Trends | Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a reformed approach to businesses communicating with customers though the use of digital technologies. The aim of this interactive form of reaching consumers improves and promotes brands, increases sales and retains customers. Digital marketing began in the 90's with web 1.0 platform. Google was founded closely after this in1998, later leading to the discovery of social media platforms including blogger, myspace, Facebook and Twitter; beginning the period of web 2.0. today it is very common for businesses to utilise these platforms to advertise their services and products. In 2014 a study by we are social found that approximately 2.3 billion people are active users of social media platforms, proving that this medium is an excellent way for companies to reach a lot of people all over the world.

Cookies
The cookie is widely used in the e-commerse world to collect data about users and their search habits. The introduction of this tool changed the game of digital marketing, allowing companies to filter their advertising content depending on the user; this method is commonly used by companies such as Amazon and Ebay.

Argos
Argos has made significant progress in paving the way of digital retail, through their new initiative to reform the company to keep up with the digital age and to maintain their status in retail. John Walden's (Managing director) plans of transforming Argos into a digital retailer has really impacted the way we shop, by integrating convenience with familiar technologies. The series of concept stores across the UK were launched in 2013, with a new fast track service the household company provides customers the option to use in store iPads, free wifi to connect personal devices and pay and collect stands offering a quality service to each customer. Although the traditional catalogs have not been abandoned, Argos' aim to cater to the needs of their customers with urgency has been successful in changing the way we shop.

Asos
Asos' innovative use of social media to drive their #BestNightEver campaign was an amazing phenomenon in digital marketing. The campaign was based around the online tendencies and biggest inspirations of their target audience. This authentic marketing strategy reinforces celebrity influence on consumers by allowing buyers to instantly purchase the products they see in the music videos of urban artist, this clever interaction eradicated the barrier between the audiences, artists and products, whilst taking Asos to new heights. Furthermore, the huge buzz around the brand generated their best sales result during the launch of the campaign in December 2012 in time for the festive season.
 The success of this on demand strategy was  due to their extensive market research as it was evident that the platform the chose was a reflection of what their audience wanted.