© Priya Narayanan, Assistant Professor of Marketing, IIM Kozhikode. Views are personal.

SEO, influencer marketing, content marketing, social media strategy… these are some of the terms that exemplify popular views of digital marketing. But when trying to comprehend digital marketing, two problems arise: What exactly is “digital” in digital marketing? And does digital marketing include anything beyond digital communication?

In this article, I attempt to answer these questions based on my experience in marketing and digital marketing, experience gained through learning, teaching, and consulting. I also include definitions by researchers and the American Marketing Association, and offer a book suggestion for those interested in learning more.

Anjala Krishen, researcher and academic, and colleagues recently set out “a broad and all-encompassing definition of digital marketing: the application of data, ICT-based technology (e.g., artificial intelligence), platforms (e.g. social networks), media and devices to extend the scope of marketing within both physical and virtual spaces, for the purpose of improving customer relationships by empowering, informing, influencing, and engaging consumers.” The paper is available at this link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296321002241

Building on this definition, the “digital” in digital marketing refers to the digital consumer who is increasingly a 24/7 digital being (although there are varying degrees to which the customer might be digital). Digital marketing, then, becomes about all marketing activities aimed at the digital customer, implying that digital marketing includes much more than digital communication. It involves learning the digital (and preferably the non-digital) life of your customer to understand how they make choices.

To start with, marketing as an art and science is about customer value, and involves at least four overlapping activities: determining value, creating value, communicating value, and delivering value. In the traditional understanding of marketing, one example of these four activities could be competitive analysis, product development, advertising, and retailing. Another example could be market research, branding, packaging, and direct sales. How does this work in the digital world?

Consider the digital customer’s life. Some of the major aspects of this life are the internet, digital devices, touchscreen interaction, and impersonal communication. The digital life is also about information overload, variety, speed, connection, and multitasking, along with issues of security and privacy. These aspects of the digital life result in short attention spans, habitual behaviors, preference for multimedia and interactivity, and in several product categories, the sheer impossibility of customer loyalty.

Clearly, adapting marketing activities to the digital customer is not just about digital communication but about adapting every element of marketing to suit the digital customer’s life. Some questions that might concern digital marketers are:

1. What does customer value mean to the digital customer? Relentless choice on Amazon or Flipkart, or ways to know which brand/seller is really trustworthy?

2. What are the ways to determine customer value for the digital customer? Big data analytics that work well on past data but offer limited guidance for real innovation, or research that incorporates customer experiences and implicit responses?

3. How can companies create this value? Does value get created through interesting but possibly pointless advertising (“moment marketing” seems to be in fashion these days, on anything from Olympics to Independence to the festivities of raksha bandhan and diwali), or a new security feature that will allay consumer concerns better?

4. How is this value best communicated? Email marketing to every valid address, or a nuanced and focus approach to select customers?

5. What does delivery of value mean to the digital customer? Bombardment with discounts that sometimes attract needless purchases, or an app that provides intelligent reminders for grocery purchases?

One of the companies that seem to have got its digital marketing right (at least in part) is Ola Electric. The Ola electric scooter apparently interacts seamlessly with your mobile phone, something that the digital customer would appreciate. Bookings and delivery are online, with limited number of showrooms. Interesting snippets of communication on email and social media keep the conversation alive. Taken together, Ola seems to have, so far, done a great job of putting the digital customer first and extending digital marketing beyond digital communication. Of course, only time will tell the score.

Clearly, digital marketers need to actively incorporate all the above elements associated with customer value. As the digital customer evolves, digital marketing needs to go beyond easy reach and non-targeted communication to provide real value through curating choices, creating genuinely useful content, and connecting people meaningfully. Digital marketers need to put the digital customer first, so that true customer value can be realized through digital marketing.

Further reading for those who are interested:

Book: Digital Marketing by Dave Chaffey, Fiona Ellis-Chadwick

“Definition” of digital marketing by https://www.ama.org/pages/what-is-digital-marketing/

Research article by Shaphali Gupta and co-authors on use of digital analytics in business (2020): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996820300840