Now more than ever, people are spending more time online and doing more of their shopping online. This means that marketing needs to be done online, too. The purpose of digital marketing is to connect a business with its target audience at the right time and place. In this article, we will discuss the top benefits of digital marketing for your business. If you’re on the fence about creating a digital marketing plan for your business, we’ll help you determine if digital marketing is right for you.
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Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the practice of marketing your brand, product or service through an electronic device or the internet. It is also often referred to as online marketing. This is opposed to traditional media marketing tactics, which included billboards, television, radio, newspaper and magazine ads, events, and direct mail. The “father” of digital marketing is Rand Fishkin, who found Moz.
You could say that digital marketing is popular and even necessary. In fact, the digital advertising spend is expected to reach $389 billion globally in 2021!
Digital Marketing Tactics
There are several digital marketing tactics, including:
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- PPC (pay-per-click ads)
- Display advertising
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- And more!
If you want to get the most out of your digital marketing strategy, you will want to choose a few of these tactics that will work best with one another.
Nine Best Benefits of Digital Marketing
These are the top ten benefits of digital marketing for your business.
1. Increases Customer Loyalty Through Regular Communication
It costs much more money to find and convert new customers than it does to retain current customers. Customer loyalty is important to establish. While it’s great to get a sale from a customer, it’s even more great to retain that customer after the sale. That customer might make another purchase, or they might recommend your business to others. You can use digital marketing tactics like email marketing and social media to communicate regularly with your customers.
Consider Sephora’s Beauty Insider program. Sephora connects with its customers by offering a points-based loyalty program. It uses both digital and in-person channels. Customers use their Beauty Insider card at each purchase, and the more they spend, the more points they receive. Once they accrue a certain amount of points, they earn gifts. Members also receive personalized emails telling them about the latest products, sales, and gifts.
2. Engages the Customer at Each Buying Stage
The customer journey, or the sales funnel, is an idea specific to digital marketing. Digital marketing allows businesses to track customers through each buying stage and help them along the way. Before digital marketing, customers most likely saw an ad on TV or in the newspaper, visited a store, and made a purchase. These days, there is plenty of data and analytics available to help you engage your customer at each stage.
Now, a consumer might see an ad online, search and compare prices across a few different sites, then head to a store to try the product, or make a purchase online. Mobile apps offer shoppers coupons, customer support, and more. No matter how your lead discovers your business, you can track them and engage them to encourage them to make a purchase.
3. Helps You Target the Right Audience
Thanks to digital marketing, you have a much better chance of targeting your ideal audience than with traditional marketing strategies. For example, in the past you might have broadcast a TV commercial, hoping that your particular audience will catch it. Now, however, you can target your ideal demographics via digital marketing strategies like PPC ads, social media marketing, and more.
4. Generate a Consistent Lead Pipeline
One of the main goals of digital marketing is to create a sales funnel. A sales funnel is basically a system for generating regular and consistent leads and sales from your web traffic. When you use digital marketing strategies, you generate a consistent lead pipeline. Perhaps in the past, you relied on billboards to market your business. But now, you use SEO tactics to attract more organic traffic to your website and convert that traffic into customers. When you use SEO and your website as your lead pipeline, you can help your customers move along the lead pipeline by reengaging them. Perhaps you offer 10% off their next purchase in exchange for subscribing to your email newsletter. Now, you have their email so you can give them a gentle nudge toward purchasing!
5. Helps Optimize Your Conversion Rates
Another benefit of digital marketing is that you can optimize your conversion rate conveniently. In the past, you couldn’t exactly track if someone who saw your newspaper ad actually purchased your product or service or not. In digital advertising, every interaction is tracked. You can immediately see how many people are seeing your ad and if they are clicking on it. Nearly every digital marketing strategy includes some kind of reporting. Plus, there are even conversion optimization services to help you pinpoint if your conversion rate is lower than it should be and help you improve it.
6. Ability to Measure Your Results
It’s hard to measure the result of your offline marketing strategies. However, with digital marketing, you can accurately measure your results (often in real time!) There are data analytics tools like Google Analytics and platforms with built-in analytics like Google Ads and Facebook Ads to help you. There are different metrics you can track, like your ROI (return on investment), your ROAS (return on ad spend), and more.
7. Increases Brand Awareness
Another benefit of digital marketing is that it increases awareness about your brand and helps your company gain credibility. For example, perhaps you run a PPC ad campaign. Even if someone doesn’t click on your ad, they will see your brand name in the ad and perhaps file it away in their head for later. That is the unquantifiable aspect of digital marketing. Also, if your page ranking increases on Google due to your search engine optimization, this gives people more confidence in your company when it appears higher in the SERPs. Or, if you start a blog as part of your content marketing strategy, that can help establish you as a thought leader or your brand as an authority within your industry.
8. Get More for Your Money
Many businesses are worried about the cost of digital marketing. However, it is likely much less expensive than you think. (There are even some free ways you can market your small business!) In fact, digital marketing is typically much more affordable than traditional marketing like expensive TV, radio, or print ads. For example, PPC advertising is a great investment for many companies. You also have control over your own campaigns, so you don’t have to worry about your budget running away from you. Companies typically find that they reap the reward of their marketing efforts.
9. Creates a More Even Playing Field
Yes, it might be hard to beat Amazon. But one of the best benefits of digital marketing is that it levels the playing field for everyone, both small and enterprise businesses. Not everyone can afford to create and air a Super Bowl commercial, but if you can create great content, you can still rank high on Google. Though your marketing budgets might not be the same, all companies have a chance when it comes to digital marketing.
Enjoy the Benefits of Digital Marketing
Now that you know the many digital marketing benefits available, it’s time to get started! Contact SEO Design Chicago today. We are a premier digital marketing agency that can create a cost-effective digital marketing campaign for business owners of any kind.
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