The world of marketing has undergone rapid and intense change in the past 20 years: from a major reliance on paid advertisements and yellow pages, businesses have evolved with consumers’ reliance on digital platforms and have migrated to online methods of reaching their target market, particularly through social media. Those who have failed to adapt have been left behind in the era of paper and print ads, while their competitors enjoy better access and improved connections with their customers.
It’s no secret that adaptability is practically a superpower that entrepreneurs need to hone. But now that the world is already engrossed in and diving deeper into a digital landscape with each passing day, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses and their teams to master the art of staying on top of trends.
Digital marketing is the new frontier that you need to traverse to lead your business towards success — if you want a better idea of why you should pursue digital marketing and how you can give yourself more of a competitive edge, then here are some things you should keep in mind:
Reach more people for less
One reason why marketers LOVE digital platforms is for its cost-effectiveness. Towards the end of the late 1990s, businesses spent close to $60 billion in print advertising, which drastically whittled down into a mere $20 billion in the early 2010s. This came with the rise of today’s biggest social media platforms, namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. As more and more users flocked to these websites, attention to print ads waned rapidly, with consumers favoring material found online.
The beauty of digital marketing is that instead of feeling like you need to do more or print more to reach more people, you can instead opt to reach people who are exclusively part of your target market, or those who might take an active interest in what you have to offer. Digital marketing also allows businesses to be able to see how many people their content is actually reaching, thus leading them along the path of being able to calculate if they’re getting any leads or sales through the material that they’re putting out. In 2020, 51% of B2B marketers reported that their leads and sales had increased through the use of social media.
Not only do small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rely on the power of social media, but 97% of Fortune 500 companies have turned to digital platforms as a means to market their products and services. This comes as no surprise, as Facebook has 60 million active business pages to reach its 2.8 billion users, while Instagram boasts 200 million business accounts to reach its 1 billion users. With billions of people able to see the content that creators and businesses publish, it’s no wonder that businesses thrive when they maximize social media use.
Easier to reach customers
The large number of people who engage with online platforms also gives entrepreneurs the advantage of interactive communication: not only can they potentially reach a larger number of potential customers, but they can also keep in touch with their current clientele. Customer service can be made much more accessible, whether in the form of chatbots that answer FAQs, or developing entire apps or websites that help customers make orders, check on open locations, or just about anything under the sun.
Being able to get in touch with customers directly also enables a better understanding of their needs and interests. 91% of consumers even ranked social media as the number one way for businesses to be able to connect with them. Sometimes, customers don’t have to reach out for you to be able to observe what catches their attention — these facts will present themselves once you analyze metrics from your posts or even take a look at other pages and causes they might be taking an interest in. Of course, you can always conduct surveys, offer giveaways, and many other forms of engagement with them. However, listening (and looking) can truthfully be one of your best friends in the field of marketing.
When people see how responsive you are to queries, the quality of the content that you publish, and what your brand stands for, it will be easier to attract their interest and have them act on that interest by purchasing your goods or services.
Brand awareness and lead generation
Compared to the glory days of print ads and television commercials, another edge that marketers have now is that they have access to the information that they need, all via a single click: social media analytics can instantly inform them how people are reacting to the content that they produce. Depending on the website, you can tell how many organic accounts saw a single post, if they liked or shared it, or even if they hid the post or unfollowed you because of it.
For websites, you can also track how long a single user spent on your site, what they browsed, and what information they were looking for. This makes it easier to determine exactly how much time and approximate thinking went into researching and even actual shopping.
Because all of this information is within reach for most businesses, it’s also relatively easy to track which leads came from what sources. Whether your customer clicked in from an Instagram ad or saw your page as a suggestion on Facebook, reports will be able to tell you which platforms are working for you, and what you need to make more use of (or even let go completely).
Marketers need not fret: it won’t be difficult at all to figure out what platforms to use and what strategies you should employ when speaking to your target market. This 2020 report by Oracle shares how to get the attention of people across different generations, such as nostalgia-appreciative millennials, advocacy-driven Gen Z youth, or bargain-hunting Gen X adults. Speaking the right language to the right people can take your business a step in the right direction.
Flexibility and sustainability
Of course, businesses and creators everywhere have gladly made the shift to digital marketing not only because of its cost-effective and connecting nature, but also because of its flexibility and sustainability. We don’t see ourselves moving away from the digital world that we’ve created for ourselves — and while print ads might not lose their relevance entirely in the near term, savvy marketers can’t deny the increasing importance of visibility and accessibility on digital platforms as something that will be beneficial in the long run. It’s definitely fair to say that the shift towards digital marketing can decrease marketing costs for businesses and boost them on the radar of people that matter to them.
All in all, digital marketing can help businesses become better known in their communities, create connections with their customers, and skyrocket their business up to greater heights of success.
If you’re looking to up your digital marketing game, you’re DEFINITELY in the right place: we know that no one is born a perfectly-skilled professional, so we’re ready to let you in on some digital marketing secrets. You’ve got this!
Author:
Share the article:
Leave a Reply