What is digital marketing? Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.
It may come as no surprise that the marketplace has become increasingly more digital as technology continues to evolve. The benefits of digital marketing are becoming more prevalent every day. More and more consumers are researching and buying products online. According to Forbes, 82% of consumers conduct research online. And, Tech Crunch reports that 79% of people shop online.
So how do you reach these consumers? Here’s the answer: digital marketing.
More and more small businesses are implementing digital marketing tactics to effectively reach and engage their target consumers online. In fact, U.S. digital marketing spend will rise to about $332 billion by 2021. Digital marketing tactics has proven to be the most cost-effective way to reach potential customers.
1. Digital marketing is the most powerful form of marketing.
Digital marketing has the potential to transform the way that you reach and engage your customers. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Here are some real examples of how digital marketing tactics are helping businesses just like yours reach their target market and influence conversions:
- Ecommerce candle company, Nidhi increased their sales by 714% over a 3-month period using social media (with a little help from LYFE marketing).
- Forever Diamonds, a Georgia jewelry company, was able to reach and engage its fans for less than $1 per engagement over the course of a year, increasing foot traffic and leading to real conversions.
- We helped a snow motorcycle business selling snow equipment, generate$96,664.98 worth of SEO results in just 5 months!
- Our team also helped a local gym convert 210 new leads over 90 days at a cost of just $4.33 per lead through effective and targeted Google ads.
These cases are a true testament to the benefits of digital marketing. With the right strategies and effective implementation, small businesses can increase their reach and conversions in just a matter of months.
2. Using digital marketing tactics is the most cost-effective way to market your business.
One of the most important benefits of digital marketing is that it is the most cost-effective ways to market your business. When it comes to traditional marketing, it’s very difficult for small businesses with limited budgets to compete with larger businesses for ad space. However, with affordable digital marketing tactics, small businesses can get more for their marketing spend.
Consider this – a small business can expose over 1,000 people to its products and services for less than $3 using social media. While that same exposure through direct mail costs about $57 and through television ads costs about $28.
While traditional marketing tactics also often come with various hidden costs, the only cost to digital marketing is time. SEO, content marketing, and social media engagement take time to work their magic. However, there are still digital marketing tactics such as pay-per-click, display, and social media advertising that can produce quicker results.
3. Digital marketing is the most measurable form of marketing.
How do you know if your marketing is working?
The only way to know for sure is to measure your success over time. While it can be difficult to track the success of a traditional marketing campaign like a radio advertisement or mailer, every digital marketing tactic that you use is measurable. This benefit is every reason why you need to invest into digital marketing.
Digital marketing analytics takes the guess work out of determining whether your marketing is actually working. By measuring your digital marketing campaigns in real-time, you can see which tactics are working and which are not. Then, you can adjust your campaigns for greater success. You can also take the insights that you’ve gained from the process to improve future campaigns.Digital marketing analytics allows you to more effectively use your resources and allocate your marketing budget. Since you are no longer guessing about what’s working and what isn’t, you can reduce unnecessary expenses and focus your efforts on the strategies that are most likely to improve your ROI.
4. One of the greatest benefits of digital marketing is that it allows you to target your ideal buyers.
When you purchase billboard space or place an ad in a magazine, you’re taking a shot in the dark that this messaging will reach its intended audience. Though there are certainly ways to increase your chances of success with traditional marketing tactics, it just doesn’t offer the same targeting capabilities as digital marketing.
With digital marketing, you can ensure that the right consumers are viewing your content. SEO allows you to reach those consumers who are searching the web for content and topics that are relevant to your business. While pay-per-click, display, and social media advertising enables you to target those who are most likely to be interested in your products or services based on demographic information and general characteristics.
By improving targeting, you can work to get more for your marketing budget and resources. With digital marketing, you no longer have to worry that you are spending money on ads that won’t reach those who are likely to be interested in your products. With sophisticated targeting abilities, digital marketing tactics allow you to take comfort in knowing that you are focusing your marketing efforts on strategies that actually work.
5. Most people are starting their buyer’s journey online.
Think about how often you turn to Google or another search engine to find the information you need. Your customers are no different when they start to research the products or services that can help them solve their biggest problems.
