Almost two decades ago, Peter Drucker, with his brilliant analysis that even allowed him to anticipate the development of societies, indicated that marketing in the digital age would lead to an almost radical transformation of this discipline.
However, this prediction seemed to only be limited to the world of people linked to computer systems, some Internet adventurers and companies that were striving to attract the interest of executives in the world of information. So, we definitely had businesses that had grown a lot on the Internet like Google, Amazon and others.
It seemed that the use of mechanisms to boost sales, customer relations and the promotion of products and services were still far from being a priority for customers. All this suddenly changed in the fortnight of March 2020 when suddenly, in almost all countries in the world, governments decreed quarantines, immovability and curfews that made people stay in their homes. From there it obviously sought to be connected to the world, having as its only window to the world the Internet and the digitalization of its companies.
Before that fateful month of March 2020, Google was striving to demonstrate the convenience of its ads, to boost rates, and the world of social networks seemed to be restricted to niches of young YouTubers and some examples that seemed only intended for the niche. However, with people locked up, there was a need to teach classes, hold executive meetings, interact with customers, bring products, all through videoconferencing tools.
«The pandemic did more than 20 years of development and awareness in this regard for the digitalization of companies..»
From that moment on, businesses that had good positioning on the Internet saw their income grow exponentially, while the others, those that provided services or sold products in person, began to go bankrupt. Online courses, platforms for learning or meetings, e-commerce applications, found themselves earning millions overnight, leading the world to a much more digitalized and interconnected economy from which it will never return.
The pandemic caught many companies in their infancy, without having done their homework, not only in terms of digitalization and commercial positioning on the Internet, but also with emergency plans to mitigate the risks of the pandemic.
«An important financial institution in Spain had emergency plans for the most unexpected risks, such as an atomic war or the fall of a meteorite, but had not considered a possible pandemic in the possible risks. He was caught without a single computer equipment to send to his employees' homes so that they could continue their activity through teleworking. Raising this situation at a time of high demand for equipment cost him months, and while his employees could not work.»
With the pandemic, the need for millions of people to find a way to promote their products through social networks began, which also revealed a great lack of understanding and ability to quickly position themselves and manage to place products through so-called marketing. digital. Thus, also for this reason, overnight, those companies and people who were able to teach their customers how to relate to others through this marketing were able to advance much more quickly.
Digital marketing is here not only to stay but to expand, and we could say, to redefine several of the fundamental concepts of this discipline, as Peter Drucker told us several decades ago. Therefore, we are going to review some keys to this marketing:
- You should think about your budget first around what you will do through digital media and then, if you consider it, use traditional means (which are also even more expensive). Before we believed that digital marketing was an additional tool to traditional marketing, we thought about advertising, radio, television and then in a small proportion allocating something to social networks, today it is the other way around.
- Among the advantages of digital marketing is having the report on time, direct and even with statistics on the use, consumption, and relationship of your product with the customer.. Before placing advertising in a mass media, it was simply a bet, for most of us, the media could give us its sales circulation if it was a newspaper, its tune or its rating if it was radio or television, but other than that we could not have a clear idea and report of the impact of our promotion. That has changed and the money you put into digital marketing will be immediately reported by any of the social networks you choose and this report will allow you to fine-tune your promotion.
- Digital marketing allows you to relate more directly to the niche your business is in.. Every company is focused on a certain type of audience and that certain type of audience is going to be located much more reliably, quickly and cheaply through digital media.
- You will be able to be connected almost in a personalized way with your clients, By interacting with them, you can ask for their opinions permanently, and you can also know their satisfaction almost automatically. The impact of a promotional campaign will no longer depend on the size of your company or your advertising budget, but rather on ingenuity and the relationship you establish with customers. A small company with imagination, humor and properly connecting with its customers can create a campaign that goes viral with a small budget, thus surpassing what a company with enormous capital and financial backing can do.
- Digital marketing of generating reports, statistics and objective information on its impact, which allows us to manage from the rigor of numbers.
In short, the world has changed, and so have consumers. Companies must align themselves with this new scenario to remain in the market and to continue being profitable. And as the wise man says:
«We cannot solve today's problems with yesterday's solutions.»
