If you believe that having a website alone can help grow your business in 2024, then you’re mistaken.
A website is merely a virtual office or storefront. You need to market it to get people to visit it.
With people spending more time online now than ever before, nothing can help you promote your business more effectively than digital marketing.
Digital marketing is so accessible today that businesses of all sizes and types can benefit greatly from it.
If done right, every business, whether it is an MNC, a hospital, a boutique, or a small startup, can reap the benefits of digital marketing.
Here are some major advantages of digital marketing that you can enjoy as a business in 2024.
What Exactly is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing refers to smart marketing practices that are conducted through the internet or any electronic device.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), Social Media Marketing, etc. are some of the forms of digital marketing.
Digital marketing companies use these techniques, either singly or in combination, to accomplish their objectives.
Essentially, the principles of digital marketing and conventional marketing are the same, except for the platforms and strategies used.
Digital marketing has a few distinctive characteristics:
1. Measurability
Every campaign can be measured. In digital marketing, the reach and responses of all advertisements can be collected numerically.
This data helps companies to come up with better marketing strategies in the future.
2. Personalization
Digital marketing allows you to easily understand your customers, track their purchasing habits, and learn about their interests, likes, and dislikes.
This allows you to offer (or tailor) products and services to their specific needs.
3. Two-way communication
Unlike traditional marketing practices, digital marketing provides a platform for two-way communication.
Every message you send helps you start a conversation with your audience, which helps you build a stronger rapport with them.
4. Targeted ads
It lets you target specific demographics.
You can target people based on their age, gender, profession, geography, interests, etc.
For example, if you are running a sustainable women’s clothing boutique, you can target women who are searching for sustainable women’s clothing.
8 Different Types of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a more affordable form of advertising.
This is due to the fact that it comes in many forms; you can call them digital marketing techniques or tactics.
A successful digital marketing strategy is the result of combining two or all of these forms.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving your website’s visibility in search results as well as the number of quality visitors to your website.
This is accomplished by optimizing your website as well as the factors that influence your search ranking.
2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a form of internet advertising that enables you to display your website in search results for specific search queries.
Google Ads is the most common example of PPC.
3. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the practice of leveraging social media channels to build a brand, increase sales, increase revenue, and drive more visitors to a website.
It includes sharing and scheduling social media posts, posting ads and influencer marketing.
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing is a type of Internet marketing that involves making and sharing videos, blogs, newsletters, white papers, and social media posts to promote your products and services and get people interested in them.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a form of online direct marketing where you send personalized emails to a large group of people with the intention to inform them about your products and services and convert them.
6. Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing refers to advertising campaigns that target consumers through mobile devices.
This includes SMS, MMS, app push notifications, e-mail, and so on.
7. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing arrangement where you pay a commission to a third-party website in exchange for them promoting your products and services on their website or social media handles.
8. Video Marketing
Use platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram for sharing engaging video content.
This can include product demos, tutorials, customer testimonials, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
Videos are highly engaging and effective, capturing attention, conveying information, and telling your brand story
What makes Digital Marketing so Crucial for Your Business?
With more and more people relying on online sources to get information and purchase products, digital marketing has become crucial for every business.
It’s of dire importance to your business since:
It can help your business reach a wider audience as there are no geographical boundaries on the internet. With the help of digital marketing, your company can reach every corner of the world anytime.
It helps you to target the right audience at the right time due to the ease of personalization offered by digital marketing.
It helps you reach more customers at lesser costs than traditional marketing.
Digital marketing can help you communicate with your potential customer during each stage of the buying process.
It can help you build a loyal customer base; you can use the input you get about your customers to serve them better every time.
It can help you measure your marketing efforts numerically, providing scope for improvements in your future marketing strategies.
What are the Most Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for Your Business?
Whether you’re just starting out or already have an established business, there are plenty of marketing strategies to help you build your brand and grow your business.
A few such strategies are as follows:
1. Marketing automation
Marketing automation uses software to carry out routine marketing activities without requiring the involvement of humans.
This strategy helps save time, generate new leads, and nurture them, all at a lower cost.
2. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a vital marketing strategy that every company, especially small businesses, must follow.
Influencers have a loyal fan base on social media platforms.
These fans look up to them for specific personal recommendations.
Due to its high engagement rate, this becomes an ideal marketing strategy for small businesses to generate leads and build brand awareness.
