We are in the digital era, and any business that does not have an online presence is losing out. Everything from acquiring customers and making sales are made online, including inhouse business purchases.
When all your suppliers and clients are using digital spaces, you have no option but to embrace that too. The ability to adapt to changes is what makes a business survive for long. So all these lead to one fundamental question – how vital is digital marketing to businesses today?
It Offers Unlimited Access to Your Clients
People spend more time online nowadays than they spend time on anything else, even more than sleeping. With access made easier through mobile phones, as a business, your target market is just waiting online. How you turn that time they spend online to your advantage is now all up to you.
The average user has at least seven social media accounts. About 22% of the world’s population is on Facebook alone. It takes the keenest marketers to get something out of these vast numbers successfully.
It Elevates Your Brand
Digital marketing platforms are cheap. This frees up funds that are now directed to other important things like branding. Improved branding quality increases product visibility and ultimately boosts sales.
The tactic is most effective with businesses that handle their own packaging; canned food processors for instance. More funds mean you are able to hire better graphic designers and invest in an efficient can seaming machine from here.
A well-seamed can ensures that the contents inside stay fresh for longer and no contaminants get in. This level of quality assurance puts your products in good standing among consumers who overtime begin to associate your brand with safe products.
You Can Tailor Your Ads to a Specific Demographic
Gone are the days where ads used to be run blindly in the hope that they attract anyone who comes across them. You could print one in a magazine, hoping people would buy the publication just so they can come across your products. Now you have both the room and the flexibility to tailor-make your ads, targeting a specific group with excellent results.
Regardless of the size of your business, leverage today’s technology in targeting your customers and sell them with relevant content. Click here to learn how sales enablement strategies enable you to engage customers with personalized content.
You Can Track How the Ad Performs
With traditional media, once an ad airs on the television, radio, or magazine, there was no way of telling whether it worked or not. The only indicator is in the sales, but that was also not that accurate. With digital media, you can track the performance down to the micro-level.
Using analytic tools, you can tell the number of people who have viewed the ad, the ones that got influenced to buy by it, and so on. You can even track how many times it was shared and the exact website from which a sale was made. The best part? Most of these analytic tools are free.
It Is Easy to Learn
All it takes for your business to get digital marketing rolling is a few tutorials online. Companies that create digital marketing tools and software usually offer free online training to people. It never lasts more than a month. The implication of this on a business is that you will not spend a dime in training your staff.
The nature of digital marketing also makes it a task that can be handled by one or two people at most. You will not need to dedicate a whole department to marketing, as was the case with traditional media. All you will need is one digital marketing expert, and you are good to go.
It Is Flexible
Digital marketing is not static or fixed. In the past, once a marketing campaign starts rolling: there was very little that could be done to alter it to an emerging issue. Once an ad was printed on a magazine or run on a TV, there was no room for takebacks. With digital marketing, however, you can flip the whole strategy midway without disrupting anything.
This flexibility makes digital marketing very cheap because you can align it with how things are changing.
You Can Integrate Marketing Across All Platforms
The ability to switch between physical; and mobile experiences for your clients is an underrated aspect of digital marketing. In the past, marketing was limited to one media at a time. Any attempt to spread a campaign across all platforms required a lot of cash influx.
With digital marketing, you could be talking to a client while taking them through your mobile app. Showing them in real-time how efficient things can work. Through mobile phones, a client can be notified of any new changes immediately though alerts.
Digital Marketing Generates More Revenue
The purpose of marketing is to generate more money for the company. In the past, that used to involve a lot of investment because large scale advertisements did not come cheap. In the long run, the revenues that marketing brought in the past would be gobbled up by ad expenditure. That is no longer the case.
Digital marketing involves fewer people, uses less money, but generates more revenue than ever before. There is no excuse for any business to lack a digital marketing plan.
It Builds the Brand’s Reputation
The visibility that digital marketing accords a company is immense. A single post on Facebook can end up being seen by millions. This in itself introduces the brand to new audiences, and in the process, the brand’s reputation is cemented.
It also makes potential clients curious. Once they see an ad that interests them, they come flocking with questions. If you handle them properly, they, in turn, will pass good word around about you.
Conclusion
As far as digital marketing is concerned, no business thriving today in this climate can survive without it. People are leaning more and more towards convenience; they want to be able to do everything from their phones. To get an edge over your competitors, it is time you scaled up your digital marketing strategies. Always be ready for the next emerging trend.
Kim Marks 
Nicola Holder