Differences between Digital Transformation and Digital Marketing

What is really the difference between scouting for top talent or prospective customers? Or for that matter how different is really the “ product” you are selling on Amazon from the “ stated description of the product” ( the write up , the 360 degree view and the return and exchange policy included)?

It’s confusing to say the least.

One way of looking at it is that different business functions are now waking up to the advantages of using digital content and channels to achieve their goals. An area that was so far owned almost exclusively by marketing. 

But as more and more business areas and functional start using digital technologies to do their work better the lines between what is digital marketing and digital strategy is becoming increasingly blurry. To add to the confusion further are terms like digital transformation (linear and exponential) and even digital innovation. While ultimately it may just be a matter of semantics, it may be worthwhile to examine why this confusion exists.

There is a time lag from the time that technologies are embraced to the time they are efficiently deployed plus goals can be short term or more ambitious in nature. With this in mind, let’s look at the basic terms and what they mean

Digital transformation is the most ambitious of them all, seeking to re-imagine the complete way a company meets it’s customer’s goals. For e.g. Uber and Oyo brought in a shared economy business model where ownership of the vehicles or properties no longer became necessary.

Digital strategy is a more scoped version and far more timid in what it expects to achieve. A company using technology be it in the form of a app to promote its services or a new software to automate workflow is a deploying digital strategy. The examples are too many to list.

Next we have digital marketing or using digital strategy for marketing goals. So yes, any company using a Facebook page to publicize it’s service or an Adwords campaign to bring traffic to a website is doing digital marketing. In fact any and all marketing that in online is an example of digital marketing.

But hey, what is marketing today? Once you identify a segment requiring a sustainable engagement, all activities you conduct to that end is technically marketing and follows the same basic principles. Be it the search you are running on LinkedIn or the new payment gateway you installed for better user experience. For more information, check out Still confusing Digital Transformation with Digital Marketing?.