3. Referral marketing
It is a powerful marketing tactic that uses word of mouth to grow a business clientele through networks of its existing customer base.
In simple terms, your customers become your brand advocates here.
4. Personalized email marketing
Email marketing is one of the best ways to acquire and retain customers.
Here, personalized emails containing specific offers, relevant content, and essential information are sent to specific customers.
5. Digital event marketing
Events that occur online, like podcasts, live discussions, and online conferences, can help your brand to generate leads.
These events also allow your company to gather data regarding your audience’s preferences and curate specific marketing strategies that cater to them.
6. Google my business listing
GMB can help your business gain visibility and credibility.
Google Business Profile will help you provide in-depth details about your business.
It is vital since it can increase your ranking in search results and provide potential customers with opportunities to find you.
15 Main Advantages of Digital Marketing for Businesses
Digital marketing is relatively more affordable.
Therefore, it is perfect for any business with big plans and a small budget.
But that doesn’t mean it’s only meant for small businesses; even large corporations can benefit from digital marketing.
Here are the most important reasons why every business should adopt digital marketing today.
1. Global audience reach
Traditional marketing is tough because it’s limited by location and can cost a lot.
But with digital marketing, businesses can sell their products or services to people everywhere using an online store, saving money.
Through digital marketing strategies, they can connect with a vast global customers. This connection expands the brand and increases sales to a broader audience.
2. Reach local customers
You can increase your local visibility through digital marketing.
With the help of local SEO services and targeted ads, you can reach customers in your area and make it easy for them to find you.
From startups to boutiques, every local business can benefit from digital marketing.
3. Build brand and credibility
You may be familiar with Kylie Cosmetics and Nykaa.
Both these brands tapped online marketing to achieve rapid success in an industry dominated by L’Oreal, Lakme, and Maybelline.
That’s the power of digital marketing; you can build a brand quickly.
Digital marketing strategies can also help build trust in your brand.
4. Interact with customers
Another notable advantage of digital marketing is that it offers a higher level of customer engagement.
Customers can “comment” on, “share,” and “like” your posts, allowing you to strengthen your relationship with them.
This can generate more sales.
5. Gain customer loyalty
You can interact with your customers, solve their problems, answer their questions, and run loyalty programmes to make them brand loyal.
There are various third-party loyalty program services available on the market for this purpose, but it’s important to choose the best one.
Opting for the best loyalty program apps ensures you can offer rewards, discounts, and personalized offers based on customers’ purchase history and preferences.
Customer loyalty is critical to a business’s success because a happy customer will not only return but will also recommend your products to their friends and family.
6. Target your audience effectively
Effective targeting is a cornerstone of successful digital marketing.
By leveraging tools such as pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization, businesses can gain valuable insights into their target audience’s behavior and preferences.
There are also strategies to expand your reach.
For example, incorporating popular TikTok hashtags can increase the chances of your video going viral.
These insights allow your digital marketing or SEO agency to craft tailored campaigns that reach the right people at the right time for your business.
To maximize campaign impact, close collaboration between digital marketing and sales teams is essential.
By utilizing resources like competitive battle cards and ongoing training, you can refine targeting strategies and significantly improve campaign performance.
7. Improve your social currency
Social currency refers to the monetary value of your business’s likes, followers, comments, shares and views.
In simple words, it refers to your company’s online worth.
Social currency is essential because it directly affects your visibility. It requires a lot of time and effort to earn social currency.
As your social currency increases, so will the number of new and returning customers.
8. Wide range of content types at your disposal
Another less-discussed advantage of digital marketing is that it’s easier and less expensive to reproduce one piece of content to fit across multiple platforms, which is a luxury that traditional marketing lacks.
Digital marketers use a variety of content types, such as eBooks, podcasts, blogs, and so on, to help a brand grow online. All of these content types can help you increase your online visibility.
9. Lower advertising costs
One of the most significant advantages of digital marketing is its affordability. It’s the cheapest and best alternative to traditional marketing.
This is primarily because digital marketing campaigns require fewer resources when compared to traditional marketing.
10. Lead generation
The primary goal of digital marketing is to convert visitors into paying customers.
It closes the gap between your business and potential customers by eliminating window shoppers.
You can achieve consistent lead generation by optimizing your landing page, targeting advertisements, etc.
11. Use analytics to optimize future campaigns
Web analytics can measure the result of your digital marketing campaigns in real-time.
