Description: Digital marketing is currently amongst the most popular fields of work for students and professionals alike. We discuss the future and scope of digital marketing.
Digital Marketing Scope
The growth spiral of digital marketing in the past few years has been remarkable to say the least. Skeptics of digital marketing who largely saw the field as a passing wind have now accepted its permanence in the field of marketing.
It is practically impossible to imagine life without key online platforms such as Google, Facebook, and so on. Each of these platforms is trafficked by droves of netizens every minute of every hour of every day. There is no saying how the world would proceed if Google stopped working tomorrow, such is the power of digital platforms.
Given the deep roots of digital media in today’s world, it is no wonder why so many professionals from varying fields are flocking towards digital marketing. In a rapidly changing field, the only certainty that remains is the existence of these popular digital platforms. There is more or less a consensus on the importance and reach of popular digital channels.
Given the amount of attention digital marketing has had, there has been a lot of discussion on the future of digital marketing. While there is no one making grave predictions for the existence of the field itself, there is a board understanding and appreciation for the changes that could transform digital marketing.
A line of work inherently linked with technology, digital marketing is expected to be radically transformed by emerging fields like machine learning, AI, big data, and so on. While the scope of digital marketing itself is fairly large, the number of domains it may begin to encapsulate could make it a much more powerful field that it was previously envisioned.
In this article, we will discuss the scope of digital marketing and its future in the face of changes in the technological landscape.
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Artificial Intelligence
Detaching the bleak view of AI depicted by cinema, it is no surprise why marketers are most excited by the coming of artificial intelligence.
The problem of reach and access was largely solved by the first iteration of digital marketing. Through the internet, digital platforms eliminated thousands of miles of distance in a heartbeat. However, the next problem to be solved in the future will be greater efficiency.
Companies want to become leaner now to ensure they do not waste any time trying to reach people not likely to be paying customers. Furthermore, companies also want to identify strands of an audience not easily identifiable from a human perspective.
These goals can be met by artificial intelligence. By definition, artificial intelligence is a digital simulation of human intelligence. Unlike other software and programs created to date, artificial intelligence will be a system capable of improving itself constantly. Like humans, AI will learn from mistakes and make informed decisions. The only difference will be that the speed at which it will improve itself will likely be beyond the comprehension of humans.
This unfiltered potential of AI systems will have a huge impact on digital marketing. Whether it is a question of creating effective strategies for campaigns to helping marketers create content that is more likely to resonate with the audience, every aspect of digital marketing will be optimized to a point unrecognizable from now.
Machine Learning
There are many practices in digital marketing that have less to do with skill and more to do with long hours of manual labor.
With machine learning, all such tasks will become much simpler.
Take link building for instance. Many techniques such as blog commenting, forum posting, and social media bookmarking have less to do with qualitative knowledge and more with manual work.
These practises, and more will soon be automated by machine learning. There are advantages and disadvantages of this particular technological push.
One key advantage is that the automation of these processes will ensure none of them ever run off-track. One can expect a regular stream of backlinks through automation of blog commenting and other link building techniques.
The disadvantage of machine learning becoming the norm is that many marketers currently hired for manual work will either have to develop qualitative skills related to digital marketing or risk getting replaced by automated software.
Video Content
To say video content will be a trend of the future is a slight exaggeration. With platforms like YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, and so on, one could as easily say that video content has already become a key cog in the digital marketing machine.
However, video as a form of marketing still isn’t ubiquitous in many companies. This is because while content writers are easily available to create quality write-ups in a flash, video content takes time to come into the picture. Furthermore, there is a need for multiple professionals to create a single video, from a camera professional to a video editor and a scriptwriter. Even if someone is adept at performing all the tasks, the process takes much longer than writing an article targeting a specific keyword.
Despite this obvious obstacle, video marketing cannot be discounted. It is no secret that people generally prefer video content over text. Studies have even shown that a viewer is able to absorb more information through a video than a long informative article.
As platforms like YouTube become even more popular and begin to depend on user-generated content, video marketing will continue to gain importance. This is evident by how even small brands are focusing more on video marketing in order to avoid getting caught in heavy competition on search engine results. Compared to the competition for a keyword on search engines, the competition for the same keyword on YouTube is much smaller.
In the future, the content team of a typical digital marketing department would comprise of video-oriented professionals such as cameramen, video editors, directors, scriptwriters, and so on. This shift will largely be driven by viewers and consumers who will demand video content over text, forcing brands and companies to comply.
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In Conclusion
In conclusion, this article covers three main changes that will define the scope of digital marketing in the future. Students and professionals interested in developing a career in digital marketing must take the aforementioned points seriously.
About the Author – Hemant Das is a highly-regarded content strategist with over seven years of experience as a digital content writer. He currently heads content development at DelhiCourses.in, an institute best-known for its popular digital marketing course in Delhi.
