For the longest time, organizations had invested heavily in traditional marketing tactics. At that time digital marketing was relatively new and these organizations had only one goal in mind, profits. And for them, traditional marketing worked like a charm, even more for those companies that had deep pockets.
You see while marketing is a game of strategy, it is also a game that exercises the financial muscle.
Getting the best billboard locations, prime time slots on national TV, space at upscale malls for activations and the ability to lock the other brands out of them for a considerable duration of time, were all dictated by how much money you had.
Imagine a brand started by an ambitious person right here in Nairobi, big dreams cushioned by their ambition. Everything seems rosy and picture perfect; a sunny day on the beach with nothing but blue skies. They have everything in order; they’ve checked out their competition and weighed their options. Even friends have told them they have a good shot at it. Their marketing plan seems solid, in two maybe three months they will have penetrated the market and made waves in the Kenyan market. Even the big boys will take notice. So, according to them, everything is as planned.
But what’s the saying? Walking in to a gun fight with a knife? Yes, that’s it.
Back to the drawing board
The brand is not prepared for what they find. Fine, on paper their marketing plan was solid but in the real world it is not really holding any water. Bigger brands have pumped millions into their own marketing and the splash the new brand hoped to make was nothing more than a drop of water in the middle of the ocean. They are struggling to swim in a sea of obscurity. The meetings are more frequent and more frantic. They try and figure out what they did wrong and how they can change it. Wasn’t their target market right? Did they have the wrong demographics? Is their product branding appealing enough?
In essence they did nothing wrong, they just did not have a level playing field.
But a year or two down the line the brand discovers something that the bigger brands have been ignoring, the digital space. The bigger brands are comfortable being in peoples’ living rooms and roads and malls. No one is on their palms. Or their office desks. In the kitchen. Even the bedroom. The internet has just become a huge thing, social media is ripe with opportunity and more than ever people are more obliged to do an online search for things they like.
A new strategy is worked on, a way to market over the internet. To reach people wherever they are, away from their televisions, radios, and bill boards. A way to engage with them on an interpersonal level giving them a feeling of endearment to the brand. In three months the new brand is an online sensation. People are talking about them and even better they are asking for them in stores. So it’s working. They are finally doing something right. They are doing digital.
The perfect marketing mix with digital marketing
Then it hits them; a well-developed digital marketing strategy will boost their efforts in traditional marketing. So it’s back to the drawing board; all matters SEO and Social Media are addressed and how they can be influenced to support their other marketing activities. Soon enough, the new brand is making the kind of splash it had imagined. The bigger brands notice and want to join in on the fun.
But unlike what they are used to; the digital space is fairer. They cannot use the same tactics for market domination that they were previously privy to, so they have to adapt. They try to understand this new concept and work out how to work it to their advantage. So they are forced to integrate the digital aspect of marketing into their traditional marketing strategies.
And that is how it is in the world out there. More and more brands are realizing the importance of digital marketing for their brands. As a result digital marketing is integrated into marketing strategies employed by brands. They come together and what can we say digital and traditional make the perfect marketing mix.
Here at Simon Page College of Marketing we offer a comprehensive digital marketing course right here in Nairobi. This is a course that will equip your marketing team with the right skills to give your business a competitive edge.
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