Is digital marketing dead

Digital marketing is the buzz word for business today. When Maruti Suzuki, the top car maker in the country posted an ad on Instagram, the advertising world gasped with surprise. So when we make the statement that digital marketing is dead. We know we might ruffle a few feathers.

Marketing and Business

Production, Sales & Distribution and Marketing are three interconnected pillars of any business. Budgets of companies are majorly divided between these. Every company big or small has the most budget catered to advertising or marketing. Marketing is the process of giving out information about your product or service to the targeted audience.

History and evolution of digital marketing

Marketing is as old as trade and civilization itself. First the spoken word and then the written word began representing marketing, a powerful medium even today. Soon messages began to be relayed, first by foot messengers and then by horse men. Communication lines were vital for military conquests, but side by side economists started exploiting them too. Electronics brought in a revolution where the spoken word was now electronically transmitted across great distances.

Radio, Telegram, Television, Email and finally the internet were all the tools used by marketing teams of companies down the ages. One cannot pin point the date or the year when digital marketing began. But the advent of internet, the PC and smartphone kicked off the age when every company or business has a digital marketing strategy in place.

Is digital marketing relevant today

Yes, it is, but there is nothing called digital marketing which is separate from marketing. Businesses today may use the FM radio with TV and Newspaper ads to promote their product but their usage and impact is reducing day by day. A digital marketing plan today is integrated with the overall marketing plan of the company.

What about digital marketing courses and specialists

A digital marketing expert is loaded with the digital part and critically handicapped with the marketing part. The expert tag is also questionable.

In the atomic world, two hydrogen atoms will combine to form a helium atom, be it any part of the world. But in digital marketing every expert is using his or her own terminology. There are academies training digital marketeers every day. But digital marketing cannot be taught because tools of marketing are changing so frequently that what is taught today is obsolete tomorrow.

Another reason why digital marketing fails is because the digital marketing expert who is employing the tools does not know the nuances of business marketing and cannot catch the pulse of the market.

Digital marketing no longer exists because it is subsumed in the marketing process of the modern business world.