– By Mr. Vikram Kumar, Managing Director, SRV Media Pvt. Ltd. No matter the nature of your business, if you aim to be successful you ought to be where the customers are. And, 80% of consumers, today, engage with businesses and brands digitally. Many small and medium enterprises make the mistake of focusing only on delivering a quality product. While it is absolutely true that if you have a quality product, consumers will recommend it to other people and you will have a good chance of expanding through the word of mouth; equally indisputable fact is that the relying only on ‘word of mouth’ strategy is somewhat outdated. In today’s technologically advanced era, consumers, and people, in general, have very short attention spans. There is continually a new product, a new meme, and a new trend to focus on. With such fierce competition in mind, business enterprises need to have a digital marketing strategy in place to capture and retain the attention of their target audience. Let’s take a deeper look at the top 5 reasons why SMEs should opt for digital marketing strategies in 2020: Budget Constraints and Target Audience The first question we get asked a lot is why SMEs are constantly advised to dive into digital marketing; are traditional marketing efforts not enough? Well, as it turns out, you can definitely take the traditional marketing route- distributing flyers and brochures etc. – but the results from this route alone are inefficient. In fact, you may end up spending a large chunk of your budget with no visible results. This is mainly because blindly distributing flyers does not ensure that you will actually reach your target audience. Digital marketing, on the other hand, provides you with the ability to direct your marketing efforts towards a specific set of audience, within your defined budget. So, using this strategy, you can get the sales rolling more efficiently. Reviews, Brand Reputation and Consumer Behavior It’s 2020 and everyone has easy access to information; if a person wants to know something, they may search for it on Google first rather than asking their peers. The same is applicable to consumers wanting to purchase a product. For instance, if a consumer wants to buy a budget phone, they will look for the top 10 budget phones available at that moment, and thoroughly go through the reviews to make a final decision. The above example is proof that online reviews do matter. In fact, the consumers are likely to ‘not consider’ a brand if it lacks significant online presence and positive reviews. Luckily, a part of digital marketing strategy called ‘online reputation management’ takes care of the same. Re-Targeting and Deeper Optimization We have already established the fact that digital marketing does a better job than traditional marketing in helping you reach your target audience. But, did you know that with a digital strategy handy, you can even re-target your audience in the upcoming months as your budget increases? This means you can re-direct your marketing efforts particularly towards those who have shown interest in your brand and/or products previously, and optimize your content for better conversion. Continued Marketing and Customer Care; even when You Sleep Opting for digital marketing allows your business marketing efforts to keep rolling 24*7. This means even if you go offline, your digital strategy will ensure you reach your target audience and cater to their needs no matter the time. There are several options like predefined responses for particular queries to help engage the consumers and build trust. Since consumers like to know that you care about them, quick assistance can improve your business’s digital footprint a great deal. Real-Time Performance Analysis The most beneficial part of opting for a digital marketing strategy is the ability to analyze the performance of your marketing plan in real-time. There are several tools that help you identify what’s working and what’s not, so you can alter your next campaign accordingly for better results. Significant online presence has a huge impact on businesses, and with the right marketing strategy in place, businesses can expect to turn the wheel in their favor, achieve higher ROI, and grow faster!
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