The term Digital Marketing is often coined with other terms as ‘Online Marketing’, ‘Internet Marketing’ and ‘Web Marketing’ by people residing along diverse regions. In United States, it is most commonly known as Online Marketing. It is known as Web Marketing by residents of Italy while for residents based along United Kingdom and other regions the same is known to be Digital Marketing.
The emergence of the digital era featured the development and use of different kinds of digital gadgets. The product and service brands focused on taking the opportunity of using the digital gadgets for the marketing of their offerings to the prospective consumers. The digital marketing platforms earn effective integration with the different social media networking platforms for effectively responding to customer queries and issues. The integration of digital and social networking platforms also help in effectively interacting with potential and prospective customers in a real-time environment.
The digital marketing endeavours earn needed challenges and opportunities, regards to its presence in the emerging economies. In terms of challenges, the productivity of digital marketing activities is affected by factors like:
- Slow internet connectivity
- Lack of tangibility regarding purchasing activities carried out in the realm of Digital Marketing deters the buyers from depending on such platforms. The same is countered based on the designing of return policies by the sellers.
- Buyers also tend to fear from the issue of cyber crime that vehemently affects their privacy. The personal information rendered by the buyers is thereby required to be effectively encrypted for countering cyber threats.
- The people dwelling in the developing economies also reflect lesser awareness regards to Digital Marketing. Rather, the advertising companies and the brands favour the use of traditional media like ratio, television, billboards and hoardings for generating needed awareness about the product and service brands to the consumers.
- An estimate generated by Statista highlights that owing to the expensive nature of internet connection in South Africa; only 31.1 million people can have needed access to internet out of which 28.9 million people can only access the same through use of mobiles.
Despite the above challenges, Digital Marketing is noted to gain a growth rate of 35 percent in the South African region, an emerging economy. Different factors prompt the growth of digital marketing in the developing economies that are underlined as follows:
- Emerging economies like Nigeria reflect the existence of increased population that acts as a potential market for both domestic and foreign brands. It thus acts as an effective incentive for growth of digital marketing.
- Developing economies also reflect the existence of untapped resources and markets for which the competition is almost negligible in nature. Thus, these economies significantly attract digital marketers and manufacturers for exploiting the untapped regions and resources and enjoy potential booms.
- The growth of liberal trade and economic policies and also the growth of affluent customers in the developing economies which help in attracting digital marketers in such regions.