketing, electronic marketing and internet marketing are all similar terms which, simply put, refer to “marketing online whether via websites, online ads, opt-in emails, interactive TV or mobiles” (Chaffey & Smith, 2008).

• To present the various elements of digital marketing.
• To examine the effects of various forms of digital marketing on the firm’s sales and activities.

This study is based on both primary and secondary data sources. There were three different methods of study that were used in this research paper. First, literature reviews of articles and books on the subject of digital marketing effectiveness, social media, online marketing and social media marketing demographics were used, which give basic information for understanding these issues. In addition, a sample consisting of 100 firms and 50 executives was randomly selected to prove the effectiveness of digital marketing.

Online advertising is a very important part of digital marketing. It is also called internet advertising, through which a company can deliver the message about its products or services.

When a message about products or services is sent through email to existing or potential consumers, it is defined as email marketing.

Today, social media marketing is one of the most important digital marketing channels. It is a computer-based tool that allows people to create and exchange ideas, information and pictures about the company’s products or services.

It is a way to send information about products and services via cellular and smartphone services. By using phone devices, a company can send information in the form of text (SMS), pictures, video or audio (MMS).

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a company rewards affiliates for each visitor or customer they bring through the marketing efforts they create on behalf of the company (“Affiliate Marketing,” n.d.).

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or unpaid (“organic”) search results (“Search Engine Optimization,” n.d.).

To show the correlation between the various elements of digital marketing and increased sales, we collected data from 100 firms that use the various techniques or elements of digital marketing. The results are given in Table 1.

From Table 1, we can conclude that every element of digital marketing is positively related to sales increase. It indicates that all elements of digital marketing show a positive effect on the firm’s sales. Online advertising, email marketing, social media and search engine optimization (SEO) are highly positively correlated with sales increase, with r values of .869, .873, .840 and .840, respectively. The values of r for text messaging, affiliate marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) are .667, .560 and .560, which also show a low positive correlation with sales increase.

Digital media is so pervasive that consumers have access to information any time and any place they want. It was long ago that the messages people got about specific products or services consisted of only what a company wanted them to know.

From Table 2, we can conclude that almost all the variables carry weight, explaining to a great extent their relationship with digital marketing.

The digital channel in marketing has become an essential part of the strategy of many companies. Nowadays, even for a small business owner, there is a very cheap and efficient way to market his/her products or services. Digital marketing has no boundaries. A company can use any devices, such as social media, search engine optimization (SEO), videos, content, email and a lot more, to promote the company itself and its products and services.