Meet The Challenges of Digital Marketing in The 21st Century

It has been nearly a quarter-century since the internet — or more specifically, the World Wide Web — entered the scene and changed commerce forever. Once the reality of buying and selling on the internet became clear, most businesses realized that they needed to adapt their marketing strategies to the new online marketplace.

Thus began the era of digital marketing. What started out as relatively simple online banner advertising has now morphed into a wide range of digital marketing strategies and sophisticated technologies including mobile and location-based marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, hyperpersonalization and one-to-one marketing, email marketing and more.

We’ll examine digital marketing from a broader perspective.

Influencing Purchase Decisions

Since the era of modern marketing began in the 1960s, the goal has remained mostly unchanged: to get close to and connect with customers and prospects in a way that influences them to buy your company’s products and services.

Today, these connections are getting harder to make due to the proliferation of digital touch points — smart phones, tablets, watches and wearables, PCs, home devices like Alexa, you name it — and sheer fatigue on the part of many consumers who feel bombarded by digital marketing messages. This makes it critical for marketers to hone their digital strategies and focus on the ones that will best enable them to connect with customers and prospects and influence their buying decisions.

Research indicates that for the vast majority of products and services in the marketplace, most consumers start the buying process online. According to the GE Shopper Research Study, 81% of consumers now perform online research before making a purchase.

Therefore, it’s critical for marketers to provide a superior digital experience to consumers. The implications of a degraded introduction to the brand could be costly and have widespread and long-lasting negative effects on the business.

Managing Digital Experiences with DXPS

In an increasingly digital world, these channels — mainly the web, mobile and social media — are the main ways that customers and prospects interact with businesses and brands today. Tech giants like Amazon and Google have conditioned consumers to expect relevant, connected experiences across these channels, so it’s critical to make sure you can deliver them.

Digital experience platforms, or DXPs, have emerged to help companies manage the creation, hosting and distribution of experiences across digital channels and devices. Content lies at the heart of every digital experience, from brand awareness through the purchase process and post-sale support. All these experiences must connect across every digital channel and device.

This is where DXPs come in. With the right DXP, you can build and deliver enterprise digital experiences faster and more consistently. DXPs integrate content with other core technologies to seamlessly deliver relevant and personalized experiences across digital channels and devices.

Content management systems (CMS) are a key component of DXPs. These software applications are critical for marketers to create, publish and store digital content in support of their overall web presence, including email marketing. I’ve found this technology to be especially useful in helping brands transition from the outdated model of brochure websites into the new multi-dimensional experience design supported by hyperpersonalization.

There are two main components to a content management system: a content management application (CMA) and a content delivery application (CDA). The CMA uses a graphical user interface for content design, creation and editing, while the CDA enables back-end delivery of content to customers and prospects once it’s created. Some content management systems enable hyperpersonalized one-to-one marketing, or the tailoring of content to individual recipients based on their unique characteristics.

CRM and Digital Marketing

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems play a critical role in digital marketing. Using a CRM system makes it easier to collect, segment and store customer information that can be used to target consumers better. This, in turn, helps improve their digital experience by offering them products and services that are better tailored to their needs.

CRM systems collect and store all different kinds of online inter activity compiled by a business. In some cases this includes not just user-inputted demographic data such as age, address, income and occupation but also information on past purchases, online activity and even hobbies and interests.

Here’s an example of how we used CRM in the banking industry. When the Paycheck Protection Program launched in 2020, this technology helped us create a seamless borrowing experience for our business customers. Using a CRM system, we were able to automate key steps in the loan and forgiveness processes to ensure we were providing support to our customers in real time during this unprecedent event.

A CRM system also makes it easier to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and ensure delivery of ROI related to your digital marketing campaigns. These typically include metrics like cost per acquisition, customer lifetime value, social media engagement rate and brand mentions, and audience growth rate.

Digital Marketing for Today … and Tomorrow

As much as digital marketing has changed over the past quartercentury, we can be sure that it will change at least this much again in the years to come. Right now, more digital natives are entering the workforce than at any other time in history. They are climbing the corporate ladder to make business and investment decisions. This makes now the time to devise digital marketing strategies that will serve your business’ needs now and in the future.