In fact, according to Vimeo, 93% of online experiences start with a search engine. Before consumers even know what product or service they need, they are going to the search engines to look for answers to their questions and to learn more about their challenges. It was actually shown in a recent study that 59% of consumers prefer to check several channels first before they decide on getting in touch with a business. These channels include the business’s social media profiles, email and online ads which are all digital.
This presents a great opportunity for small businesses to connect with potential customers and educate them during the beginning stages of the buyer’s journey. By creating relevant and engaging content that’s optimized for the search engines, you can improve your visibility online and reach customers when it matters most.
6. Your customers are on social media, and digital marketing helps you reach them.
Perhaps the most important on our list of benefits of digital marketing is this. In using the traditional techniques in marketing, you will definitely experience a limit in scope and size. Print ads are limited to a certain location, market and time. And if you wish to broaden its scope, then prepare your budget for it.
But in digital marketing, your reach will be farther but more targeted. The only limitation is your creativity and strategy.
No matter what industry your business is in, there’s a good chance that your buyers are spending their time on social media channels like Facebook or Twitter. According to eMarketer, 2.34 billion people, or about one-third of the earth’s population, uses social media platforms regularly. Check out this graph from Statista.
Digital marketing helps you reach these engaged consumers. Not only are you able to publish and promote unique content on these social sites, but you’re also able to reach consumers through advertising. Social media platforms like Facebook offer sophisticated targeting options that help you reach the consumers who are most likely to be interested in your products or services.
What’s more is that social media also provides an effective platform for communicating with and engaging your target audience. Rather than just posting content and never hearing from your consumers, you can have one-on-one conversations in real-time that allow you to gain valuable insight into your brand. That’s something that traditional marketing tactics just don’t allow for.
7. SEO and local SEO helps you reach more qualified buyers online.
SEO is another powerful digital marketing tactic that offers a variety of benefits. By optimizing your site content for the search engines, you can work to reach more buyers online. Using relevant keywords that help describe your product or service offering can help you bring more targeted traffic to your site, which increases conversions over time.
SEO isn’t just for national businesses. Many consumers are searching for local companies online, and these searches eventually lead to a purchase. In fact, according to Google, 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase. Local SEO, or optimizing your website for local search results, can also be a valuable digital marketing tactic for businesses that operate in specific geographic locations, such as brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants, and other service-based business.
8. Digital marketing helps you connect with mobile customers.
Yet another one of the many benefits of digital marketing is that it allows you to connect with consumers who are browsing and consuming content on their mobile devices. Over half of all online users are accessing the web from a mobile device. Digital marketing can help you reach people on mobile devices, tablets, and desktop computers.
9. You can easily and quickly adapt your strategy and tactics for best results.
With traditional marketing tactics like television or newspaper ads, you have to wait until after the campaign is complete to see the results. And although you can use what you learn to adjust later campaign tactics, there isn’t much you can do “in-the-moment” to adapt your strategies for best results.
While traditional marketing tactics may require you to wait weeks or even months to determine which strategies are working, digital marketing allows you to view the real-time results of your campaigns and adapt your tactics to improve results as you go
With website analytics, you can view the number of visitors that come to your site, look at which pages they visit, and see how long they are spending on each page. You can also see when peak site traffic days and times are as well as track conversion rates across the site. All this information offers important insights that can help you improve your campaigns over time.
10. Digital marketing levels the playing field, allowing your business to be more competitive.
It’s often difficult for small businesses to compete with their larger counterparts due to a limited budget and resources. However, digital marketing helps to level the playing field by allowing smaller brands to remain competitive online.
Traditional marketing tactics like print advertising are expensive and require big business budgets for effective placement. However, digital marketing tactics are more affordable, allowing businesses of all sizes to gain exposure online.
With digital marketing, small businesses can also market their products and services nationally or even internationally. If your business is not limited to a specific location, you can use digital marketing to reach your target audience across the globe. This allows small businesses to find new audiences for their products and services.
Digital marketing also levels the playing field when it comes to presentation. While smaller retailers may not be able to afford the same expensive fixtures, graphics, and other presentation materials for their store, they can easily create a clean, attractive website that enhances the customer experience.
