Kevin Gardner, Negosentro | If you still rely only on traditional advertising methods like billboards or newspaper, investigate digital. Marketing online and via text and instant messaging offers improved targeting, reach and conversions. More than 90 percent of the US alone use their cell phone as their main Internet browsing source. They research purchases and buy online. Without targeting digital marketing channels, you miss the majority of users on their preferred communications means. That translates to missed customers and lost revenue while marketing digitally brings you more of both.
Digital Marketing Defined
Digital marketing refers to the practice of advertising and promoting products or services via electronic media, such as the Internet and SMS. Its full list of channels includes the following:
- digital television,
- electronic billboards,
- mobile apps,
- mobile instant messaging,
- podcasts,
- radio channels,
- wireless text messaging.
Digital marketing offers real-time metrics/analytics. With it publicists can immediately access data on items like:
- campaigns viewed,
- frequency of views,
- length of views,
- sales conversions.
How Digital Marketing Helps
The Internet affords people the ability to research and exchange information at any time. People can research purchases in advance and determine if an item is worth the investment. People choose brands they can trust and companies who get to know them. The chosen brands offer personalized relevant communications. They provide offers and sales customized to the customer’s needs and likes.
The advantage of digital marketing is simple: it works just as effectively for the brand to information gather, too. It can easily cull big data to get to know customers and craft likable personas that help them communicate. Although one of the best known personas, Betty Crocker, began many years before big data, she undergoes regular updates. It once took massive man hours and research to conduct the research to create an advanced persona such as her, but now the constant stream of big data and instant analysis assembles a report in minutes. The business must know its customer better than its competitors do. As much as marketing has changed the most advanced persistent threats remain the competition. Know your customer better than anyone and provide what they want and need to keep them.
Ten Digital Marketing Keys
Beyond its overall benefit of customer development, marketing digitally also offers ten other key benefits.
- Cost effective advertising. It costs less than traditional methods of advertising. This levels the playing field for small businesses.
- Constant customer connections. Strengthen your connection directly through online communications and in-store electronics like robotic coupon dispensers. Your brand’s app can alert users to stores carrying their product when they near it.
- Engages the latest technology. Digital methods let you engage mobile devices. In the US, that’s the device 91 percent of adults keep within reach at all times. Those are also the devices they use to browse online on a daily basis.
- Increase ROI and Revenue. Customers use and respond to digital marketing. Big data extracted from marketing campaigns lets you further customize ads to further increase reach.
- Analytics and Metrics. Small businesses benefit the most because most analytics programs are free. Your real-time data lets you build personas to further enhance reach.
- Increase conversion rates. Convert website visitors or ad clicks into leads, sales or subscribers.
- Target social media audiences. Use age, country and interests to hone audience and reach.
- Increased engagement. The more likes your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter posts draw, the more you increase brand trust and reach since each social media shows your likes to your followers.
- Word of Mouth. Digital word of mouth travels even faster than in real life. People trust services and brands trusted by their friends and colleagues.
- Monitor competition. Use Google Alerts to study competition and learn their marketing strategies.
Moving to digital marketing lets your brand reach new target audiences with perfectly honed messages crafted to increase engagements and conversions. Digital offers real-time metrics tracking and automated analytics that generate reports with a click. Since it costs less than traditional advertising methods, there’s really no reason your company shouldn’t market on digital channels.
