Why Digital Marketing is Important

by Michele Leon

Digital marketing is one of the most efficient strategies to connect your business with potential customers.  With a well-thought and customized digital marketing campaign, you can target both customers and business-to-business (B2B) clients.

So, what is digital marketing, and why is it essential for your business? Let us dive right in.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing, also known as online marketing, can help you attract and engage your target audience on the internet. You can use a digital marketing strategy on your website, social media, and other platforms. You can use various forms such as content marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

The core objective is to deploy a search engine optimized (SEO) digital marketing strategy for a higher ranking on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. You can also use email marketing as a valuable and most-effective digital marketing component.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Every brand business has its own marketing goals and needs. Here are some of the most common ways digital marketing can benefit your business, regardless of the industry you belong to.

Affordability

Compared to a conventional marketing campaign, digital marketing can be less expensive. You can set a limit on your digital marketing budget, and the price may vary based on what you are trying to achieve.

Mobility

According to PEW research, 97% of consumers in the U.S now own a smartphone. Therefore, digital marketing will allow you to target your customers on the go. Your customers will now be able to learn about your brand on their smartphones via paid ad campaigns, social media posts, and other forms of content.

Expanding Your Brand’s Outreach

No more need to pay for expensive TV and newspaper advertisements and hope the customers will get in touch with you. Digital marketing allows you to expand your outreach. You can now reach new marketplaces locally and internationally. All you need is to optimize your marketing campaign based on demographics such as your customers’ location, age, gender, needs, profession, interest, etc.

Multiple Targeting Mediums

You can use digital marketing in various formats to engage and entice your potential customers. The multiple digital marketing content formats include images, videos, short clips, podcasts, social media posts, e-books, blogs, and paid ads on social media platforms and search engines, including Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.

Making Consumer Engagement

Digital marketing is an effective strategy for direct engagement and communication with your new and existing customer base. You can use your official website and social media business pages to speak to your audience.

You can even answer your customers’ queries and concerns via comments and messages. Most social media platforms now allow you to go live and speak to your audience and answer their questions free of charge.

This will help your business build a credible brand image because customers will feel you care about their opinions and needs. You can also use all of the above-mentioned mediums to gather valuable information about what your customers think about your brand.  You can use this strategy to improve your services as per your customers’ preferences.

Tracking Your Performance

Tracking the performance of your marketing campaign is of utmost importance. A digital marketing campaign comes with various tools that allow you to track the effectiveness of your strategy. You can use the information to gauge the real-time performance and tweak various components to improve the outcome.

In digital marketing, you can identify the weaknesses in your campaign and eliminate them to boost your return on investment.

Tracking Your Budget

You can now set a limit on how much you wish to spend on your digital marketing campaign. Suppose you are deploying a digital marketing campaign on Facebook or Google Ads. In this case, you will be able to set a limit on how much you spend on ads.

The platforms will ensure that you do not exceed your budget. You can choose locations, timing, and the type of customers you wish to target. You can customize and deploy several digital marketing campaigns simultaneously target based on different demographics.

For example, you can run a digital marketing campaign based on the location and set a budget limit. Similarly, you can set a cost limit for the digital marketing campaign that targets customers based on demographics.

Retaining Your Loyal Customers

Whether you are a small business or a big corporation, digital marketing will not only allow you to win new customers but also retain your loyal customers. You can send out customized marketing promotions to your existing clients, which will keep your brand fresh in their minds.

In other words, digital marketing is an effective retargeting strategy as well. However, the key is to ensure that you customize your campaign as per your customers’ needs, wants, and pain points.

Offering Interactive Customer Experience

With a well-planned digital marketing strategy, you can provide a customized experience for each of your customers. You can use various interactive methods such as personalized product recommendations, tailored promotion offers, video ads, etc.

According to Cisco’s 2019 report, 80% of internet traffic will be video-based, and 85% of U.S. online traffic will consume video data. This presents an excellent opportunity for your business to incorporate videos into your digital marketing campaign to engage, attract, and entertain prospective clients.

Speaking of tailored digital marketing, 80% of customers prefer to buy from businesses offering a personalized customer experience. Therefore, use your legacy data to identify your customers’ behavior and buying habits. This information will allow you to customize your digital marketing campaign and offer products or services to each customer based on their past purchases.

Creating Brand Awareness

Through social media and digital marketing, you can create a buzz around your business by starting an online conversation about your products and services. For instance, Statista reports that more than 71% of U.S internet users have Facebook accounts, and this percentage will increase to over 75% by 2027.

This means that by only creating a successful digital marketing campaign on Facebook, you will be able to capture 75% of online consumers in the United States. Imagine how much revenue you can generate with access to that kind of customer base.

Also, imagine the potential other social media networks may present, including Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Measurable Results

Digital marketing gives you measurable results. You can use these numbers to analyze the effectiveness of your campaign. Furthermore, you can use this information as a model to deploy future campaigns without starting from scratch.

This means the more information you gather, the better and more efficient you will get at creating digital marketing campaigns. This way, you can save time as well as costs associated with the planning phase. You will be able to get more efficient at using your resources and money with each digital marketing campaign.

This is beneficial because revenue is not only about gaining new customers or business. You can also boost your revenue by saving your in-house expenses on labor’s working hours.

Leveling the Marketplace for Small Businesses

Whether a startup or a small business, digital marketing levels the playing field when it comes to targeting customers and marketplaces. Now, you can compete in the same market as big competitors and offer products and services at competitive rates.

You can even play smart and learn from the giants in your niche. Observe what works for your competitors and use this knowledge to customize your competitors’ strategies according to your business needs.

Digital marketing is easily scalable and highly adaptable. You can take an existing digital marketing strategy and tailor it to create something that works best for your business. You are always in control of how much you want to spend, which marketplaces you wish to target and who your ideal customer is.

The best part is that there are no rights or wrongs when it comes to digital marketing. It all depends on how you present your brand, when you target, and whom you target. Just because something did or did not work for a competitor does not mean it will be the same for you.

Best Channels for Digital Marketing

If you are wondering, which the best digital marketing channels or mediums are for your business, you can explore the following to begin.

• Your official website
• Creating business pages on social media networks including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc
• Email marketing
• Paid digital marketing campaign on Google Ads, YouTube, Facebook Ad, Instagram, etc

No matter which platform you choose to use, always make sure to search engine optimize your content. This will enable your customers to find your business during their search engine results.

Conclusion

Whether a small business or a large organization, digital marketing is the modern strategy to promote your products and services and engage with your audience. This is especially true as consumers as moving away from print media and TV and using the internet to search and shop.

Therefore, if you are new to digital marketing, hiring a digital marketing agency is your best option. A well-reputed digital marketing agency in your area will be able to create a digital marketing campaign based on your needs and budget.