Insights / Marketing
What is the one thing consumers can’t live without?
If you guessed “the internet”, you are absolutely on point. Consumers are increasingly spending more time on online activities, such as connecting with others through social media, consuming their favorite content from streaming services, or even practicing retail therapy on a plethora of online shopping platforms.
Society is heavily reliant on the internet and modern technology, and it's clear that the majority of our lives revolve around being in the digital space. As our world continues to shift itself towards embracing this new reality, a “digital economy” is being birthed, where goods and services produced by both public and private sectors are based on digital computing technologies that go towards the enhancement of generating wealth, productivity and an elevated quality of life. Using solely the traditional ways of running a business aren’t a sufficient solution in today's world, and it is imperative that businesses market themselves where the audiences are found.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
1. Global Audience Reach
It's no surprise that companies are exposed to a global audience when they take their businesses online. By utilizing various digital marketing methods, one will be able to effectively reach this wide audience without the need of establishing a physical presence in specific locations.
Search engines help to provide this international reach as businesses are able to market their products and services to customers from any country at minimal costs. This is especially beneficial for startups and newly-found businesses as they can leverage on this to grow the awareness of their brand.
Based on your target audience, you could also opt for marketing on different social media platforms. Popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn make great starting points for any business as they cater to a wide range of users with varying interests. Social media allows businesses to create content, share it, and engage with customers.
2. Extreme Flexibility
As mentioned, traditional marketing requires a significant upfront investment. With digital marketing however, the low barrier of entry allows businesses to be flexible with their budget by tailoring it according to their needs.
For instance, PPC ads allow one to adjust variables like audience reach, daily budget, duration and so on when creating an ad. This allows you to customize each marketing campaign based on your objectives without significant risk of overspending your budget.
3. Cost-Effective
When done right, digital marketing could result in both an overall cost reduction for marketing and a better ROI that leads to increased revenue and higher bottom-line profits. For instance, EDM helps create marketing campaigns that target customers based on their readiness to purchase products and services. New prospects are introduced to various categories to profile their interests and preferences, while existing customers are followed up with products relevant to their previous purchases, providing opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling.
The best part? All of this is executed through sending emails alone, which reduces total costs by focusing on interested buyers without jeopardizing overall returns.
4. It Increases Revenue
This may be achieved by increasing the amount of users visiting a business’s digital channels. They can drive traffic to them via several avenues - search engines, social media, websites, affiliate links and so on. Tools such as SEO, SEM, and social media marketing help in leading consumers towards the right platforms. And once interest and clicks are generated, all that’s left to do is to gear your content and user experience towards converting those visitors into customers once they are on your site.
5. Measurable Results
A huge advantage of digital marketing is being able to track whether current marketing efforts are performing well and yielding the desired results. In addition, it also provides forecasts on how activities are likely to perform in comparison with previous campaigns.
For instance, social media platforms provide analytics that measure the reach and engagement of content created by the business, which may be used as an estimate of the brand’s awareness amongst potential customers. This provides visualization of what is currently performing well and what needs to be improved upon.
6. Brand Building
Besides selling and customer acquisition, digital marketing aids in building a brand up online while establishing them as a market leader and customer favourite.
As often seen in social media, businesses with large followings and engagements are usually good indicators of a strong brand. Businesses are enabled to engage their customers and create better relationships that are stronger and longer-lasting. This ultimately influences customer loyalty that results in recurring sales and also a unique advantage over competitors as consumers usually opt for their favourite brand over others.
7. 24/7 Task Automation
Digital marketing allows businesses to automate many of their marketing tasks. Tools such as PPC advertising and EDM allow you to set a schedule for how long your ads should run within a given period of time. This allows you to focus on other aspects of the business without worrying whether marketing activities have been executed.
Another example is content marketing, in which creating valuable and high-quality content helps businesses get discovered through search queries that are relevant to the topic. From there, it acts as a 24/7 marketing asset that can be utilized for generating leads and sales constantly at low costs.
What Happens When You Don't Use It
If the benefits haven’t convinced you, here are some of the negative consequences that may eventually compound if digital marketing is ignored.
1. Loss of Relevance
Consumers rely on search engines and ecommerce platforms to discover new products and services. By staying offline, your business will suffer from a loss of relevance as consumers forget you and are no longer aware of your existence.
2. Missed Revenue Opportunities
With a limited consumer base, you will miss out on potential opportunities to increase annual revenues from the digital channels available as well as the ability to grow and expand globally.
3. Increasing Costs
Compared to online advertisements, traditional advertising mediums require substantial investments that can quickly increase costs in the long run, while only reaching a limited range of consumers.
4. Technological Disadvantage
Without modern digital tools (i.e. data analytics), businesses will be deprived of valuable consumer insights on changing behaviors and preferences, which plays a pivotal role in influencing the direction of business strategies in aspects like growth, marketing, operations, etc.
5. Competitive Disadvantage
With ever-increasing competition on both local and international fronts, companies that fail to adapt to the digital economy will not be able to readily develop and deploy innovative products that meet the needs of the market and consumers.
Digital marketing and its multiple forms continuously enable businesses of any size to expand their reach to a global customer base at a measurable and cost-effective scale, building a reputable brand that operates 24/7 throughout the year.
It is critical to capitalize on such tools whenever possible. If you’re looking for guidance on how to effectively incorporate digital marketing into your business strategy, simply visit and connect with us to take your business’s growth and success to greater heights!
