21 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Is Important

The importance of digital marketing can’t be ignored especially if your business runs online.

Digital marketing offers better than the traditional marketing mediums. If not, then total global digital marketing spend would not have reached 306 billion by 2020.

Related: Top Digital Marketing Stats

Now is the age of the digital world. Whether it is social media, product reviews, product search, information, suggestions, or ideas, people go online every now and then. So, while you are still delaying your decision, you might be missing great opportunities out there. 

An important part is to realize that you will stay behind if you miss taking a step ahead because the world is moving too fast to catch. However, this is not the only reason why you need digital marketing.

Here are the top reasons why digital marketing is important for your business.

Reach A Bigger And Relevant Audience

According to recent stats, as of July 2020, 59% of the world population, equivalent to 4.57 billion people, is active on the internet. Out of this, social media contributes 3.96 billion active users.

Here, the role of social media mobile apps is prominent, which contributes to the highest. Also, the significance of fast performing and easy availability of internet access cannot be denied. 

All of these means you can have access to an enormous audience right at one platform. Comparatively, the number is much larger than what you can achieve through traditional marketing. 

Moreover, with the expected growth of internet penetration in the coming years, the possibility of reaching a bigger and relevant audience will be even higher with strategic digital marketing. 

Acquire Potential Customers On Platforms Where They Spend Most Of Their Time

A large percentage of people spend their time online on platforms like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and other channels. Out of this number, a larger fraction could be your existing customers and potential customers. Possibly, they are already looking for you or a business like yours. 

If they can’t see you online, they will quickly approach your alternative, the one who is visible on the web easily. Now, understand this. When your customer finds your brand, the first thing they would do is research your brand online to know more and more about you. 

They will check everything they could, your website, your social media presence, your reviews, and all, to ensure if yours is the right business to work with.  

Your presence on the web ensures your professional integrity. So, the broader is your presence, more is your authenticity and legitimacy. Hence, digital marketing is important for effective branding.

Explore What Your Competitors are Doing

The importance of digital marketing lies in the fact that it gives you enormous amounts of data to work on. Data-driven business decisions help your brand to reach new heights and allow you to defeat your competitors.

To stay ahead in the game, you need to show yourself as the best in the industry. But this is not possible unless you know what your competitors are doing. 

When you start studying your competitors, you will learn about how they present their brand, what kind of content they are posting, how they engage with their customers, and more. In cut short, you will come to know what tactics work and what don’t. 

Knowing all this will help your prospects know more about you and become more accessible with time. 

Get Found by Your Prospects Easily 

When you are building your online presence, you are also making yourself available to your customers and prospects. Means, your business is visible 24/7. This is why digital marketing is so important.

For example, your social media availability showcases your business and invites prospects, even when you are not open for business. 

Take another scenario when your customers discuss you on different forums, engaging, sharing their feedback, and unintentionally boosting your visibility. 

Plus, interested people can contact you through marketing emails or leave questions on your website. So, through digital marketing, you are providing enormous ways to your prospects to contact you.

Target Audience Who Are Interested In Your Business

Even if there are billions of internet users, they all can’t be your audience. So, you must find those relevant groups of people who are genuinely interested in your product or service. 

Specifying the audience, you want to target would be much more comfortable instead of targeting randomly. Here, digital marketing makes this possible, with one of the many targeting techniques called search advertising or paid advertising. 

The advertisement is displayed on the search result that is relevant to the keyword entered. Therefore, the ads visible to only those looking for that particular product/service.   

Build Trust for Your Brand

People initiate thinking about your products when they see your brand on multiple platforms. This is a common human nature that the more you are seen, the more you stay in mind. 

With digital marketing, you can show your presence on multiple channels and become more impactful. So, whenever a consumer thinks of buying a product you deal with, they will reach you.  

Use Email Marketing To Personalize Your Marketing Approach

Customers feel good when they are made to feel special. You can do it through email marketing. 

Related: Best Email Marketing Services

Technically there are ways when you can actually make your email subscribers realize that the email is created specifically for them. For example, the mail can contain, subscriber’s name, storytelling based on their purchase behavior, birthday, anniversary, and other information. 

Besides, there are other advanced levels of personalizing techniques in digital marketing. So, you actually raise your trust bar when you add a personal touch to your approach. Not to forget that there will be over 3 billion email users by 2020.

Build Reputation Of Your Brand

Small businesses often crave for the reputation of their brand. Traditionally, it takes years to earn credibility in a business, but not with digital marketing. 

When you are online, you have several ways to prove yourself. You have review sites, social media, and many other platforms to see what people are saying about you or how they feel about your business. Analyzing those, you can fix the issues and bring a better experience for your customers.

Offer an Impressive Experience To The Consumers via AR and VR

Products or services are showcased in the best way when consumers can have real experience. You can’t get it through traditional marketing, but this is possible with a digital marketing technique called Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR). 

Related: Augmented Reality Ads: The Definitive Guide

This is a virtual tour guide for customers, where they will be explained everything related to the product. As per Forbes, Industries, from real estate to mobile gaming, are using these tools as their marketing strategy and getting quite a good response. Imagine its efficiency with the fact that the virtual and augmented reality technology is forecasted to generate $150 billion in revenue by 2020.

Leverage Social Media To Reach Customers Directly

As Social Media offers 3.6 billion internet penetration, which is expected to rise to almost 4.41 billion in 2025, this could be the best platform to get customers. Shoppable Post is one of the Interactive content forms that can fetch customers right from the social media app to your store. 

For example, using Instagram integration, businesses can tag their products from an e-commerce platform, such as Shopify. There are other social media integrations with a similar feature.

