What is Digital Marketing?
Whether it’s to watch your favorite show, do some shopping, or find a good recipe, it’s more common to use a search bar online than to find what you’re looking for by going to the movies, a mall, or your moms cookbook. For a few years now, the landscape of marketing has evolved so much around digital journeys, that traditional marketing isn’t as necessary to run your business, whether its large or small. Print ads, billboards, and television commercials don’t do nearly as well as they used to.
Why is that? Digital marketing has become a dynamic and versatile approach that reaches and engages your audience online. In this blog, you’ll learn why digital marketing is so important and why it can help small businesses a lot more than traditional!
Digital marketing is a wide range of strategic online tactics that promote your product or service, and gives your business an online brand. This can include Social media marketing, Search engine optimization, email marketing campaigns, targeted advertising, and content marketing. Digital marketing uses different channels to connect and relate to your audience including potential customers, which is great for business owners as most of their customers will be online anyways!
What are the benefits?
1. Budget friendly:
More times than not, digital marketing can be very cost effective. Print ads, tv commercials, and other traditional marketing methods can be quite pricey. Digital marketing is a great alternative that won’t eat up all your money. You can use apps such as Instagram, Tik-Tok, Facebook, to get your brand working for you.
Now, we don’t necessarily want to say that it’s ALL budget friendly, sometimes targeted Pay-per-click (PPC) ads using Google, Meta, or any other online source, can get up there in costs if you’re not monitoring. However, they do offer a good return on Investment (ROI). Targeted ads are ideal, if monitored correctly, to reach your ideal potential customers.
2. Reach a Wider Audience:
With digital marketing, you can pretty much reach all around the world. There are no geographical boundaries, allowing your small business to sell beyond the local area. Using digital marketing channels with Social media, SEO, or Email, you can connect quite easily to other cities, countries, and continents, if your customer base allows. This opens up a lot of growth opportunities as well, and allows your small business to flourish globally.
3. Targeted Marketing:
A huge advantage of using a digital marketing strategy is targeted marketing. Targeted marketing allows you to specify which demographics and audience segments you want to market to. For instance, if you are selling a nail service, you would probably target a specific age range, a specific salary range, and in and around your area (close enough to drive).
BUT, if you were selling pre designed press on nails, you could open your targeted audience up to all across the country, a wider age range, and wider salary range as they will be less expensive than the service. Targeted ads allow you to take advantage of all demographics that your product or service is applicable for. It also allows you to get very very specific where you can tailor your messages to resonate with the right people, at the right time, increasing your conversion rates.
4. Measurable Results:
With digital marketing, you can measure the results of your campaigns using analytics and tracking tools. These tools allow you to see real-time insights of traffic on your campaigns. You can monitor key metrics including conversion rates and engagement levels, that then let you optimize your ads. With traditional marketing, you get one shot to hone in on your message and then if it doesn’t bring you the results you’re looking for, you have to redo the whole thing.
5. Build Brand Awareness and Authority:
Small businesses are provided with a platform to showcase their expertise when using digital marketing strategies. It gives you a chance to build your credibility on search engines, and become industry leaders. Constant delivery of valuable content within your industry, and engaging with your audience strengthens your brand presence. It builds trust among your potential customers, and current customers, as they will feel more educated on your products or services.
6. Flexibility and Adaptability:
And last but not least, flexibility and adaptability. Being trendy gets you seen, and audience behavior is constantly evolving. With digital marketing, small businesses have the flexibility to adapt very quickly to changing conditions and different preferences. You can do experiments on your ads, like A/B testing, to see which resonates more with your audience, or you can adjust your strategies in real time to stay agile and responsive. With traditional marketing, you would have to completely overhaul your campaign and constantly be on high alert, checking if it is with trend, or appealing to your audience.
Conclusion
All in all, digital marketing transforms the way businesses promote themselves and are able to engage with their potential customers, and current customers. Especially for small businesses, where it might not be as easy with traditional marketing methods. With digital marketing, you have more opportunities to reach a wider audience without changing your products and services to fit the local market. You’re able to drive growth and compete in a bigger pond.
As a small business, having a digital marketing strategy levels the playing field and helps you achieve success!
Want to create a digital marketing strategy? Contact us today!
