essay on marketing

1. Is traditional marketing becoming less effective with the rise
of digital marketing?
I will be discussing the significance of the rise of technology in the world of
marketing. I want to find out if now, with everything being online, are traditional forms
of marketing becoming less effective? Today we are surrounded by more adverts
than ever before, but how have these adverts changed over the last 100 years? How
have brands and companies changed and adapted their advertising campaigns to
suit the modern audience? Are the traditional forms of marketing like posters and
flyers, print ads etc, still as effective as they once were?
Marketing is “the action or business of promoting and selling products or
services, including market research and advertising.” (Panuncillon, 2018) There are
several different forms of marketing- offline traditional marketing which covers all the
print based marketing like posters, flyers, tele marketing via phone, print ads etc. The
good thing about the traditional marketing techniques is that they are physical;
people can keep hold of them, write on them and show their friends. People
promoting a product, service or brand, for example usually handing out flyers. This
allows the salesmen to have direct contact with the customer. Face to face
conversation is more personal and memorable allowing the salesman to create a
relationship with the customer to sell whatever it is they are selling. The customer will
take the flyer and remember the conversation, keeping the flyer at home or in a
purse so that they will have that information with them which is convenient for the
customer However, some people cant stand the idea of being approached by a
stranger and talking to them and would respond better to a newspaper ad perhaps.
With print ads, there is something nice about being able to sit down and read it in
your own time at your own pace, circle it, make notes on it, come back to it later or
show it to someone with no pressure. They both work because they are convenient
and they have the information right there in front of them.
Many companies and brands do something called content marketing. This is
when you engage your audience and attract customers through content they are
interested in. ‘Content marketing is not about your company, services or brand. It’s
about your audience.’ (Linn, 2017) You are not trying to sell your product but
focusing on your customer demographic and appealing to their needs and interests
first. For example if you were trying to sell a sports car, your demographic would be
someone who had lots of money who was materialistic, likes to wear designer brands
and would be buying the car for the sake of having it and it looking nice. Therefore to
appeal to them via content marketing you might use a luxury fashion or car magazine
and have ‘valuable, relevant, consistent content,’ this will ‘retain a clearly defined
audience.’(Alexander, 2019) Therefore building a stronger, reliable and more positive
relationship with your audience and builds trust and loyalty so they will then be a
returning customer and may even recommend you to their friends and family; this is
called the ‘evangelist cycle’. Evangelism marketing also known as ‘mouth to mouth
marketing’ is where the customer will sell and market on your behalf through
recommendation and sharing of interests, which is content marketing. This in the
long run increases sales, cost saving and generates a better customers who are
loyal. Content marketing in the past have focussed more on things like magazines
but now, we have access to loads of online analytic tools which allow us to get a
much better understanding of our audience and create better content marketing
materials that will gather a wider interest. However, now that people spend so much
more time online, sales of magazines, newspapers and books have decreased. This
means that businesses need to adapt and find what is now popular with modern day
audiences. For example: if you wanted to sell make up, the best way to engage your
audience would be to create a YouTube channel of makeup tutorials and reviews
and then advertise these through instagram.

2. The beauty industry is very crowded but growing rapidly with ever expanding
market especially over the last 10 years where we have seen a sudden growth in
popularity in drag and male beauty influencers. Instagram and YouTube provide a
platform for beauty bloggers and influencers and is perfect for a brand to begin their
content marketing. The good things about these platforms are they give you a much
wider outreach, free and accessible to everyone. So where once to sell beauty
products a magazine would have been the best place, now the gold mine is YouTube
and Instagram.
“Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital
technologies on the Internet, through mobile phone Apps, display advertising,
and any other digital mediums” (Financial Times, 2017)
Is digital marketing becoming more effective now more than ever? Using
social media to reach out to your audiences is really effective not just with content
marketing but when getting your brand out there and selling your products. Social
media like Facebook and Instagram use built in algorithms to target certain adverts at
certain people who will be interested. ‘Social media algorithms play a very important
role in the ability for marketers and business owners to make an impact online.’
(Peters, 2019) For example if you looked at the Adidas Instagram
page you might later find a JD advert promoting Adidas trainers on
your feed. These algorithms really help both the providers and the
consumer as the consumer will see adverts for things that are relevant
to them that they are more likely to be interested in and the
businesses adverts will be viewed by customers who are more likely
to click on the advert and purchase something. I conducted a survey
online to find out how people felt about the pop up adverts seen on
social media. 87% of the 38 participants said that when ads pop up on
Instagram they are more likely to be relevant and something they are
interested in. 60.5% also said that they fid social media adverts more
engaging/ appealing than radio (2.5%) and posters (2.5%). When
asked why, people said that pop up ads were more
convenient and usually relevant or selling something that
they are interested in. 76% of people also said that they
were more likely to buy of a pop ad. Many said this is
because they are on their phones ‘all the time’ but don’t
watch tv all the time. One person said ‘it’s easier
because it’s all just there, you click on the advert and it
takes you straight to the website” (Clarke, 2019). I think
these results are strong evidence to demonstrate that
modern day audiences respond better to marketing done online via social media
rather than posters or print ads.
I think there will continue to be an increase in purchases made through digital
marketing materials. I think this is due to the fact people spend much more time
online and on their phones. In addition to this, evidence shows that people watch
less TV and listen to the radio less than they used too making the more classic
adverting techniques less effective a they don’t get the reach that they used too.
Social media marketing has overtaken traditional marketing as you just can’t get the
outreach and audience analytics that you get via social media pages like facebook.
It’s hard to compete with targeted and personalised advertisement which at the end
of the day are just handing people the link to the product that they want. The
accessibility and simplicity of purchasing products online through adverts will
continue to rise especially as we develop more devices and services like hands free
technology. Our generation is becoming lazier as we continue to provide services

3. that cut corners and for this reason digital marketing will always be more effective
than traditional marketing.
Bibliography
Alexander, L. (2019) What is digital marketing? Hubspot. [Internet] Available at:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-digital-marketing
Clarke, H. (2019) Advertising. Survey Monkey. [Internet] Available at:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/KXKB2HM
Linn, M. (2017) What is content marketing? Content Marketing Institute. [Internet]
Available at: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/07/explain-content-
marketing/
Financial Times. (2017) "Definition of digital marketing". Financial Times. [Internet]
Available at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171129124232/http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=digital
-marketing
Peters, B (2019) A Marketer’s Guide to Decoding Social Media Algorithms in
2019. Buffer. [Internet] Available at: https://buffer.com/resources/social-media-
algorithms-2019
Panuncillon, P. J. (2018) Digital Marketing For Beginners in 2020. Digital Agency
Network. [Internet] Available at: https://digitalagencynetwork.com/digital-marketing-
for-beginners/