This provides scope to fix any mistakes and improve your future marketing strategies.
It also helps you identify your traffic source, enabling you to take control of your sales funnels.
12. Better conversion rates
Because of its focused approach, digital marketing has a higher conversion rate than traditional marketing.
By combining analytics with a killer web design and remarketing strategy, you increase your chances of achieving optimal conversion rates and effectively increase sales.
Higher conversion is one of the significant benefits of digital marketing
13. Track and measure the campaigns
With the help of google analytics, every digital marketing campaign can be tracked in real-time and measured numerically.
This helps digital marketers to make necessary changes and come up with better marketing campaigns in the future.
14. Remarketing
Another significant advantage of digital marketing is the opportunity for remarketing.
Customers who have previously expressed interest in your products can be targeted across multiple platforms until they are converted.
For example, if someone leaves your online store after adding a product to their cart without buying it, you can remind them by showing an ad for that product on other platforms.
15. Instant Reach
Compared to traditional marketing methods, digital marketing allows businesses to reach a wider audience almost instantly.
This immediate reach enables brands to engage with their audience in real time, respond quickly to current events, leverage trending topics, and connect with specific groups through tailored messages.
Here are a few examples:
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X allow content to be shared immediately with large audiences.
Email marketing enables businesses to send targeted messages to subscribers within minutes.
SEM ensures that paid ads appear at the top of search results as soon as they are approved.
PPC campaigns allow ads to be displayed on websites and apps right after the campaign is launched.
How do You Know If You need to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?
It can be difficult to strike a balance between your primary business activities and digital marketing.
Due to its complexity and the fact that you are not an expert, attempting to manage digital marketing on your own will only harm your business.
To reap the above-said benefits of digital marketing, you have to seek professional help.
Here are some indicators that show it’s time to hire a professional digital marketing agency for your business.
1. Your marketing team isn’t tech savvy
On the exterior, digital marketing may seem simple and easy.
This isn’t true since digital marketing works with several analytical technologies which a commoner may not be aware of.
Even if somebody is acquainted with these tools, they might not know how to use them optimally.
Only a digital marketing expert would know to utilize these tools and help your business grow.
2. Low ROI
You may need to hire a digital marketing agency if your past strategies haven’t been quite successful.
Your marketing team works across several channels and may be unable to prioritize vital components like SEO, PPC and Google Analytics.
On the other hand, digital marketing agencies have the expertise and the resources to handle every aspect of digital marketing to help achieve your internet marketing goals.
3. You cannot stay on top of digital marketing trends
Google’s algorithm keeps changing. One needs to keep up with these changes and the latest tools and trends in digital marketing regularly.
You may be unable to follow all this closely but a digital marketing expert will.
And they will come up with effective strategies to help your company get an edge over your competitors.
4. You lack technological strength
Working with an agency can be the right choice if you’re looking to scale your digital marketing efforts at the best possible rates.
Maintaining a team of professionals in-house and purchasing the latest tools can be more expensive than hiring an agency.
On the other hand, when you hire an agency, you get access to the best professionals and most advanced tools on the market, without having to spend a fortune on purchasing and training.
Digital marketing is critical for any business that wants to thrive in the digital age.
But, it can make or break your business depending on how you do it.
If your business needs any assistance with digital marketing, contact us right away. Global Media Insight is a digital marketing company that offers services such as SEO, SEM, PPC, Social Media Marketing, etc. We can assist you in achieving your marketing objectives most cost-effectively.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the biggest advantage of digital marketing?
The primary benefit of digital marketing is the cost-effective and measurable way in which a specific audience can be addressed.
What type of business needs digital marketing?
Any business that is looking to expand its brand presence online and increase sales can benefit from digital marketing. Some examples of businesses that can use digital marketing include- service-based companies like law firms, local and small businesses, e-commerce platforms, and start-ups.
Can digital marketing help me build brand awareness?
Yes, digital marketing channels can create memorable brand campaigns and engage with target audiences quite easily.
Is digital marketing the future?
Yes, with digitalization taking over every field, digital marketing has become an essential element for all businesses to survive and grow.
GMI’s Research Team is a panel of knowledgeable experts from various fields such as digital marketing, social media, and web development, all united by a common goal—to educate. We enjoy exploring everything from the latest industry trends and emerging technologies to people and demographics, both in the UAE and beyond. Through our blog posts, we share valuable insights that help businesses and marketers stay informed and prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