Related: Shopify SEO Guide

Address Customer Issues Instantly

Digital marketing is much more beyond the promotion of your brand. It also involves customer satisfaction. Your customers might have questions, issues, suggestions, etc. that you must address to strengthen the relationship. 

With emails, forums, or live chats can be an effective and quick way of sorting out the issues. Your prompt reply will not only solve their problem but will also raise the bar of your business integrity.  

Mould Consumer’s Interest in a Fraction of a Second

According to Forbes, today’s consumers are more informed but have less patience. Their nature restricts them from watching longer ads. Also, they do not want to read advertisements that are not convincing enough. 

While this is a drawback for traditional advertisers, it can be a strength for digital marketing. It has the power to convince and convert consumers in a fraction of seconds. A simple image post or PPT slides with texts in it could be powerful enough to strike consumers’ minds within a second. 

Image posts are just an initial step that leads the consumers to the next steps if they like the first one. Instagram is one of the platforms for posting images or ads where businesses are performing incredibly well.

Make Consumers More Comfortable with Ads

Most consumers don’t actually consume ads through newspapers, leaflets, TV ads, or even websites with pop-up ads/invitations. The reason is the consumers don’t want to be forced to watch ads.

They want a well-informed ad to help them make a wise decision. They also look for space to have the freedom to watch ads of their choice and interest. Digital marketing provides a well-structured ad with solid reasons to choose a particular product without compelling them. 

Grab Maximum Opportunity Through Mobile

A recent stats says that over 75% of internet traffic will be mobile users this year. Smart mobile phones are handy and the easiest way to several activities while on the go. Be it checking the product reviews, adding reviews, checking out for more product varieties, and more, all while on the move. 

This is an opportunity to reach prospects. Using digital marketing, you can send an alert to provide information about your product they were interested in or more relevant offers. You can also invite individuals to visit your store by tracking their geo-location. However, this needs permissions from the users’ side.

Take Advantage of Voice Search

With the advent of advanced devices like Alexa or Google Home, people are more likely to search through voice search technology. Google says, 20% of its searches are voice search. With its growing popularity, its trend is only going to increase. As per reports there will be 21.4 million smart speakers in the US alone by this year.

Related: Voice SEO Guide

So, there is a possibility that your customers might look for you through voice searches as well, if not now, then probably later, but they will surely do. To prepare for this opportunity, you can make your business available to them using digital marketing. Your content will be optimized for voice search using long-tail keywords that are wordy and used most commonly. Other techniques are also involved.

Use A Combination of Marketing Strategies

Unlike traditional marketing, the digital mode of marketing doesn’t stick to a single strategy. It includes many varieties like SEO, SEM, content marketing, SMM, PPC, affiliate marketing, email marketing, etc.

Related: Ridiculously Easy Ways To Improve Content Marketing

Moreover, marketers keep coming with new ideas when they observe lower conversion with the existing strategy. Also, they keep experimenting with different ideas to get the best out of it. 

Measure Your Marketing Performance

Marketing will be effective only if you can measure its performance. Digital marketing is the technique that helps you measure its performance to make it even better.

It tells you many things about your marketing like whether your customer saw your ads, did they like it, did they share it with others, did they perform any action, and much more.

You can also learn about your customer’s interests, spending, online activity, most frequently used terms, and other websites that directed them to you.

By analyzing the given data, you can strategize your campaign more effectively for a more optimized result.

Gain Full Control Over Your Marketing Spends

A business runs when finance flows in two directions – first, towards the production, and second towards marketing. It becomes more comfortable when you have the power to control your investment.

With digital marketing, you can actually control your marketing investment. It allows you to invest in small segments, analyze its performance, and plan accordingly. For instance, you can set your daily budget with social media campaigns, search ads, and display ads. 

By choosing a budget, you know how much you are spending. Plus, you get the flexibility to continue if it converts or stop immediately. After making changes to your ad, you can relaunch it and analyze its performance again. It is digital marketing that gives you the flexibility to adapt to the changes quickly.  

Build Solid Relationships With Your Target Audience

Whether it is traditional or online, having a relationship with customers can pay really well in business. Not only do they prove to be loyal in longer terms, but they also support the brand advertisements in their community. 

The best way to communicate with your customer is to engage with them through social media or interact through review forums. In both ways, you can attract new prospects and convert them into customers.

Keep Your Marketing Investment In Budget

If you have a small business and are not adopting digital marketing, fearing that it might eat away your large sum of money, then you must know you can start with a little too. 

Budget is a huge concern for every business, and especially the smaller ones who want to be ready to back-up their loss. But here, you can invest in small chunks and observe its performance. Buying a whole package is not necessary. Choosing any specific marketing at a reasonable price will do.  

Ensure the Highest ROI 

With digital marketing, you can ensure the highest ROI compared to any other marketing channel. Email marketing, for example, generated a media ROI of 124 percent in 2017.

While email was the winner to drive conversions later in the funnel, other strategies were no less. SEO, social media, content marketing, paid search all have their own contribution.

A simple reason for their high return is their cost. Compared to the traditional form of marketing, be it newspaper ads, leaflets, or even TV ads, online marketing cost a lot less. 

Final Thoughts

Digital marketing is a highly effective way of growing a business and reaching new heights of success. By running different digital marketing campaigns, you can cultivate valuable results for your business. Today, many companies and enterprises have made digital marketing an integral part of their business. 

In recent years, the level of competition in business has risen to manifolds. In such a scenario, existing in the market is entirely impossible without a driving-force like digital marketing. It has the power to thrust your business to survive in the market and take you to heights too.