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Still not using Digital Marketing in your business?

16 reasons to start now, in the aftermath of the pandemic

“Marketing is the process by which an organization engages creatively, productively, and profitably with the marketplace for the purpose of creating and satisfying customers within the organization’s parameters” Phllip Kotler and Joanne Scheff

If marketing is a relational process, digital marketing is the same process, optimized and adapted to the reality of the 21st century, in which we are constantly connected with people, companies and organizations online.

Like traditional marketing, digital marketing is about creating relationships. It is a social, interactive and participatory process. However, unlike traditional marketing, limits to its reach are virtually non-existent.

Living online has been growing in recent decades, and just look at the reality we live in 2020 to realize that the experience of human socialization has changed forever.

The covid-19 pandemic has accentuated this trend, in which everything can be done online. If before we shared our experiences – work, shopping, conviviality, entertainment, information, etc. – between online and offline, recent times have proven that it is not only possible, but, for many, it is also convenient and desirable, that all these areas of life are experienced through the internet.

If you still don’t have digital marketing in your business, it’s likely that, by now, you’ve started to see its advantages. More than ever, it is clear that online, with its methods and tools, is here to stay. The paradigm, which was already changing, solidified when we realized that we can access virtually all areas of our professional and social life without leaving home.

If online communication was already a fundamental strategic axis, used by all types of companies, brands and organizations, nowadays it is particularly important for small and medium-sized companies, for which it becomes more challenging and expensive to reach the public through traditional methods.

Both online and traditional media communication must be carefully planned and put into practice in order to obtain the desired results. Whatever your area of expertise, your business needs digital marketing more than ever. Start implementing it now, to experience the following advantages:

 

1 – Know your target audience

The target audience is your ideal customer. The one for whom your product is most appealing and who will be most likely to purchase it once they get to know you. The definition of the target audience, whether it concerns a brand, a specific product, or an advertising campaign, must be careful and does not dispense with in-depth knowledge of the demographic, psychographic characteristics, consumption habits, and behavior of that same customer. Digital marketing allows you to become aware of all these factors.

Nowadays, we have the possibility of an unprecedented interaction. When previously, you could only know who these customers were and where they were, currently, with the use of digital tools, you can come to know the feelings, needs and desires of your target audience and define how you can satisfy them.

2 – Know your customers

Your customers are people, and they shouldn’t be reduced to numbers. Because it is based on tools that are, by their nature, interactive, digital marketing allows you to get to know your customers.

Establishing this knowledge in analytics is a start, as you will be able to gain important notions about volumes. “How many people visit my page per day, which days and times are most popular, etc.”. However, access to your customers’ perceptions, feelings, needs and desires is essential to ensure favorable communication.

Making use of other digital marketing methodologies, you can give the opportunity and incite your customers to react, respond, participate and, essentially, feel part of a community created around your business.

Digital allows you an unprecedented proximity and a much deeper knowledge than that generated by traditional methods, which you can leverage to better achieve your company’s specific objectives.

 

3 – Know your market share

Knowing the market share of your business is extremely important. There are new tools that allow you to do this online and provide you with all the information you need to plan your company’s next steps.

4 – Know your impact

Digital marketing allows you to get the data you need, define appropriate metrics and analyze the collected information. Being able to measure factors such as traffic and calculate conversion rates, you’ll easily know if the strategies you put into practice are working.

“Who are the people who visit my page? Where are they directed? What percentage of visitors from this ad, which I strategically placed, buy products on my page? What products do they buy? How much and how often?”

The answers to these and many other questions will uncover the weaknesses and success factors of your strategies and help you define what you should keep and what you can change in the future.

 

5 – Make yourself known

Any business is made up of people. Digital marketing not only promotes your services and products, but also takes a step that is considered by many marketing theorists to be fundamental for the 21st century: it allows you to humanize your business.

If your audience members know your company well, identify with what you offer, as well as with the brand, and with your mission, they are more likely to convert into loyal customers.

 

6- Create a relationship

Since marketing is a relational process, it is natural that this is an important step in the digital component as well. If you know your customer and your customer knows you, a relationship is created that should not be neglected.

This relationship is important in terms of communication and image, but it also allows you to implementation of strategies, as sales funnels, in which it deepens the relationship with a certain percentage of customers, who will be interested in some of its products or services of a more premium, which may not appeal to your entire clientele.

By thinking of its customers as individuals, it opens the door to deepening the relationship with each one of them, with benefits for both parties.

