The age of Digital Marketing has arrived. Introduction of new technologies and social media have had a remarkable impact on consumer behaviour simultaneously the trends have been captured by means of data analytics. So it’s obvious that no business can ignore the age of digital marketing and communications and must be quick to adapt to the new dynamics or risk becoming irrelevant.
Here are a few factors why businesses must consider digital marketing:
- Cost Reduction
Businesses can create their marketing strategies online with minimal costs, which is a brilliant substitute for the pricey alternatives such as magazines, billboards, television and radio.
- Brand Recollection
An attractive website that caters to the needs of the target audience and utilizes social media tools boosts the positive recollection of the brand in the minds of consumers.
- Consumer Engagement
Digital marketing allows businesses to engage with prospective clients and customers like reviewing and rating products and services and providing valuable feedback. It also enhances the publicity, which further helps in converting prospects into loyal customers.
Business owners can no longer afford to think that Digital Marketing is only meant for MNCs or large companies that possess the resources needed to run a marketing campaign online. Rather, Digital Marketing provides smaller businesses with a level playing field so that they can compete against the big businesses.
Small companies can now engage in sales and marketing processes and do what large corporations can. Small businesses can now communicate better with multiple customers from any part of the world, without a brick and mortar presence or requiring call centres.
Digital Marketing helps in raising conversion rates increasing profitability of a business by increasing revenues. Since small businesses can expect growth, using digital marketing tools and techniques will lead to new opportunities of business expansion, workforce expansion and venturing farther ahead by catering to more customers locally as well as in markets abroad.
Internet business tools that have allowed businesses to interact with target audiences form one of the contributing factors of the recent boom in digital marketing as opposed to traditional marketing channels. Customer engagement is critical as expectations of customers are communicated and the manner in which businesses handle these interactions is often the difference between their success and failure.
Interacting with customers also provides an insight into the needs and wants of the prospective customer segments. Information like that is vital in making correct decisions to provide customers with better experiences, developing client-customer relationships with them, and winning their loyalty that helps the business to grow.
In the near future, mobile internet is poised to be the next source of communicating and seeking information, due to the increasing popularity and dependence on smartphones, tablets, and other internet-enabled hand-held devices. It’s high time to design marketing campaigns meant for the mobile consumer, as way of investing in the future and achieving even more growth and capturing markets before competitors do. Mobile gadgets were usually just an alternative for PCs and laptops, but have now become necessities that wield a considerable amount of influence on consumers’ decisions.
The success of digital marketing lies primarily in its simple ability to reach target audiences. It builds their interest in a business’s brand portfolio, products and services. If any promises are made as part of online campaigns, delivering on them helps a business in developing better relationships with their audiences, thereby converting them into loyal customers who will definitely come back regularly for new products and services.
Word of mouth helps in cementing brand reputation, as the satisfied customers are most likely to share their positive experiences with their peers or other people in their social circles. A viral brand reputation will further lead to new opportunities to achieve a greater target audience and growth in business.
The Internet has become a global phenomenon consisting of hundreds of millions of interconnected devices that is projected to grow to billions of devices or gadgets by the year 2020. With digital marketing, businesses will be prepared to take advantage of this Internet-enabled ecosystem influencing people’s lives to unimaginable extents. For businesses to survive in the age of the Internet, they will have to learn to capitalize on this interconnected world that gives them the opportunity to gain access to their target audiences who will undoubtedly be members of this massive web of interconnected devices, or to name it the virtual universe.