However, this isn’t to suggest that all traditional marketing methods have been superseded by digital. Every business is different. For some, the ideal marketing strategy could consist of television ads, radio spots or print advertisements. For others, a blend of both digital and traditional may be more efficient. The key is to take all options into consideration when deciding on your strategy.
The changing world of technology and the ever-changing nature of social media are majorly impacting how people behave towards each other and how companies interact with them. Digital marketing strategies can give businesses a way to move to keep up with trends on the internet and engage with their targeted clients in the most efficient methods possible.
Digital marketing has many benefits.
Digital marketing is based on strategies that work across the internet and mobile devices. If you are a business with big plans but limited budgets, this type of marketing can bring many advantages. Here are some reasons that you and your business must benefit from digital marketing:
1. It’s more cost-effective
Traditional marketing techniques such as radio, print and television advertising are costly and can be difficult to measure return on investment (ROI). The reason is that traditional advertising typically involves single-way communications, making it difficult to evaluate the impact of your marketing campaign and the way in which you are impacting the behavior of buyers. With digital marketing there are numerous other avenues for businesses to utilize assets such as social media, email, and banner advertisements. These methods offer ways to engage with your clients and be able to accurately monitor the results through measuring clicks, email responses and general interaction with your digital marketing. This means you can measure Cost Per Click (CPC) which is the amount you pay every time someone interacts with your advertising – which in turn means that you can assess your campaign’s effectiveness more easily.
2. Realtime results
Digital marketing enables you to start a campaign virtually instantly. It isn’t necessary to wait for weeks before seeing it take shape. This is great for businesses that depend on responding to the latest major developments in the market and news. It’s also a plus that you are able to monitor your campaign’s performance while it’s running therefore, if they’ren’t performing in the way you’d like you could try another strategy or eliminate it altogether.
3. You can develop more enjoyable relationships
There’s plenty of chance to reach larger and more targeted audiences with digital marketing. With this comes the opportunity to connect with the right target audience in more effective ways. You can quickly respond to inquiries, participate in conversations, reach out to prospective customers and take any feedback you receive immediately.
4. It’s easy to evaluate the results
You can see the results of your marketing campaigns almost immediately. This will enable you to evaluate how your promotions or posts are working, for instance, if your site visitors or subscribers have increased since the start of the campaign, and what content will bring visitors to your website. From this you can analyse what’s working and what’s not at the touch of one button.
Digital Marketing Channels
Marketing online doesn’t just revolve about your web site. Although this is an important aspect, you should be aware of other channels to enhance your digital marketing strategies. Whether you’re looking at low budget or blow-the- budget marketing, these types of digital marketing are great for small businesses as you can adapt your activity according to your financial circumstances:
1. Content marketing
Your website is an effective instrument in your marketing plan. It is the majority of the time that is where you’ll direct your customers to when you engage with them so it’s important to make sure you’ve got interesting content to keep your customers engaged on your site for longer. Start by maintaining an engaging blog to share relevant content with your clients and draw customers to your site. With new technologies increasing the number of people reading content on their mobile phones and tablet devices than before. It’s crucial to make sure your site is simple to browse and interact with on these different devices so that users can enjoy the best experience when they are on the move.
2. Search engine marketing
Keep ahead of your competition by driving traffic to your website through SEO or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It works by optimising your site to increase its organic rank on search engine results (for example , how high you will appear on the search results of Google) to ensure that people are more likely to visit your site. Search engine marketing focuses on improving your rankings with specific strategies, such as increasing the use of keywords (words and phrases relevant to what you are offering on your website). Find out more details on how to increase your SEO by using the Webmaster tools of Google.
3. Pay-per-click advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an advertisement model that helps in bringing traffic to your website by using a clickable advert (known as an ad with a banner) that is placed on websites or search engines. The advertiser will pay the publisher (the site owner) for the number of times an advertisement is clicked. PPC is based on the use of relevant search terms or phrases, along with well written website content that engages your visitors enough to click on the links you provide and visit your website. You’ll find examples of these ads on popular sites such as Facebook or search engines like Google. You are able to set your own budget and turn the advertising on and off at any time, making it a great option for small companies looking to test different marketing channels.
4. Email marketing
Marketing via email is an effective method of building your customer list in a cost-effective way. Once subscribers have opted-in to receive emails from your business it is possible to then contact them directly via offers, promotions as well as news and engaging content. Be sure to send emails personally and only provide content that is pertinent and engaging to ensure your clients always have access to it.
5. Marketing with social media
Social media has evolved into an extremely powerful marketing tools a business can make use of. It allows businesses to stay connected with their customers on a much more personal and interactive level by making use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and more. It’s not expensive too much also. There are options to allocate funds to purchase advertisements and to promote your online content to larger audiences.
The importance of digital marketing lies in the fact that every business should understand and incorporate into their strategy. Make sure you keep your main goals in mind in order to choose the most effective online channels to utilize to ensure you get the highest-quality results for your company.