How Could Marconi be the Inventor of Digital Marketing?
Digital
marketing is often equated with social media, SEO and Google AdWords. However,
it is only part of internet marketing. Online marketing encompasses a lot more
than that. When you advertise, market and promote products and services by
using digital electronic devices, it is said to be exactly what web marketing
constitutes. While internet marketing is a relatively new term, it’s origin
dates back to 100s of years, specifically the 1890s.
It
can all be traced back to 1895, when Italian engineer, aristocrat and inventor
Guglielmo Marconi transmitted wireless radio signals across a long distance. By
1896, his invention of the radio was well known. In 1899, Marconi demonstrated
the first wireless transmission through a radio to England. So, what has this
got to do with digital marketers in the modern age, tapping social media and
online channels? Everything, according to the marketing experts who hold
Marconi to be the father of online marketing. Here’s how it works out.
- The Rise of Radio Marketing
As the
radio caught on as a medium of communication, it rapidly became an innovation
for digital marketers as well. After its invention in the late nineteenth
century, the radio was used for the first time for the live broadcast of an
opera performance at the Metropolitan. After the show was broadcast, it became
so popular that there was a surge in ticket sales and curiosity among
individuals to see the show. Well, this marked the birth of digital marketing for many.
So,
whether it’s search engine optimisation, social media optimisation,
pay-per-click, content/email/social media marketing or more, digital marketers
devise marketing messages that resonate with audiences online using electronic
and digital devices.
In
contrast to this, Ray Tomlinson who invented the email in the 1970s is credited
to be the father of web marketing by others. The debate, an age-old one,
centres around whether digital marketers are using internet-based technologies
or electronic devices to get their messages across. They are, of course, using
both so this debate is likely to remain one that constantly intensifies.
- The History of Web Marketing
While
some contend digital marketers saw their star rise with the emergence of the
radio, others credit the growth of this discipline to the internet. Either
which ways, web marketing actually caught on in the 1990s, with the birth of
the first search engine for FTP sites, named Archie. In the year 1994, Yahoo
was born and Google followed swiftly just 4 years down the line in 1998. The revolution
was just beginning even as the dot-com boom went bust in the early 2000s.
It
was during this time that video marketing began, with the advent of YouTube in
2004. Social media sites followed, including Twitter and Facebook. Google+ did
take shape but could not emulate the success of its predecessors. Meanwhile,
2012 marked the first time smartphones overtook desktops as ways to access the
world wide web for internet marketing. In 2015, responsive, mobile-friendly
sites were deemed a Google ranking signal. And the smartphone revolution was
thus birthed.
The
growing sophistication of search engines made it easier to make the transition
to SEO and SEM-friendly internet marketing campaigns. And the rest, of course,
is history. As we surge towards the new digital age, with AI, AR, VR and
machine learning defining online marketing, it seems the paradigmatic shifts
and changes in the field of web marketing are only just beginning to propel the
industry to new heights of achievement and advancement.