Why is digital marketing so important? Because it is not only a rapidly growing force in the current marketing playing field, it is set to be the future of marketing.
The facts are that digital methods of communication and marketing are faster, more versatile, practical and streamlined The good news is that digital offers just as much potential to marketers as it does to consumers.
Before we look at the benefits of digital marketing, let’s take a quick snapshot of some of the key forms of it at present:
Websites and SEO content
- Blogs
- Internet banner ads
- Online video content
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Mobile marketing (SMS, MMS, Whatsapp, etc.)
This is far from an exhaustive list, and new forms of digital marketing, such as augmented reality, are arriving all the time.
So, why digital marketing?First of all, digital marketing is infinitely more affordable than traditional offline marketing methods. An email or social media campaign, for example, can transmit a marketing message to consumers for the merest fraction of the cost of a TV ad or print campaign, and potentially reach a wider audience.
But one of the main benefits of conducting your marketing digitally is the ease with which results can be tracked and monitored. Rather than conducting expensive customer research, you can quickly view customer response rates and measure the success of your marketing campaign in real-time, enabling you to plan more effectively for the next one.
The bottom line - the digital age is here, and those businesses that fail to adapt to the new marketing climate are at great risk of going extinct sooner rather than later.
Need digital channel strategy?1. You are directionless
I find that companies without a digital strategy (and many that do) don't have clear strategic goals for what they want to achieve online in terms of gaining new customers or building deeper relationships with existing ones. And if you don't have goals, you most likely won't put enough resources to reach the goals, and you can’t evaluate through analytics whether you're achieving those goals.
2. You don't know your online market share
You don't understand your online marketplace. Because, the dynamics are different to traditional channels with different types of customer profile and behaviour, competitors, propositions and options for marketing communications.
3. Existing and start-up competitors will gain market share
If you're not devoting enough resources to digital marketing or you're using an ad-hoc approach with no clearly defined strategies, then your competitors will eat your digital lunch!
4. You don't have a powerful online value proposition
A clearly defined online customer value proposition will help you differentiate your online service encouraging existing and new customers to engage initially and stay loyal.
5. You don't know your online customers well enough
It's often said that digital is the "most measurable medium ever". But Google Analytics and similar, will only show you volumes of visits but not the sentiment of visitors and what they think. You need to use other forms of website user feedback tools to identify your campaign/product weak points and then address them.
6. You are not integrated ("disintegrated")
It's all too common for digital marketing activities to be completed in silos whether that's a specialist digital marketer sitting in IT or a separate digital agency. It's easier that way to package digital marketing into a convenient chunk. But of course, it's less effective if you are building a brand. Everyone agrees that digital media work best when integrated with traditional media and response channels.
7. Digital doesn't have enough people/budget given its importance
With the change and evolution of modern technologies, small and medium businesses are doing everything they can to keep up. However, insufficient resource will be devoted to both planning and executing e-marketing and there is likely to be a lack of specific specialised e-marketing skills which will make it difficult to respond to competitive threats effectively.
8. You are wasting money and time through duplication
Even if you do have sufficient resource it may be wasted. This is particularly the case in larger companies where you see different parts of the marketing organisation purchasing different tools or using different agencies for performing similar online marketing tasks.
9. You are not agile enough to catch up or stay ahead
If you look at the top online brands like Amazon, Dell, Google, Tesco, Zappos, they are all dynamic. They run new trial approaches all the time to gain or keep their online audiences.
10. You are not optimising
Every company with a website will have analytics, but many senior managers don't ensure that their teams make or have the time to review and act on them. Once a strategy enables you to get the basics right, then you can progress to continuous improvement of the key aspects like search marketing, site user experience, email and social media marketing.
The use of digital marketing is not only investment-wise decision but also an effective marketing channel that can help you grow your business. But, be careful! It works both ways! Happy customers can help you, but unhappy customer can harm your business very seriously. Work with professionals who knows this platform well. Talks to us. Let us show you how to maximise your digital media mileage.