MKG203: Digital Marketing Blog - Trends in Digital Marketing

This assignment is a digital marketing blog post, exploring the evolution of digital marketing, emphasizing the increasing role of AI, social media, and customer relationship management (CRM). The blog discusses the enhanced capabilities of AI in analyzing customer data, personalizing marketing strategies, and providing relevant promotional materials. It also highlights the significance of social media as a platform for direct customer interaction and data gathering, supported by statistics on the growing number of social media users. Furthermore, the blog delves into relationship marketing, emphasizing its importance in building long-term customer loyalty through digital CRM tools and e-commerce site integrations, focusing on customer experience management and post-sales service enhancements. References to several sources support the claims made throughout the blog posts.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING BLOG
DIGITAL MARKETING BLOG
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DIGITAL MARKETING BLOG
Online Blog post 1
Digital marketing has evolved over the years to presently reach the levels of conventional
marketing standards. Currently digital marketing is going through stages of fast evolution. This
is being made more possible due to the prevalence of better technology. Better technology leads
to the creation of better scope for gathering, analyzing, sharing and utilizing knowledge. Digital
marketing potential has also been increased manifold due to the wide usage of smartphones and
other smart devices (Cowley, 2016). It is important to note that the foundation of even stronger
digital marketing frameworks for the future have already been laid. One of the most significant
development in the field of contemporary digital marketing is the constant optimization of the AI
technologies that is used for enhancing the effectiveness of digital marketing. The AIs that are
present today are more capable, more independent, much lesser flawed and much more effective
in their various functional roles in the field of digital marketing. The new AIs that are being used
in digital marketing are more capable in terms of collecting, analyzing, applying and learning
from information. They are providing customer data that are being used to create marketing
strategies that are helping to reach out to the exact target audiences. AIs have made marketing
much easier for the various producers and manufactures in the world of today. Any business that
has a product that is reasonable, innovative and effective is finding markets without enduring
much difficulties. One of the most important usage for AIs in digital marketing is providing
relevant promotional materials to the exact target audiences. The AIs are used to gain details
about the online activities of the target audiences to show them products that are tailor made for
them. Thus, the AI technology has enhanced the prospects of digital marketing to great extents.
In the future this is bound to grow more with the rapid development of the various factors that
are leading to the further optimization of the digital marketing exercises. The artificial

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intelligences are used to increase the efficiency of the digital marketing processes. Previously,
AIs were used primarily to derive information about the target audiences (Donnelly et al., 2015).
However, presently the AIs are incorporating the functional attributes that help them to gather,
store, share and utilize data. The AIs presently are able to emulate the cognitive functions of
humans. Moreover, AI is being optimized with augmented reality and virtual reality to further
enhance the efficiency of customer interactions. Hence, it can be said that digital marketing is
increasing effectively with technology and being continuously optimized through the process.
Online Blog post 2
The importance of social media in digital marketing is increasing in significance in the
contemporary global corporate scenario. Social media platforms are not only places of effective
social interactions but at the same time they are large data storages for gathering customer
information. The importance of social media in digital marketing increased with the development
of social media from being a platform for interacting with friends and family to being a large
interactive platform for a global user base to express their views. It is important to note that
companies are now directly selling their products through social media. This was not widespread
even half a decade earlier. It is important to understand that social media is now used buy a
substantial portion of the population of the world (Stephen, 2016). This has been facilitated by
the growth of cheaper internet rates and the development of lesser expensive devices for
accessing internet. This large portion of the world population serves as a global audience for the
products that digital marketing companies want to promote. Social media optimized digital
marketing is a current development in the global digital marketing scenario that cannot be
ignored. Some facts can provide a clearer picture of why social media can move forward global
digital marketing prospects. The worldwide internet user grew by 9.1% in just one year in 2019.

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The global social media users grew by 9% in 2019. The number of global social media users are
3.484 billion people worldwide (Global social media research summary, 2019). In 2019, there
was a 2% growth in the number of mobile users. This means that presently there are about 5.11
billion mobile users in the world. The overwhelmingly larger portion of this population are
smartphone users. More than 3.4 billion people globally can be reached through social media
digital marketing. This has made the prospects of digital marketing even greater in the presently
available scenarios. It is important to understand that social media brings forward a number of
essential factors that help in reaching customers. Firstly, it is quicker to access for the customers.
Secondly, direct and spontaneous customer interactions are possible (Todor, 2016). Thirdly,
quick feedbacks can help manage the required modifications and alterations to products even
before their official launches. The effect of social media on global digital marketing and vice-
versa are bound to grow and diversify. At the same time the evolution of social media itself gives
rise to greater possibilities for the future of social media oriented digital marketing.
Online Blog post 3
In the context of digital marketing relationship marketing is an emerging factor. Relationship
marketing is a significant aspect connected to customer relationship management. The focus is
on building customer loyalty and creating customer engagement that is long term in value.
Previously, the focus was mainly on increasing sales. However, the same was much short term in
its value. Increasing sales meant that only profitability motives in the shorter run were fulfilled
by the company. However, relationship management can create long term customer oriented
strategies. This can help to bridge the short-term and long term profitability and developmental
motives of any organization. Although relationship marketing concepts are present for a long
time, much recently the process has been taken to the web. Customer experience management

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has now been highly digitized and become an integral part of the digital marketing process. With
the flourishing usage of social media among the digital customer bases, social media has become
an important area for improving the prospects of digital CRM (Lipiäinen, 2015). Customers now
get easy access to the products that they want the most as companies tend to track their online
behaviors. In the same way relationships can be created with the customers to make even the
post sales service processes smoother. E-commerce sites can now track the activities of the
customer through the creation of user profiles. Customer information is effectively saved for
future usage. This provides the sites with opportunities for providing more information that is
tailored after the sales process. The CRM tools are optimized to tract the problems that the
customers are facing through social media posts, comments and even information that can be
gathered from other online sources (Baltes, 2015). The companies can then act on the
information gathered to reach out the customers. In the present age of digital marketing,
customer relationship management software is being used to create effective platforms that can
help to understand the customers better. At the same time the interactions between e-commerce
sites and customers are much effective that it was before. In essence, organizations have learnt
that their relationship with the customers go beyond mere sales and service into wider areas of
commitment and relationship building.

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References
Baltes, L. P. (2015). Content marketing-the fundamental tool of digital marketing. Bulletin of the
Transilvania University of Brasov. Economic Sciences. Series V, 8(2), 111.
Cowley, M. B. (2016). Applying Contemporary Marketing Theory and Digital Technology to a
Legal Practice: An Internship Report.
Donnelly, C., Simmons, G., Armstrong, G., & Fearne, A. (2015). Digital loyalty card ‘big
data’and small business marketing: Formal versus informal or
complementary?. International Small Business Journal, 33(4), 422-442.
Global social media research summary 2019 | Smart Insights. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-
global-social-media-research/
Lipiäinen, H.S.M., 2015. CRM in the digital age: implementation of CRM in three contemporary
B2B firms. Journal of systems and information technology, 17(1), pp.2-19.
Riley, F. D. O., Singh, J., & Blankson, C. (Eds.). (2016). The Routledge companion to
contemporary brand management. Routledge.
Stephen, A. T. (2016). The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer
behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, 17-21.
Stephen, A. T. (2016). The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer
behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, 17-21.
Todor, R. D. (2016). Blending traditional and digital marketing. Bulletin of the Transilvania
University of Brasov. Economic Sciences. Series V, 9(1), 51.