As a business major with an extreme interest in the field of digital marketing, reading the article “Closing the Gap Between Digital Marketing Spending and Performance”, has filled me with both excitement and concern. The articles three authors, Christine Moorman, Jana Soli, and Dennis Cardoso do a great job of illustrating what digital marketing is, while also going into deep detail about all the different aspects of the field and how digital marketing is approached. They start the article with great news for the field, mentioning that based on “The CMO survey”, marketers allocate 57% of their budget to digital marketing and are planning to bump it up to 73% by 2023. This news is slightly over shadowed by the fact that more than 30% of the surveys participants reported very minimal, if any returns on their investments. This makes me question if digital marketing really is the future, and if it is how can marketers start making solid returns?
Young and Restless
While talking about how a large percentage of marketers aren’t seeing a return on investment (ROI), Moorman et al. take into consideration the newness of digital marketing. They make the point that over 60% of marketers say their companies are in the honeymoon stages of integrating digital marketing. I really appreciate the authors adding this information. It was concerning me as to why digital marketing was becoming so popular, but wasn’t producing a solid ROI. Moorman et al. also note that in order for digital marketing to be successful, it must be implemented into every aspect of the company. This grabbed my attention. As digital marketing begins to be spread throughout entire companies, will this effect college students? I wonder if new courses about digital marketing will be mandatory to business students. As a Junior, my college days are half way over and it concerns me that I will graduate with minimal knowledge about the field since it is fairly new and constantly evolving. Though I feel confident in my scholarly abilities it still scares me that future college students will graduate with more skills in the field than I, and potentially take my job.
How Will Companies Begin to Increase Return on Investment?
Digital marketing should be fully integrated across the company and used to drive and evaluate marketing decisions to reach its full potential. – Christine Moorman, et al
The article mentions that 32% of digital marketing is done by agencies outside of the company. This percentage is significantly higher when it comes to B2C companies. I struggle to make sense of this, because I feel as though marketers within the company should be in charge of the digital marketing. I was relieved to find that the authors were on the same page as me. Moorman et al. go on to say “It becomes increasingly challenging to maintain brand consistency and build out a fully integrated brand strategy if an external agency is driving most, if not all, digital activity.” I agree with this statement. I think agency companies can be useful for some stuff, but they simply cannot know everything that is going on in a specific company as they work with many. I believe keeping the digital marketing within the company will allow the marketing scheme to feel more personal to the company and their consumers. This in my opinion is one way companies will begin to boost their ROI.
Moorman et al. also point to embracing a culture of innovation. No matter the field, nothing will be successful and stand the test of time without innovation. I appreciate the detail the authors put into depicting how digital marketers should go about this innovation. I think the most important step, though all are important, is prioritizing customer first. Without the customer there is no business, so I believe digital marketers should put a lot of effort into making sure their marketing aligns with their consumer base.
I believe these two things will be the most reasonable ways for Digital Marketers to start the increase of ROI.
Will Robots Help Make Digital Marketing the future?
Companies currently use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) only 12% of the time, according to The CMO Survey. – Christine Moorman, et al
Moorman et al. mentions that the use of AI will triple within the next three years, with just under 30% of companies investing in it the past 12 months. This definitely makes me believe that the use of AI, will boost Digital Marketing into the future. I am concerned that the use of AI will start to take away jobs within the field, and I wish the authors would have spoke about that situation.
Moorman, Soli, and Cardoso all do a fantastic job of laying out how Digital Marketing has potential to be the future, while also explaining what the issues are and how they can be fixed. I wish they would have used real world companies as examples, so that I could get a better understanding of what type of companies digital marketing is best suited for.
Blaise, I am also interested in digital marketing and really enjoyed reading your article. You did an excellent job at incorporating your own opinion in your work. I found it fascinating that when adding digital marketing to a company, it needs to be dispersed in every aspect, I had not known this previously. I would love to take a course regarding digital marketing while still in college, I believe this would benefit many marketing students. I learned a lot from your article, especially how AI can take jobs away from digital markers in the future. This makes me eager to learn more about AI’s role in digital marketing. I have a lot to think about after reading your article, I appreciate the effort you put into writing a strong piece. Great job, I wish you the best!
Blaise, digital marketing is a very interesting topic and I like the way you formatted everything. I was never bored and you kept me engaged. I read at least 6 other students as well but only commented on ones that grabbed my attention. I think your information was very good and the advice given should be taken seriously from other readers. I never knew “32% of digital marketing is done by agencies outside of the company” and I thought that was mind blowing. Another reason why I thought this was so good was because I could relate this to my life and my business. Online Marketing is how I get 80% of my customers reading this open some doors for myself and my business. Lastly, well done Blaise, format, pictures, information, and headings were all on point. Good luck on your future endeavors and keep your head high!
Blaise, I really liked your article! I think you really took a neutral stance on the author’s thoughts and articulated really well based on what you thought. Well done! We all can learn something about digital marketing regardless of our fields of study and something I learned that is peculiar to me is that there is a significant portion of digital marketing that gets completed by outside businesses. I also agree with the advancement of A.I and your fear jobs being taken away because of them. You mentioned your concern about how the field is always changing and that you may be underequipped by the time you graduate, but I feel that based on your analysis you have great analytical skills and a lot of potential in all of your future endeavors.