Consumers are now, more than ever, shopping and searching online for products and services. In fact, our marketplace has become so increasingly digital that even when planning to shop in person, consumers will start their journey online. Forbes states that 82% of people conduct research online before making a purchase, and this number is only going to continue to grow. So, how do you reach these consumers? The answer lies in digital marketing.
There are so many benefits of digital marketing, but before we jump into the benefits, let’s talk about what constitutes digital marketing. Digital marketing is basically all of your electronic advertising efforts. Your website, SEO efforts, social media platforms, emails, and online advertisements all constitute your digital marketing strategy. With the advantage of real-time interaction & results, innovative technologies, and analytical software, digital marketing can have your business outperforming your competition.
We’ve outlined 10 benefits of digital marketing in this article. Continue reading for the best tips and tricks to dominating the digital marketing scene.
1. It’s Powerful
Digital marketing is the most powerful form of marketing because of its reach and engagement potential. Unlike TV, radio, and other forms of traditional advertising, digital marketing can be targeted to people by specific zip code, household income level, personal interests, and more. Reaching audiences through digital marketing means expanding your reach to your targeted demographic, not blanketing an area with your message, potentially hitting people outside your target demographic. You can also use digital marketing to customize your reach to target specific areas, down to individual neighborhoods, where you hope to expand your business.
Engaging with your audience through digital marketing has transformed tremendously over the past 5 years. If you’re not doing it now, you need to start! With digital marketing, you can improve customer engagement, interact easily, and cater messages to your audience quickly and effectively. As many other forms of marketing have longer production times, digital marketing can be produced quickly, allowing for your message to always be appropriately timed.
Read about and learn more about when you should be advertising based on your sales curve.
2. Cost-effective
When it comes to traditional marketing, it’s normal to experience high production and advertising costs. In the long run, it’s worth it for some businesses to have traditional marketing incorporated into their advertising efforts; however, many businesses just can’t afford it all the time. That’s why it’s important that your business consistently works on your digital marketing efforts.
Compared to traditional advertising, digital advertising is much less expensive, so all businesses have an opportunity to advertise effectively. Creating a website, managing social media, and improving your business’s online presence come at less expense and garner more attention from your target audiences.
3. Measurable
Do you know if your marketing efforts are working? If you’re using digital marketing, then the answer should be yes! Digital marketing allows you to track the success of your efforts. Online analytical software can break down the aspects of your website traffic, social media engagement, and search engine ranking. Digital analytics can also show the effectiveness of your ads through metrics like click-through rate, impressions, and reach. You should take these insights, analyze them yourself, and work toward improving future marketing efforts.
While traditional advertising has its strong advantages, it cannot guarantee any quantifiable results the way digital marketing can. In TV advertising, you’ll be guaranteed a percentage of impressions based on viewership rating points, but there is no way to know if your target audience actually saw and engaged with the ad. Traditional advertising relies heavily on a business asking their clientele how they heard about them. If the answer is, “I saw your commercial,” or, “I saw your billboard,” they know the ad is working.
4. Targeted
Digital marketing allows businesses to reach their ideal consumers with precision. You can target audiences by demographic, general characteristics, and even specific interests. This has come a long way from traditional marketing where you may spend more money to reach specific areas, but you don’t know exactly who’s viewing your advertisement. With digital marketing, you can take comfort in knowing you’re spending less money to successfully reach your target audiences every time.
5. Starting Point
Where do most consumers start their journey? The answer in 2020 is: online. More specifically, most consumers start their purchase journey with major search engines like Google and Bing. Google has become our biggest ally when it comes to finding what we need quickly. We’ve built trust with Google and we depend on it to tell us which businesses are the most efficient, most reputable, or just the closest to us. No matter what people are searching for, they’re starting online, and you want to be present at the beginning of their search.
Read how Google’s search algorithms work.
Digital marketing puts your business in the online arena and presents great opportunities for you to start connecting with potential customers and educating them about your products or services. Reaching consumers at the very beginning of their search puts you at the top of their list.
6. Relationship Building
Once a customer connects with your business, you’ll likely be the first they think of when they’re in need of your products or services. This is why relationship building is so important. Once your customers know they can trust you and your business, they likely won’t use anyone else.
Digital marketing, especially social media marketing, allows you to regularly show your presence online in the lives of your followers. When they see your online presence regularly they’ll interact more and more as they begin to trust your business. You can also have real-time conversations that will help you gain valuable insights for your business.
7. SEO
Search engine optimization is your effort to improve the quantity and quality of users to your website or social platforms without additional costs to you. It’s simply improving the small details of your online presence to have your website show up exactly where and when it needs to. By improving your SEO, you’ll attract more users to your website organically with minimal effort in the long run.
8. Mobile Customers
Did you know that over half of all online users are accessing the Internet from their mobile devices? It’s pretty easy to believe these days, but that wasn’t the case even 5 years ago. Digital marketing helps you to keep up with users across all devices.
Websites are designed nowadays to be mobile-friendly, and if your website isn’t, you’ve got some updating to do. With digital marketing, you can maximize your advertising efforts toward mobile users with social media, digital advertisements, mobile-friendly websites, and in-app advertisements.
9. Adaptive
Adaptivity relates back to production time we discussed earlier. With traditional marketing, production takes days, weeks, or even months, and the campaign results take even longer to come in. With digital marketing, production takes a fraction of the time and quantified results are available within 24 hours of a campaign launch. With digital marketing, you’re constantly working in real-time which allows you to adapt quickly.
10. Competitive
If your business is operating with a lower advertising budget than competitors in your area, it can be hard to keep up with traditional advertising efforts. However, if you’re taking advantage of digital marketing, then you can still be in front of your audience. Digital marketing allows you to keep up with your competitors by gaining online exposure, effectively utilizing SEO tactics, and building relationships with your target audience.
With low production costs for digital marketing, you can also create clean, attractive campaigns that will enhance your customer experiences. Your presentation can be just as good or even better than competitors’, even with a lower budget. It just takes creativity and a dedication to producing regular, quality content.
Learn More
At Lawrence Media, we specialize in digital marketing services. To learn more about how we can help your business grow in the ever-changing online world, contact us.
