Initially, online marketing was just a new and innovative way of reaching the target audience. It emerged as a new form of media where everyone was promoting their goods and services. However, in the last few years, digital marketing has gained immense importance. It has become an integral part of the marketing strategy of every business and how they build their brand image.
Having a website and running some unfocused ad campaigns isn’t sufficient for a business organization. You need a robust digital marketing strategy if you want to move with the current times.
Here are 10 reasons why you need digital marketing services in India to grow and thrive:
1. Reaches People Where They Are
In 2020, the average user had at least 8.8 social media accounts. That is an 83.33% increase from 4.8 accounts per person in 2014.
83.36% of internet users are on social media and the average time they spend on it per day is 2 hours 24 minutes. Social media is a popular channel to reach out to the customer care of businesses.
When compared with millennials, GenX is more likely to connect with a brand online. Social media is a part of their everyday life, from school, work to entertainment and spending time with friends.
Social media is where people are. However, do they use it to interact with brands and purchase new products?
According to a study, people say that one of the top 10 reasons they spend time on social media is to purchase products based on advertisements they see. 37% of their social media time is spent interacting with branded content.
Nevertheless, marketers feel that their efforts on social media do not pay off as much. While some can win, others remain at the losing end. This is because creating a profile and posting content once in a while isn’t sufficient to gain a following and achieve sales. Businesses need a creative digital marketing strategy.
Marketers who understand the tactics to maximize digital marketing ROI win big. Social media marketing and advertising are small parts of digital marketing. However, they play a crucial role. Through this article, we will help you understand the different kinds of online marketing methods and their use in your digital marketing efforts.
2. Gives Small Businesses a Chance to Compete
When an established company enters the town, it wipes out many local specialty shops. The same is true in the online world as well. Small businesses find it challenging to compete with the millions spent by giants in marketing and reputation management.
Here, digital marketing gives them hope. They can use the right search engine marketing strategies and ad campaigns to hold top-ranking positions.
Digital marketing lets brands compete with even the top names by reaching out to a wider audience, using a much smaller advertising budget. If you know how to manage social media advertising, your business can enjoy laser-focused control over where and how money is being spent. With such control and the required data to analyze, it is easier to make smarter decisions.
3. More Targeted
One of the top reasons to use digital marketing is its ability to segment large sections of the audience. You can classify the audience into very targeted and focused groups and reach a specific type of person. This person is the right customer for you, who is likely to purchase your products and services.
By targeting your ads and segmenting your target audience, you deliver a highly relevant ad. Since it is relevant and you have carefully chosen the target audience, it connects on a level that more general advertising can’t. The connection feels direct and personal and gives it the ability to influence decisions.
Moreover, your ad is away from the annoying techniques of traditional advertising. You do not display the same ad thousands of times in a month, that too to a target audience that isn’t interested in your offerings. You do not repeatedly interrupt someone’s program.
In digital marketing, you don’t spend thousands on a single ad. And the duration for which you run the ads is indefinite. You can alter the same ad to reach out to different groups of people. No other advertising platform or form of marketing allows you to have so much control over who sees your ad.
4. The Power of Hyper-Personalization
Email marketing, another vital aspect of digital marketing, allows you to target the customer at an individual level. Top digital marketing agencies regard this as personalization.
A vast majority of customers prefer businesses that communicate via emails. Email marketing gives the user a sense of control and comfort to sign up for emails and buy from you. In case they are not satisfied with what you send to them, they can choose to unsubscribe.
However, when you send relevant content, they can choose to stay on your list and become repeat customers. Some basic email marketing programs also allow you to add the name of the person to an email.
The benefits of email marketing aren’t limited to personalization. The advanced approach with improvements like email segmentation and automation has proven to deliver results for the clients.
Segmentation allows you to collect data about every email subscriber. This data is then used to sub-divide the target audience based on their traits and behaviors. After the audience is segmented, you can share content that is most relevant to that particular subset.
If the content isn’t relevant, you can avoid sending it to them. Alternatively, you can make small edits and make it relevant for the target audience to interact with more and more people.
With automation, you can send the content at the right time to obtain the desired action. Through your data collection process, you know when it is the right time to engage with the target audience. This time can be a certain time of the day or immediate. It can also help you decide the order in which you need to send the messages.
Finally, email marketing allows you to benefit from personalization. You understand a person at the individual level. You are in a position to provide product recommendations because you have data regarding their purchase history. You know that they just selected a few products on your website and then abandoned their cart. You reach out to them, addressing them by their name. They feel you are individually giving them respect.
5. More Advanced Analytics
Understanding the performance of a TV ad is difficult. Through some testing, you can determine the best time to air the ad and the best frequency. You can develop a focus group to drill down on the data. But, it is generally the agency that will tell you the reach of the ad and if it was able to increase buzz, sales and meet your marketing goals.
