Marketing has evolved substantially in the contemporary world, thanks to the Internet’s revolutionary power. The Internet’s evolution has introduced a raft of positive impacts for marketers globally. While marketers in most countries of the world enjoy the ease of digital marketing, there remains regions of the world where marketing is an uphill task due to inadequate digitization. I once traveled to Ethiopia and gained first-hand experience of the issues associated with lackluster digital infrastructure. To this day, I have a vivid recollection of the difficulties that marketers faced in the country. Armed with this account, I believe I have a solution that can undoubtedly ameliorate marketing problems in populations with substandard digital infrastructure.
The question of the digital divide remains the elephant in the room in the realms of internet marketing. In other words, marketers cannot ignore the digital divide prevalent in various countries around the world. Leigh (2011) defines the digital divide as the discrepancy in physical access to information technologies or the inequality in skills or resources necessary to effectively use digital information. As I was touring Ethiopia, I noticed that only the minority urban population had access to the Internet, while the penetration of the Internet in rural areas was next to darkness, notwithstanding the majority of the country’s population lives there. In particular, internet access was less than a fifth of its approximately a hundred million inhabitants. Digital marketing can be a nightmare in such a setting. However, marketers have a solution that can aid their digital marketing activities.
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Although a considerable proportion of the populace in countries with substandard digital capabilities lacks internet access, marketing is possible through broadcast messages. Employing this approach is killing two birds with one stone because it not only compels the use of simple marketing messages but also minimizes the marketing cost. Therefore, despite the slow pace of digitization, especially in developing countries, marketers can exploit message marketing to alleviate digital divide problems.
References
Leigh, P. R. (2011). International Exploration of Technology Equity and the Digital Divide: Critical, Historical and Social Perspectives . Information Science Reference.
