Although most business owners understand how vital online marketing is to their success, many out there don’t do it or lack cohesive, integrated strategies. The present and the future of marketing is digital marketing, and if your plan is nonexistent or lacking in any respect, there is still time to get up to speed. Years ago, and even as recently as right before the pandemic, online marketing was optional, but now, it matters more than ever and can make or break your business.
Why Digital Marketing is So Important
Your company might need digital marketing strategies for consumer-to-business (C2B) or business-to-business (B2B). Still, you will lose customers in whatever industry you are in if you don’t market your products or services online. Digital Marketing Institute explains that when small businesses first open, their main focus is getting people in the door, which you can do through coupon mailers and print ads. While these kinds of traditional marketing can work, once the pieces reach consumers, it can take ages until they decide to visit a store.
This is not to say that there is no place in the world for traditional marketing like print ads and TV commercials, but these methods can no longer stand up on their own. If you are still in the dark ages, your competitors are taking advantage of the benefits that digital marketing offers and taking away business from you.
Digital Marketing: The First Two Main Reasons Why
One of the fundamental reasons to incorporate digital marketing into your plan is to narrow down your audience and focus on delivering your messages to those prospective buyers. Known as personalization, Spectrm explains this practice ensures that you meet each customer’s preferences and needs by building positive customer experiences. Personalization uses someone’s demographics, browsing behaviors, previous actions, and purchase history, collected through the first touchpoint. From there, you can personalize consumer journeys through emails, product recommendations, ad content, and sales alerts.
Digital marketing lets companies interact with their prospects and customers. For example, compare a person reading a newspaper ad to someone clicking links on a website and chatting with a customer service rep. Online marketers communicate with audiences at each stage of the buying process, drive engagement to develop brand loyalty, and track and monitor responses. On top of that, it is easier to target specific audiences at the right times and possible to reach out to people anywhere on the planet.
You’re probably tired of hearing about the pandemic, but it is crucial to understand why this is the main reason why online marketing matters. In 2020, Forbes reported that the challenges created by COVID were unprecedented, as brick-and-mortar stores closed temporarily or permanently and companies had to scramble to connect with consumers. Millions who used to shy away from buying on the internet now do it every day, and our consumer landscape will never be the same again. This wave began with consumer-to-business, but business-to-business marketers are now in the thick of it as well.
Visibility, Campaigns, and Cost Effectiveness
Reason number three why online marketing matters is the importance of increasing your company’s visibility. The internet is always open, so people can check out your website or social media when convenient for them. Remember, though, that your online competition is right there alongside you, so your content and content marketing strategies have to be better than theirs and always current.
WebFX contributes reason #4: digital marketing allows you to run multiple campaigns simultaneously with less effort. A single website can handle millions of customers on it if you design it the right way. A high number of consumers can receive quality experiences and share them on your social media platforms. You can post links on your social media and coordinate those with your webinars, emails, and other marketing tactics.
The final reason is also one of the most compelling: cost-effectiveness. Simply put, digital marketing is a cheaper way to reach your audiences. Forbes shared some research from 2018-2019, showing that advertisers paid an average of $17.50 cost per every thousandth person reached (CPM) for cable TV ads and $32 for national broadcast ads. In the first quarter of 2018, the average CPM on Google’s display network was just $2.80. Though it is hard to compare pandemic and post-pandemic numbers, online marketing gives a much better return on investment.
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