In the last few years digital marketing has become an integral part of what a business is to its customers.
It’s no longer enough to have a website or run some un-focused Ads campaign. As the Internet becomes entwined with everything we do, the importance of digital marketing is becoming crystal clear.
- Reaches People Where They Spend Their Time & Money
In South Africa, 27 million people are internet users and a whopping 14 million are on Facebook. Just imagine the amount pf people your marketing campaign can reach just using Facebook as a medium! This is why Digital Marketing is the way forward, it allows your business’s brand to reach an audience that traditional marketing strategies don’t allow.
Social media is integrated into everything people do from school to work to entertainment and to hanging out with friends, social media is where people are.
It has been reported that one of the top 10 reasons people are on social media is to buy products advertised to them. They spend around 37% of their social media time interacting with branded content. To highlight how effective online marketing is, 48% of people say they made their last online purchase as the direct result of a Facebook ad.
But despite these reassuring stats, only 45% of marketers think their social media efforts are paying off. There are definitely some winners and losers on social media. Just having a profile and sharing some content once in a while isn’t enough- you need a social media marketing strategy.
- Levels the Playing Field for Small Business
You’ve seen it happen before. A conglomerate company comes to town and wipes out 100’s of local specialty shops. This is mainly due to the fact it’s difficult for small businesses to compete with the name recognition or the millions that these conglomerates put into marketing and reputation management. That’s where the importance of digital marketing shines as a beacon of hope for small businesses. Digital marketing allows smaller businesses the ability to hold a top ranking position.
Digital marketing allows small businesses to compete with a much smaller advertising budget. When managed effectively, it allows them to keep accurate control over where and how they spend their finances. This control over your finances provides you with the data needed to make informed decisions.
- More Targeted
Digital marketing provides businesses with the ability to dissect huge demographics and keep specific to their target market.
Who’s that person? It’s the person most likely to purchase what you sell.
Digital marketing allows you to create an ad that’s highly relevant to your target market. Through providing unique content you create relevant ads that your audience can connect with on a level that general advertising can’t. This connection gives it the ability to influence the decisions of the audience.
Google search results account for about 64% of website traffic across the Internet. Therefore, those businesses who place strong focus on SEO attracts as much as 80% of traffic from search results.
With search advertising, you can target people with a very specific:
- Challenge
- Goal
- Profession
- Education level
- Buying behaviour
- More Advanced Analytics
Digital marketing allows you to tap into data that traditional ads do not offer such as providing information on whether your audience actually see it, if they interacted with it, liked it, shared it etc.
You also learn much more about the people interacting with that ad through the data supplied through online marketing such as who’s most interested in your ads, what makes them more likely to take action as well as who spends more and so on.
If your business wants to keep traditional marketing in the mix, then make use of digital marketing to learn about who your customers are and what your ads should communicate according to the data.
- Best ROI
Social Media has one of the best ROI results.
A Forbes study found that companies using social media outsell 78% of businesses who don’t use social media. Furthermore, IBM discovered that a lead that comes in through social media is 7X more likely to become a paying customer.
The fact small business need to adopt cost-effective campaigns is why digital marketing is so important for small businesses to utilize as it can increase their ROI – it’s all in the stats.
- Aligns with How People Today Shop
It has been reported that 88% of people consider online reviews an important part of their buying decision. Reviews will also determine whether or not consumers will visit your business’s premises. A study has found that 23% of people visit your business after reading a good review.
Furthermore, 47% of millennials and Gen X don’t watch traditional TV and magazine and newspaper sales continue to decline at a rate of about 16% a year. Whilst traditional marketing mediums decline, online marketing trends increase with 1 trillion online searches performed each year. This has recreated the sales process to an online experience. The more integrated your business is with the customer’s online experience, the most easily you grow your business.
You need an online presence to be relevant to the vast majority of customers. The importance of digital marketing is that it gives you that presence.
- How People Prefer that Businesses Reach Them
What makes digital marketing most important for your business is that people are tired of traditional advertising and prefer to engage with brands online in a way that still respects their boundaries.
20% of 16 to 34 year olds use an ad blocker online. Internet users are choosing to consume media that doesn’t force them to sit through commercials – people want respect. They want someone to provide them with information that helps them make informed decisions. They want to buy from brands that value what they value. They want you to be part of their conversations.
The importance of digital marketing is that it allows you to market to people in ways that show that you respect and value them as human beings.
The Importance of Digital Marketing for Your Business
It’s clear, businesses in the modern economy need digital marketing to compete. Online is where the customers are. It’s where they prefer to be reached on. Online is where the modern buying process begins.
