Digital Marketing Age / By: Umar Sheikh

Marketing is how businesses promote their products and services. Historically, this has been through things such as billboards, TV commercials, or mail-in campaigns. While these are still used today, there has been a noticeable shift in the way most companies have been marketing, many switching to digital marketing, which is marketing through things such as social media and/or advertisements on websites.  However, digital marketing isn't as simple as it may sound. Many people find paid advertisements to be highly intrusive and disruptive, making them much more likely to dismiss them ( Tudoran, 2019 ). “Being forced to watch the same advertisement over and over is very irritating and can hurt the image of a product in my mind,”  says Antonio Zamudio, a junior at Walter Payton. Information they see digitally is also more likely to be seen as falsely represented compared to other tactics ( Ahmad, 2016 ).  While this may make digital marketing sound inefficient, it can still be used to a great degree when done right. Even with the different issues, digital marketing exposes products to a wider variety of customers and can be a lot more efficient compared to other forms of marketing.  An anonymous professor of marketing at Long Island University believes that the most important thing about marketing is finding your audience. He explains, “Marketing’s main goal is to interest a customer, but you can’t interest everyone. By understanding the customer, marketers can concentrate their efforts and reach people who will actually use their product.”  This is where digital marketing can outshine regular marketing methods, as it makes finding the customer a lot easier. An example that many companies use to do this is by partnering with different influencers. A tech influencer will be followed by people interested in tech, so a tech company partnering with a tech influencer ensures their product is being shown to their target audience. This is a common and simple example of effective digital marketing, but there are various other methods, one of which are targeted Google ads. Platforms like Google analyze user interests, providing a valuable tool for many digital marketers. Overall, despite obstacles like invasive advertisements, marketing's move to online platforms in the digital age can attract a wider audience. Finding target audiences is essential; skillfully applied digital tactics are what create successful customer-business communication. List Sources: 2- Statistic Links to both article sources https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IntR-06-2017-0221/full/html https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567116301332?via%3Dihub   Name of 2 people you interviewed, title/position, email if possible Antonio Zamudio : azamudio12@cps.edu Yuko Minowa