Digital Marketing

It's become a very complicated marketing world. The latest ideas, innovations , brainwaves and buzz-words hit us almost on a daily basis. It's all very confusing as we pick our way through ideation jungles full of 'positiveness'.

I am currently ploughing through a book called 'Digital Marketing in a Week'(118 pages). It seemed like the least painful option. Certainly better than peeling through some epic on the new 24 'P's of tactical digital marketing, which was the alternative, or the tempting 'Digital Marketing for Dummies'.

Digital marketing is being grasped by many companies as the new Holy Grail of marketing. It seems to harness the power of the internet and focus all your online marketing - a bit like the way Thor channels power through his hammer.

I'm not poo-poing the whole thing either. It truly is mind-boggling when you have a serious think about it. The first two chapters of 'Digital Marketing in a Week' covers processes of generating ideas, divergent thinking, maximising your SEO power, taking a broad look at your website's potential, turning your project into a media centre and... has truly cool buzz words and phrases like 'keyword stuffing'; 'panda and penguin' penalties and taking your site 'to the next level', of course. There's even a hummingbird thrown in as well, if you're lucky, though I'm not entirely sure why. But I love hummingbirds, so what the hell?

A friend explained the whole digital thing to me over a beer recently. It truly blew my mind. Take those silly questionnaires that you sometimes face when trying to get through the long grass to your chosen page. Every question pinpoints you as a potential customer in really clever ways. The algorithm will change its settings to reflect your answers and aim you down roads full of billboards showing stuff you really should be interested in. And that's on a very basic level. Amazon are brilliant at this. I put in that I am looking for coffee filter papers and it's a certainty that I'll be dogged for the next century with lively ads popping up of the latest filters every time I log in to the Amazon site. Not just coffee filters either. Coffee machines, tea bags, crockery, water filters, herbal stuff, bikkies - chocolate or plain... the list goes on and on in an ever-widening tornado of products, inspired by the simple request for coffee filters. Hell or Heaven? Your choice.

Two friends of mine started their own company (V1 - see the link below) recently which aims to dominate the world of digital marketing in the education sector. If you look at their website, it truly shows the magnitude of the business possible. The initial start point might be digital marketing, but then the cobweb expands to include recruitment, agents, accommodation, online support, media options...

Digital marketing really is the future - a place where your needs and wants are answered even before you've thought of them yourself.

https://www.v1mediagroup.com

https://www.amazon.com/Successful-Digital-Marketing-Week-Smith/dp/1473609526/ref=dp_ob_image_bk