Because ultimately, the benefits of ecommerce and other digital marketing solutions you’ve put in place, do not and will not serve as mere band-aid solutions for now. As long as it’s there, seek to maintain and grow it so that you can continue to enjoy its many advantages.
Developments in digital empowerment of SMEs
This was something already learned by business leaders who sought digital transformations amid the pandemic. Ride Revolution’s chief executive Noel Tordesillas, for example, sees their digital marketing solutions as “permanent fixtures” that can continue to foster further growth in business, even beyond the pandemic.
Similarly in the public sector, the value of digital marketing business digitalization has become more apparent with the growing adoption of ecommerce by local business. And, in response to this, more efforts to support its uptake by SMEs are being eyed by the local trade department.
Continuously Growing Industry. Thanks to this growing recognition of the benefits of digital solutions from both the private and public sector, more SMEs are exploring the digital front to keep business alive. More importantly, this growth has also sparked more efforts to empower SMEs coming from the government, making ventures into this realm of marketing more possible. Photo by Propelrr.
It’s these developments that make now the best time to be exploring digital marketing and its potential to grow your business. If you’re still on the fence about it, then below you’ll find some other compelling benefits that you can expect to gain from a pursuit into digital.
Top benefits of digital marketing for SMEs
1. Ensure business survival
Digital marketing is by no means a new strategy. And, if anything, it’s proving to be a crucial strategy for keeping businesses big and small afloat in the current circumstances.
Business digitalization and digital marketing ensure business survival because the platform is much easier to sustain compared to traditional channels. Moreover, an online presence opens up a floodgate of more business opportunities, as more people engage with online shopping amid the pandemic.
Hence, engaging on digital isn’t just an act to throw your business a lifeline, but rather a crucial step to increase your brand’s competitiveness and growth. It allows your business to thrive, and provides it with a competitive edge against your competitors who have yet to go digital.
2. Build-up and establish a lasting brand recognition
One of the most crucial aspects of digital marketing is a brand identity that sticks with your target audience. With both your customers and competitors migrating online, it becomes imperative that you also develop your online presence.
A strong brand identity lets you stand out from your competitors by being a prominent and recognizable name in the industry. This recognition then leads to a stronger affinity within your audience to choose your products or services over all others. Eventually, you’ll also achieve brand loyalty and advocacy.
An effective digital marketing strategy solidifies and strengthens this brand identity by maintaining this connection with your customers on online platforms. A benefit that is indispensable now that it’s difficult to foster these connections via offline channels.
3. More proactive marketing strategies with your business’s data
The best thing about digital marketing and advertising is that it’s not a one-way process, but rather a feedback loop. This feedback loop and sustained relationship with your customers lead to business sustainability.
With online marketing, you’re not just telling people about your product, but audiences are also able to communicate to you what they think about it. This is data that is less accessible with traditional marketing channels.
Digital marketing shifts the thinking from audiences as just consumers to “customers as co-producers,” which effectively boosts your audience’s response to your brand. People like to be heard, and knowing what they like through the data you gather on digital platforms help you create proactive and actionable steps to meet their demands.
4. Compete using cost-effective strategies
A common misconception about digital marketing is that it’s a financially burdensome solution. But if you run the numbers, it’s actually more cost-effective than you think.
Traditional marketing in the Philippines may still reign supreme but it may well be impractical for SMEs to resort to these versus online marketing. With online marketing, doors open up for small businesses to compete even with bigger brands because on digital, the playing field is more level and accessible to all.
Resorting to online media forms eliminates expenses involved in producing expensive marketing materials for traditional media. Having a strong online presence also builds up your brand’s popularity and identity which adds up to your customer’s loyalty to your brand.
5. Ensure that you always have an audience
Digitalizing your business ensures that you always have an audience. And on the internet, visibility is an absolute necessity for brands.
Thankfully, the en masse migration to online spaces makes it nearly impossible for your brand to not be discovered and engaged with. Not only that, but amid the pandemic, users are also spending more and more time – increasing your changes of reaching your target market further.
Data from Hootsuite shows that the Philippines alone spends hours on the internet. With visibility so crucial to a brand’s survival and offline channels restricted, digital marketing provides the important bridge that helps maintain brand-consumer interactions.
Spending the Most Time Online. Time and again, online usage data from Global Web Index, We Are Social, and Hootsuite show that the Philippines is one of the top countries that spend the most time online, with nearly 11 hours spent on the internet. That’s five hours more than the worldwide average. Photo by Propelrr.
Those said, there’s no further questioning that digital marketing is an exciting new strategy SMEs need to take up to survive the changing economic market in the pandemic.
But in order to fully maximize these benefits, you’ll have to come into digital fully equipped with the knowledge and skills you’ll need to execute critical strategies. And that’s what this content exists for: To help provide you the digital marketing resources you’ll need to help your online business grow.
Below, you’ll find the very same resources that have prepped our world-class digital marketing professionals at Propelrr. Here and now, you can browse this curated library of digital marketing resources, and get started on a journey towards online business sustainability that outlasts any calamity.
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