GROWTH OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN THE POST-COVID ERA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PRE- AND POST-PANDEMIC TRENDS

Growing was digital marketing prior to the pandemic. Digital marketing knowledge and awareness increased, but more slowly. Few large brands considered it essential or a way to reach a wider audience worldwide. Furthermore, because they had smaller marketing budgets, nontraditional startups were the first to experiment with digital marketing. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on how businesses operate. Many businesses are opting to conduct customer interactions and brand sales virtually via the internet due to health and safety concerns. The world has gone online, from clothing to food and medicine. The company experienced a total digital makeover overnight. The survey indicates that 66% of these companies have finished digital marketing tasks that previously seemed like a huge challenge, and 59% of these companies have increased their efforts in this area. All of the brands that had chosen to sell digitally kept doing so as the pandemic passed, and the world started to open up. Along with saving money on various traditional marketing expenses, they also produced better results. In fact, they have begun hiring more people and growing their teams for digital marketing, which offers marketing freshmen a lucrative career opportunity.In this study, we examine whether digital marketing has significantly expanded both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The responses of marketing managers from 100 Pune-based companies are used in a two-sample means test for this purpose. The findingsindicate that during the COVID period, digital marketing has become significantly more important.