Why Your Business Needs Digital Marketing

Setting up startups and small businesses is no easy task, especially if you have to compete against big and well-established companies. And with the present COVID-19 pandemic, small businesses are looking for a marketing strategy to survive and adapt.

The digital technology has drastically changed the way businesses operate today. Now, digital marketing agencies are also stepping up their games in a remarkably way. Hence, businesses today are utilizing the digital universe to create brand awareness, impact and drive customers.

Digital Marketing and its importance to Small Businesses

Originally, businesses rely on traditional marketing in promoting business, such as printed ads, coupon mailers, billboards, or word of mouth, which are costly and hassle. But with how accessible the internet is today; businesses can also go digital.

Digital Marketing or online marketing refers to any marketing efforts that uses digital channels to reach target audiences and increase brand presence. These channels include social media marketing, content creation, email marketing, website, pay-per-click or PPC advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.

The group of potential customers that are found online is a much larger group of people that you would likely attract locally. Using digital marketing, businesses can reach a wide number of audiences in a way that is both cost-effective and measurable. The world is going digital, so as how people shop and buy product, so your marketing strategies need to.

The role of digital marketing for small businesses is to get as many as many prospective customers, increasing your online reputation, therefore bringing more sales. Increasing brand awareness and lead generation are the primary goal in digital marketing. When you’re utilizing powerful digital marketing tools available, you are achieving both.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is about how will you ignite visibility of your business to the targeted customers. In today’s digital world, connecting with your customers is the best way to achieve your business goals. Here are different benefits of digital marketing to your business.

1. Most cost-effective way to market your business

Marketing for small business can be difficult especially if you have limited budget and if you’re competing with larger companies using traditional marketing campaigns. There are digital marketing tactics that you can conduct for free like SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing. Digital marketing, hence became a ray of hope for small businesses.

2. Provide higher conversion rates

The conversions with digital marketing are proved to be higher compared to other forms of marketing. Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who took action, and can be tracked through conversion rate optimization which enables your business to reach out a higher number of customers. More visitors, means generating leads, and will help target higher sales through online advertising.

3. Allows you to reach your target ideal audience

As mentioned above, your potential customers can be found online with how most people are using the Internet. Using the right digital marketing strategy, you can connect with more specific targeted customers as well as existing customers, as it is interactive and follows a 1:1 ratio compared to other forms of marketing. Digital marketing will lead to an easier and faster way to find a product online and ensure that it would achieve predetermined goals.

4. Helps in generating higher revenue

While your digital strategy is giving you more conversions, it would also help increase revenue.  Digital marketing minimizes the expenses in promoting products or services. By aiming the potential customers, digital marketing ensures favorable sales outcomes and eliminates the possibility of wasting your time and money. Partnering with a digital marketing agency will also give faster results. There are marketing agencies for startups that would help you achieve your desired goals for your business.

5. Learn from your competitors

You may not know it but your competitors are using digital advertising before you do. Think of your competitors as someone you need to beat, but also the one who will instruct and teach you. In digital marketing, it enables businesses to compete even with big corporations and boost online presence for your brand. Additionally, you can also check reviews from consumers of different brand and see their online marketing tactics and perform competitive analysis, in which your business can benefit from and improve your own user experience.

6. Benefiting from the power of social media

It is a well-known fact that social media is a powerful avenue in marketing and advertising. With taking advantage of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you can reach out a lot of potential customers in a short time. The inclusion of social media tools paved way to influencer marketing, which means that it is no longer necessary to hire and pay celebrities to endorse your product. People with influential social media presence can also generate the interest of millions of people.

7. Gives measurable and faster results

Utilizing different digital marketing efforts and using it in the smartest way possible, businesses can easily measure results everyday for every digital marketing platform – may it be in the website traffic, social presence, and engagement. This will help you evaluate and assess your performance and improve your marketing strategies.

 Types of Digital Marketing

There are different types of top digital marketing channels that businesses use nowadays. It is essential to research and learn more about your brand, as well as the market in order to apply the right digital marketing strategy for your business.

• Pay-per-click advertising – type of digital marketing where you pay for every user who clicks on an ad
• Paid Search Advertising – a form of digital marketing where search engines such as Google ads and Bing allow advertisers to show ads on their search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Search Engine Optimization – the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. There are also SEO agencies that provide services including auditing your site, developing SEO strategies, and implementing tactics for businesses.
• Paid Social Media Advertising – a method of displaying advertisements or sponsored marketing messages on popular social media platforms and targeting a specific sub-audience. Examples are Facebook ads, which is a popular advertising in social media.
• Social Media Marketing – is a free and organic way to use social media sites to market your business. It utilizes the power of social media as an avenue for marketing.
• Conversion Rate Optimization – art and science of improving your online user experience (leads, chats, calls, sales) out of website traffic.
• Content Marketing – covers any digital marketing effort that uses content assets such as blogs, infographics, ebooks, videos).
• Native Advertising – a type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. In many cases it functions like an advertorial, and manifests as a video, article or editorial.
• Email Marketing – digital marketers uses this to advertise special deals, highlight content, or promote an event.

The list above proved that small businesses should definitely opt for digital marketing. In fact, even big and known businesses venture into powerful digital marketing because it is the trend and the present. Digital marketing sounds easy. As long as you have carefully planned out your goals and you know your customers.

Also, you can’t just throw content in different channels just because it is popular, but because it is the right platform for your business. You may opt to seek advice and help from digital marketing agencies to work with experts that will assist you to establish marketing solutions, create brand image, and create multiple marketing campaigns to increase the value of your businesses.  It is important to weigh your pros and cons, and graphically summarize online marketing techniques to prime into your small business or startups.