10 WAYS DIGITAL MARKETING CAN HELP YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies such as mobile phones, desktop computers, and other digital media platforms to promote products and services to a larger audience. Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering goods, services or ideas to consumers or other businesses.
More and more small businesses are implementing digital marketing tactics to effectively reach and engage with their target consumers online. Digital marketing is very important in today’s world of technology and the internet that it has become crucial for businesses to employ digital marketing strategies and tactics. This innovation has helped companies grow and surpass their competitors.

One of the most important benefits of digital marketing is that it is the most cost-effective way to market your business. Compared to traditional marketing which is difficult for small businesses with limited budgets due to the costs associated with traditional marketing tactics like; shooting a tv advert and paying for advert slots. Digital marketing strategies and solutions allow small businesses to carry out more cost-effective digital marketing activities to build their brand, reach a larger audience and grow their business.

Digital marketing includes; social media marketing, pay per click marketing, email marketing, SEO, blogging, content creation, and affiliate marketing. 

Ways digital marketing can help small businesses include: 
1. DIGITAL MARKETING LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD

Digital marketing is the new playing field for brands. Either you innovate, get on the digital playing ground or get left behind. As a business, you are never too small to market your product or service on digital platforms. Digital marketing helps brands reach a larger audience. If you stick to one region, and your competitors are advertising to a larger audience through digital ads this is likely to lead to the inevitable death of your business. With the growth of technology and innovative digital marketing activities, digital marketing has made it possible for small businesses to reach their potential customers in a more cost-effective way and increased the chances of small businesses going toe to toe with big businesses.

2. DIGITAL MARKETING INCREASES BRAND VISIBILITY

There are numerous digital platforms where your small businesses can create accounts, or pages to promote your brand. You can advertise your product on various online platforms. Facebook allows you to promote your product or service for as low as $5. Instagram, Twitter and so on also allow for sponsored ads. Paid advertisements can help you in promoting your business. It’s an effective way to increase visibility which as a result can help with business growth.

Your competitors are online, your target audience is online; you should, therefore, get online and create awareness for your brand. It costs zero dollars to list your business with google my business as well as create a profile that lets you easily connect with customers across Google Search and Maps.

3. HELPS YOU TARGET YOUR IDEAL AUDIENCE

There are 7,771,292,395 people in the world as of 2020, and 4,504,096,279 internet users as of 2020. However, they all can’t be your target audience. If your product or service is gender-specific, it means that your target audience has been narrowed down to the percentage of that certain gender, and if it is region-specific it has been narrowed down more. What digital marketing does is to target a specific audience tailored for your product at their convenient time to carry out the desired action you want.

This is as opposed to showing your ad to a general population, or group at a certain time and hoping that a percentage of the audience carries out the desired action. It helps you to target your ideal audience. On average, we spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on our phones daily, so digital marketing helps you target your audience where they are at their own time.

4. YOU CAN CALCULATE METRICS LIKE REACH AND CONVERSION

How do you know if your marketing is working? Unlike traditional marketing where it can be difficult to track success, digital marketing helps you measure your success per campaign over time. Digital marketing helps you work based on facts, history, and behavior patterns. It takes the guesswork out of determining whether your marketing is actually working. Instead of assuming that your target audience will be watching television at 8 pm or passing by a certain billboard at a certain time. Digital marketing helps you meet your audience at their own convenience. You can also see what strategies are working and which need to be removed or modified for greater success.

With digital marketing, you can allocate your budget more effectively. Since you have eliminated most of the guesswork, you know what is working and what is not working. You can spend more money on effective strategies and those that are not fully effective, you remodify to make the most of your ad budget. 

5. DIGITAL MARKETING IS CHEAPER

As a small business, your marketing budget will be small compared to your bigger competitors with big marketing budgets. Digital advertising is 40 percent cheaper than traditional forms of advertising. Gartner, a research and advisory company, reports that 41 percent of digital advertisers put the savings from their digital ad campaigns back into their businesses.

You don’t have to hire a big production team, photographers or professionals to push content online. At the very least, all you need is a smartphone to push out content and engage with your target audience online.

6. DIGITAL MARKETING INCREASES SALES

Digital marketing helps to create awareness for your brand online by allowing you to put your product or service online and promoting it to a large audience to generate sales. It facilitates high conversion rates generated by effective digital marketing strategies and techniques which deliver profitable benefits to your business in terms of better and higher revenues.

7. DIGITAL MARKETING PROVIDES BETTER ROI FOR YOUR MARKETING INVESTMENTS[b]
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The cost of traditional marketing is too high for small businesses to afford but digital marketing can provide a better return on investment which is measurable. Digital marketing can easily be tracked, monitored and conversion measured when the audience carries out activities like providing contact information or making a purchase. Digital marketing helps to generate a steady flow of targeted traffic that converts into potential customers and sales.

8. HELPS YOU CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE AND CREATE BRAND LOYALTY

With digital marketing unlike traditional marketing, there is room for feedback. You can get what your audience has to say and you can also communicate with your audience easily. Digital marketing helps you to bring your brand closer to your audience and your audience closer to your brand. It helps you to understand your audience, build a community and foster brand loyalty. It also helps you provide solutions to solve your customer’s problems based on feedback. 

9. YOU CAN OFFER IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE

Good customer service is essential to your business’ success. Digital marketing allows your audience to reach you faster, this helps you deliver your customer service activities faster and easier. It enables you to answer questions and resolve issues easier and faster.

10. DIGITAL MARKETING BUILDS BRAND REPUTATION

Reputation is one of the most important assets for a brand. Your brand reputation communicates to consumers whether or not you can be trusted with their time, energy, and money. The power of digital marketing lies in its ability for attracting targeted traffic. A good reputation will help attract customers who will buy your product or service because they can trust your brand. Digital marketing allows you to control your brand’s narrative by pushing out brand messages that align with your mission and vision. 

Delivering on what you promised will help you develop a better relationship with your target audience, and help with the decision-making process for prospective customers and their transition into paying customers. This will also prove beneficial for your brand reputation, as satisfied customers will most likely tell other people about their experience with your brand, product or service which will attract more customers.

Digital marketing is here to stay and your business is not too small to jump on the digital marketing bandwagon. The tactics, technology, and strategy of digital marketing can also help you grow your small business to bigger business, and achieve your business dreams. The business world is constantly changing especially with the growth of technology and digital marketing, so adapt and grow with the trend. This is a race that you do not want to be left behind in.

References 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_marketing
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketing.asp
https://www.sabaseo.com/benefits-digital-marketing-offers-small-business/
https://digitalmarketingskill.com/ways-digital-marketing-can-help-boost-business/
https://blog.biznurture.com/2019/08/effective-methods-to-promote-small-businesses-on-a-limited-budget/
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
http://internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ 
https://blog.rescuetime.com/screen-time-stats-2018/

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