On the other hand, when it comes to digital marketing strategy, you can obtain relevant data about your ads and the users. You can know whether users saw your ad, their level of interaction with it and if they liked and shared it with their friends. Moreover, you can analyze if the ad prompted another action or it led to a sale.
That’s not all. You can also acquire information about the people interacting with the ad. You can understand people who are most interested in your ads, what are their interests and preferences, what inspires them to take action, what is their spending capacity, and more.
Using this information, you can cut down on costs if you are not seeing a return on investment. You can also choose to increase efforts and spend in areas where you are seeing maximum traction. Moreover, you can streamline your campaigns to optimize your results.
6. Ease of Scalability and Adaptability
Like any other marketing strategy, you need an initial investment to start receiving traffic. However, the essence of digital marketing becomes visible, especially for small businesses, when you see that you can easily scale and adapt marketing spends with your business growth.
For instance, when you launch a social media campaign, search ads, or display ads, you set a daily budget. You have an estimate of the cost of the campaign.
Now, when the campaign starts delivering results, you can increase ad spends and continue the ad. There is no need to renegotiate for the spot, and your ad continues to run uninterrupted.
On the other hand, in case the ad isn’t delivering the results you expect, you don’t have to wait for the contract to end. You can immediately pause the ad or make alterations for better results. Everything is in your control, and with minor changes, you can re-launch the ad.
The most important benefit of digital marketing lies in the fact that you can see instant results. You can analyze data and accordingly change the ads to lessen wasted ad spend and lost revenues. Consequently, it is easy to say that digital marketing is highly cost-effective for a small business.
7. Highest ROI
The marketing method with the highest ROI is email marketing. It can generate a return of 3800%. So for every dollar, you spend, you can expect to earn $38.
While email marketing is highly converting, you need to make efforts to have quality subscribers on your list. And then provide these subscribers with highly relevant content.
Top digital marketing agencies prepare this list with efforts in social media marketing and content marketing. These marketing methods deliver an impressive ROI.
Content marketing has the ability to generate 3 times the leads compared to traditional marketing. Lead here doesn’t refer to website traffic. It refers to people who have the potential to convert into buyers and loyal customers depending on how you nurture your relationship with them.
The ROI of social media can sometimes be indirect. According to IBM, a lead coming in through social media is 7 times more likely to pay and buy your product. Higher chances of conversion also mean that you need to spend less money on converting people who are not likely to buy your products.
Small businesses are looking for cost-effective methods. You need to use every dollar effectively and invest more in the growth and development of your business. Digital marketing allows you to monitor every dollar you spend and know how it is going to deliver an ROI.
8. Meet People Where They Like to Shop
Today, consumers prefer to search for products and services online. They place a query and visit websites with good reviews. They don’t have enough time, and therefore, limit their search to the first 5 pages of Google search results. This means that simply having an online presence won’t get you the leads and traffic you desire.
You need to stay ahead of the competition by using the right set of SEO tactics and strategies. If you have a well-optimized website, it will be easily discoverable in search results, and users can arrive at it when they search for a relevant keyword.
When a friend shares a brand update on social media, other friends are likely to take an interest. Similarly, the results of a search query or email communication can influence their purchase decision. Integrating your business with the customer’s online experience is crucial and one of the most effective ways of growing your business online.
You need to establish a relevant online business for the vast majority of your customers. Digital marketing enables you to establish that presence.
9. Customers Prefer the Mode of Communication
Customers no longer like traditional advertising. They know that they have the power to block ads and leave websites that show pop-ups with annoying invites. They are making conscious choices of media to avoid channels that force them to watch commercials.
While it may sound cliche, customers expect respect. They want businesses to provide real information that can help with making informed decisions. They want to associate with brands that value their problems and keep them a part of their conversations.
Creative digital marketing enables brands to market to people in personal ways. It helps to establish a one-on-one connection and show that you respect your target audience.
10. Integrates with Mobile Technology
Many people are using their mobile phones to interact with brands. They may be searching for product reviews and other brand-related information while standing in your store. They may also be interacting with customer care via live chat.
If you integrate the mobile experience with the physical experience, you can leverage the opportunity to generate more revenues.
Tapping the benefits of mobile technology, you can send in an alert to all interested customers about your upcoming sales. Moreover, you can track their physical store behaviour and use the information to send more relevant content.
Final Thoughts
Digital marketing is crucial for businesses operating in the modern economy. Customers are online, and they prefer that brands reach out to them there. The purchase decision also begins on online platforms. And that indicates why you need to use digital marketing for your business.
