Fun fact: around 82 percent of consumer research online before buying products. Another 79 percent of people shop online. Clearly, we live in a digital world. So why are we still talking about the pros and cons of digital marketing? Common sense says to reach your people, you need to be online. Here are five reasons breaking down digital marketing’s not-so-secret advantage.
#1. More cost-effective way to market
Let’s start with the obvious. Digital marketing = more bang for your bucks. Traditional marketing methods remain expensive. Sometimes too expensive for small to medium-sized brands to compete with the big guys.
Here’s the thing: digital marketing tactics armed with a little know-how and some time will get you in front of the same people as those big names, even with a restricted marketing budget. Maybe you can’t waste $10,000 on a direct mailer, but you could up your chances for success with a $10,000 digital marketing campaign placing advertising and social messages in front of people who actually care about your service or product.
Plus digital marketing is totally scalable with a few clicks. As your business grows, you devote more resources to your digital marketing program to reach even more people.
#2. Extremely measurable
The only way to know if your marketing is working is to measure your success over time. It’s challenging to do this with a traditional marketing program. How do you know if a targeted client opened your mailer? You don’t. But an email campaign shows you many people received, opened, and clicked-through on your marketing.
How do you know if someone has engaged with your business before? The right software will show if you have a repeat website visitor and where they came from. They’ll reveal if the visitor has taken action on your social media page or if they sign up for your newsletter.
Digital marketing is trackable in so many ways. See how the number of people who engaged with a specific advertisement on a specific social network. With a click of a button you can experiment with different headlines to see which copy resonates the best and up your chances for more audience engagement. Smart marketers take all these insights they gain from digital marketing and improve their future marketing efforts.
#3. Your message, your car
In the old days, part of your work was trying to gain traction with media outlets. No need to do that. You become your own source of media. Take control of your message and how it is displayed. Do this through the content you create and how you promote your content. You really are in the driver’s seat.
#4. Go where people are
Think about the last time you rode a Subway. Anyone looking around, reading those ads? Nope. Their eyes were glued to their phones. People spend hours every day in front of a screen. Whether it’s in the phone in their hands or at a desk on a laptop, people engage with the digital world for hours every day. Not leveraging digital marketing is a lost opportunity for you.
#5. Faster results
The speed of the digital world means that your results flood in much faster than with offline marketing. Get real-time results to how your approach is working. This allows you to be more engaging and more responsive. If a particular digital ad isn’t giving you the results you want, change it instantly. With traditional marketing, once it’s printed, that’s it. Mistakes and all.
What we really like about digital marketing is taking its tools and thinking out of the box. To catch attention, you need something forward-thinking and creative. Find the best in disruptive digital commercial real estate marketing at ATYPICAL.