What is Digital Marketing?

When companies think about the promotional side of marketing, there are many avenues they can choose to get their message about products and services to their target market. Advertising is one form of communication and can be segmented by print, radio, television, etc. Personal selling and sales promotion is another way which works well in business to business situations. Public relations is building a positive corporate image to the public. Finally we come to direct marketing which is targeting groups of customers based on demographics which fit a company’s product or service. What a company wants their current and future customers to know about their products and services has to be coordinated and will use the above avenues to reach their target markets.

Today more and more companies are using digital marketing to drive their promotion efforts to reach targeted customers and to increase sales. There is so much activity with the use of online and mobile shopping today that it has taken resources away from brick and mortar retail experiences. By using digital communities such as Facebook and Instagram, companies can instantaneously conduct market research on new products and services and reach more consumers for their products. One of the keys to digital marketing is to get information about how well marketing dollars are spent so that companies can calculate true returns on their marketing investment. In this day, all companies need a digital presence in addition to the traditional methods of creating awareness and interest for a company’s goods and services.

The Elon Digital Marketing Focus

Elon’s curriculum enables students to understand the company need to integrate marketing communications within a broad realm of avenues and how to digitize that information and analyze the results based on data. Marketing majors who choose to pursue a focus in Digital Marketing should take the following courses: Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Foundations of Business Analytics, and Data Mining for Managerial Decision Making.

Elon students focusing in digital marketing will:

  • Gain a base knowledge of terminology and application of digital marketing methodologies.
  • Learn how to integrate tools like Google Ads, Google Analytics, HubSpot Email Marketing and additionally have the option for social media strategy certification from Hubspot.
  • Use SPSS to supplement decision making.
  • Understand how digital marketing works strategically within an omnichannel marketing strategy.

Digital Marketing Resources

For more information on the Digital Marketing Focus, contact Larry Garber, chair of the Department of Marketing and International Business, at lgarber@elon.edu.