 

7 – Better define your target audience

It is quite likely that your business already has a defined target audience. However, if you are not yet using digital marketing, it is also likely that this definition is still somewhat limited.

Online tools allow you to refine the definition of the target audience and go far beyond demographic characteristics (my product is aimed at young men, between 18 and 24 years old) and explore psychographic characteristics (those who practice sports extreme) to the limit (who regularly buy protein snacks and have watched superhero movies in the last year)

With the help of these tools, you can refine and direct your message about each of your services or products to different audiences, for whom they are most relevant. These methodologies also allow you to spread these messages in the places where the people you want to communicate with are. There is a huge variety of online media, websites, platforms, social networks, blogs, newsletters, etc., but not all of them will have the same relevance for your target audience and, for this reason, they will not have the same relevance for your business.

 

8- Meet the customer

Your customers are already online. Digital tools allow you to meet them in the “places” they most frequent, deepening the relationship and making them not forget that they can count on your business, find you and interact with you easily and at any time.

In addition, digital allows you to easily reach out to your potential customers. Your loyal clientele is online, and so is your target audience. A well-defined strategy will take into account the behaviors of each segment of your audience, to reach them in a simple and effective way.

9 – Reach a global audience

There are currently no limits to its range. While with traditional methods, reaching audiences that are geographically distant or socially less accessible is not compensatory, digital tools allow your business to reach wherever and whoever you want.

10 – Adapt your strategy

As already mentioned, digital marketing provides you with tools to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. By putting these methodologies into practice, you will better understand your effective and potential audiences, you will know which platforms are most desirable and you will have a good understanding of the success that your communication and sales strategies will have in each of the efforts undertaken.

Therefore, not only is obtaining all this information quick, but so is its adaptability. It can quickly and easily adapt to data analysis, customer and target audience feedback, as well as the advances of its competitors, in order to implement new and improved strategies based on all the information collected.

11- Integrate digital with traditionallego digital marketing pandemic

Your strategy must be integrated in order to avoid duplicating efforts or even transmitting contradictory messages or images about your company. Your communication must be cohesive across all channels used, whether online or offline.

Each channel allows you to communicate in a different way and even make known different facets of your company, but the fundamental message and value proposition must be precisely the same. Take advantage of all the means at your disposal, maintaining the professionalism and solidity that your customers are used to.

 

12 – Be competitive

Your competitors are online and so are your potential customers. Not having a strong online presence means losing market share to businesses similar to yours that have made that investment and will be easily found by anyone looking for products and services similar to what your company has to offer.

However, in terms of competitiveness, as in traditional marketing, a mere presence on the right channels is not enough to attract customers and get them to interact with you and purchase your products or services. Have you peeked at your competitors online? What platforms are they on? How do you communicate with customers? What means do they use to do this? How can you compete with them?

There are countless ways to innovate and create a dynamic and participatory online presence that you can explore.

 

13 – Be approachable

One of the great advantages of a strong online presence is that customers can come to you in a variety of ways. By implementing a digital marketing strategy for your business, in addition to meeting customers, you will create ways for even more to come to you. There are several methodologies to generate traffic to your website, blog, pages on social networks, etc.

Another advantage is that, in the online world, there are virtually no geographic barriers or time constraints. Even when you are not physically available, your company, products and services can be accessible and possibly purchased conveniently.

 

14 – Meet expectations

Your customers are already online and expect to find you there, with a presence that reflects what they are used to receiving from you in more traditional spaces.

There’s no better way to be convenient for your customers than being online. If they know they can find you quickly, communicate with you and purchase your products or services easily, they will feel confident in your company.

 

15- Establish trust in your business

As already mentioned, your target audience is online. If a potential customer finds out about your business through traditional means, their next step will be to look for it online and, if they don’t find it, they may question the legitimacy of your business and choose your competitor. The online space allows, in addition to the creation of close relationships, the establishment of trust.

One of the main issues in marketing is positioning. It is known that if you do not position your company in such a way as to create the desired opinions, the public will do it for you. A good online presence projects an image of reliability, modernity and transparency.

 

16- Savings

Never before has it been possible to reach such vast and diverse audiences, and in such creative ways. However, many of these new ways of doing this

lower costs than traditional marketing.

 

Having established the importance of an online presence, it is important to realize that it must be thought of and studied strategically. This must be appropriate to your area of activity and created according to the image and message you want to convey about your company and in an appealing way for your customers and target audience.

Your customers are online. Your potential audience is online. Your competitors too. And your business? Why isn’t it there yet?

Carlota Pignatelli Garcia
Carlota Pignatelli Garcia

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