Marketing is a tool to communicate a product’s or service’s benefits to a targeted audience to convince them to buy. Once delivered through digital communication channels like e-mails, mobile apps, and social media, it becomes digital marketing.
The digital revolution boomed in the last two decades, imposing the need to digitalize marketing campaigns. With about 40.000 google searches per second and 4.2 billion social media users in 2021, of whom 2.93 billion are users of Facebook, it is more than evident that the audience is more interested in spending time virtually than being informed the old-fashioned way.
So, let’s find out what digital marketing is and its benefits to understand better the role of a digital marketing company as a recipe for success.
What is Digital Marketing?
Although some tactics have been around for a while, comprehensive digital marketing primarily took off in the last two decades in parallel with web-based search engines like Google.
Today, it consists of the following key elements:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a method that helps your website organically rank higher and become visible to a broader audience;
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a technique focused on paid ads to be seen by a more significant customer audience;
- Content Marketing is valuable, relevant, and consistent content about the product or service, digitally communicated to the audience;
- Social Media Marketing is communication with target customers via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media to get their attention with promo messages, as well as to direct them to your website;
- E-mail Marketing is communication with consumers by mail that they left when they visited your digital content and subscribed;
- Mobile Marketing is a technique when you send SMS, MMS, Apps, voices, and QR codes to communicate with the customers via smartphone.
What Are the Benefits of Digital Marketing?
Small or large enterprises, today, all businesses can lean on digital marketing practices to grow their customer base and boost conversion.
We’ll now explore some of the most prominent advantages of digital marketing:
Global Outreach
Digital marketing isn’t geographically-constricted, and lets business owners reach internet users worldwide. That way, instead of only focusing on local clientele, you can expand your products and services globally.
Fantastic for Local Business
For locally-oriented businesses, digital marketing also plays a vital role in spreading the company’s promotional messages and directing customers to its door. For example, local keywords are one way to attract clientele close to your business.
Low Costs
Digital marketing can be cost-effective and pays off in the long run. Firstly, there are always free tools such as social media or content marketing (if you exclude your invested time). Then there are low-cost DM practices like pay-per-click and SEM.
If you want to hire a digital marketing company, that would probably cost you a couple of hundred bucks a month. Nevertheless, the results will be immeasurable, and the investment will be worth it.
High Customer Engagement Level
Digital marketing is all about attracting a more extensive customer base. By implementing SEO and SEM practices, you’ll significantly increase the number of site visitors and, thus, your sale percentage.
Targeting and Strategy Effectiveness
Your competitor pools provide a better understanding of what they do and the digital marketing practices for their ongoing success. This data helps you improve your web ranking and even outsmart your competition!
Analytics and Optimization
One of the most outstanding achievements of digital marketing is the possibility of performing an analysis of an implemented campaign in real-time, doing fast and tangible research, and optimizing immediately.
Digital Marketing Challenges
All the opportunities that digital marketing offers come with challenges that marketers face, including:
Expertise and Skills
Some digital marketing tools require only a basic understanding that social media users with digital literacy can obtain in no time. However, a professional campaign calls for knowledge and skills that the average internet user does not possess.
Time-Consuming
Even with sufficient knowledge and skill for digital campaigns, you should not underestimate the time needed for their implementation, follow-up, and adjustment. It’s not like you launch a digital campaign, and your work ends there. You must regularly update it to follow the latest trends and browser changes.
Competition
In the global internet market, competition is far more numerous and everchanging; this requires constant monitoring, repositioning, and prompt responses.
Feedback and Complaints Handling
Being dedicated to client interaction can be beneficial, but also detrimental if not done correctly. Customer satisfaction is one of the defining success factors in any business, so no matter how time-consuming it is, you should ensure stellar customer service to any client.
Security and Privacy
When you hire a digital marketer, you aren’t only working to fulfill your personal goals. Taking care of your customers always comes first.
Thus, requesting that the digital marketing company establishes solid legal groundwork should be on your to-do list. That way, you’ll be able to protect your clients from identity theft or phishing attacks.
What Can a Digital Marketing Company Do for You?
Having all the above aspects as preconditions for business success imposes the dilemma of whether you are knowledgeable, skilled, and capable of doing all the heavy lifting yourself. And if you have any doubts, we have just the solution.
Digital Heart Media is an experienced digital marketing company where we have professionals who thrive in digital marketing. Get better insight here on who we are, what we do, and how we can help your business kick off.