Digital marketing is the use of a variety of digital methods and platforms to reach out to customers where they spend the majority of their time: online. To connect with your target audience in the right place and at the right time today, you will need to use digital channels such as email, social media, search engines and other websites.
Any business, regardless of industry, can benefit from digital marketing. Once you have your buyer personas, and have figured out what your customers really want, you can use that information to create and promote your online content directly to your target audience.
For instance, as a B2B (business-to-business), your digital marketing efforts might be focused on online lead generation, with the ultimate goal of getting your sales team to close the deal. As a result, the goal of your marketing plan can be to use your website and other digital channels (e.g., LinkedIn) to acquire high quality leads for your sales team, which they can then convert.
On the contrary, as a B2C (business-to-customer), the goal of your digital marketing activities is most likely to bring people to your website and convert them with powerful CTAs (call-to-action), without having to speak to a salesperson at all. As a result, you’ll be more likely to focus on having your product appear earlier in an accelerated buyer's journey – from the minute someone visits your website or digital channels (e.g., Instagram & Pinterest) till the time they complete a purchase.
The percentage of people spending more time on their mobile devices is increasing. This means that you need to meet your customers where they are, and if you don’t have a digital marketing strategy in place yet, here are 7 reasons why you should now:
1. Hits the bull's-eye
You can target your marketing efforts to only those who are most likely to buy from you. Digital marketing allows you to discover and target a highly particular demographic, as well as give that audience individualized, high-converting messages. You can use social media targeting tools to deliver social media ads to a specific audience based on their age, location, gender, hobbies, behaviors, or networks. You may also use PPC or SEO marketing strategies to target customers who expressed interest in your service or product, or searched for specific topics or keywords related to your niche.
Digital marketing provides you with the research required to re-define your buyer persona, as well as fine-tune your marketing plan over time to ensure you are targeting the right customer. The best part is that digital marketing enables you to promote to sub-groups inside your broader target demographic. This is especially useful if you are selling to different buyer personas.
2. Offers cost efficiencies
It’s way more cost-efficient, when compared to the traditional outbound marketing strategies businesses have been using since the times of Mad Men. Digital marketing allows you to track campaigns on a daily basis and adjust your investment on any channel to get the desired ROI (return on investment). This means that you have the ultimate control over where and how those marketing dollars are spent. A great digital marketing plan enables you to pivot on the go, ensuring that you don’t waste money on ineffective channels.
To get a head start, especially if you are a small business or a startup working with a tight budget, you may consider investing in design software to generate Instagram content that converts well, or capitalize on social media, blogging, or SEO – the trifecta that provides high returns.
3. Evens the odds
As a growing business competing, for customer attention, with larger brands can prove to be somewhat challenging, especially when they have even larger marketing budgets. Digital marketing levels the playing field and allows you to place yourself among those big brands.
You can choose a few long-tail keywords or topics that are relevant to your niche and generate high-quality content to help you to rank for those keywords and topics in search results. Search engines greatly care about the content that can connect with the target audience, irrespective how big or small a brand you are.
4. Provides measurable results
In contrast to traditional advertising, which displays a significant lack of measurability, digital marketing allows you to see the exact results in real time. Digital marketing provides you with a complete, end-to-end view of all the metrics that are important to your business, such as views, impressions, clicks, shares, and time spent on page.
Using digital analytics software, you can evaluate your website traffic by finding out how many pages the users visited, whether they viewed it from a desk/laptop or a mobile device, and where on the big blue earth they are located. You can not only track how many visitors are engaging with your content, but you can use that information to generate qualified leads. When a successful digital marketing strategy is combined with the correct tools and technologies, you can actually attribute your sales – which means that you can trace your sales back to a customer's first point of digital contact with your business.
5. Goes with the flow
A digital marketing plan is easy to adapt and adjust. It is extremely useful to be able to pivot your strategy on the go, especially in today’s unprecedented times. When developing an offline marketing plan, you’d basically have to follow through with it till completion, give it time to be effective, and then gauge it based on the results.
A digital marketing plan offers the flexibility that traditional marketing paraphernalia, like print brochures and out of home advertising, can’t anymore. For example, if an online ad is not performing as planned, you can instantly change or suspend it to improve results.
6. Unlocks profitability
Since digital marketing makes it easier to measure your marketing efforts, it also cascades this ease towards improving your lead conversion rate. This ability to measure the effectiveness of each marketing effort helps in the development of more cohesive strategies. Investing in digital marketing guarantees that your online presence is optimized for the most conversions.
You can target specific prospects, because not all leads are equal in terms of value for your business, which results in higher quality leads who are more likely to become your customers. Increasing your conversion rate by connecting your business with the most valuable leads, with digital marketing, is a no-brainer.
7. Engages at every stage
Connecting with your target audience early in the buyer's journey is very crucial, as it significantly helps the lead's progression through the customer experience funnel. Digital marketing allows you to engage with them, from beginning as just a lead to ending up making a purchase.
You can follow your prospect’s entire buying journey using online channels. Lead conversion demands an understanding and analysis of how your customers move and operate. Digital marketing enables you to track them along the process – even if they do not convert right away, it at least ensures they have made first contact with and are aware of your business.
Any time you can connect with your target audience, you have a chance to convert a lead or gain a customer. By allowing you to access prospective buyers through a multitude of channels, digital marketing opens up a plethora of new opportunities. It’s surely a future-proof way to market your business, service, or product, through social media platforms, websites, text messages, or any other online medium.
In the comments below, let us know:
As a B2B or a B2C business, which digital channels are you using & why?
How much of your current marketing efforts are invested towards digital marketing?
What hampers your ability to create experiences for & connect with your online audience?