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The Digital Marketing Revolution

Between the buzz of social networking sites, the rise of the blogosphere, and the continued drive of online advertising, digital media and marketing through digital means has moved to a prominent concern and opportunity for most mainstream businesses. The effects of which can be seen in a continued shift of the top spenders on advertising away from traditional media.

Spending follows a shift in customer activity to online, mobile devices, game consoles, and other areas not easily reached by traditional advertising. Digital media and marketing allow advertisers to observe and reach the ever-elusive customers yet also drive greater accountability and return on their marketing investments. This shift in technology adoption, led by the Web and mobile devices has started to shift not only how consumers interact with businesses but with each other.

User-generated content, social applications, mash-ups—things once simply labeled as "Web 2.0"—represent a Web incarnation of an overall shift in expectations many consumers have around technology and the expectations they have for interactions with businesses, brands and products; a shift towards collaboration in creating personal, interactive and social experiences.

Though advertising garners the most attention with respect to digital marketing, it is only one aspect of the overall marketing relationship, a relationship increasingly driven by interactions through software. Businesses must consider not only how they attract customers but how they engage and excite them as well.

This trend is not limited to the Web. From mobile phones to interactive TV to in-store experiences, customers increasingly expect these relevant, interactive and social experiences to be consistent across all of their devices, all aspects of their lives. Businesses cannot support these types of experiences through a series of isolated Web sites, mobile applications, etc. Connections must be made from back-end systems out to a myriad of end-points using a combination of software plus services. At the same time, many businesses are busy building ad platforms to better track and control advertising investments. Piece by piece, most companies are building marketing platforms, often unknowingly.

Read on to learn how Microsoft offers a unique ability to not only help provide the technology to support marketing platforms—from back end business systems all the way to advertising solutions— but the experience to help bridge the two worlds of marketing and information technology.

Microsoft offers a unique ability to not only help provide the technology to support marketing platforms—from back end business systems all the way to advertising solutions— but the experience to help bridge the two worlds of marketing and information technology.