In layman’s terms, digital marketing is nothing but the proper usage of the Internet and the various social media platforms for promoting and marketing your business. As of 2020, with the constant technological advances in the world, there are whole businesses that run entirely on social media, let alone just use this platform for promotion. The Internet has truly made the world a smaller place by giving people access to anything and everything, but most importantly, to each other. If you harness the right strings of the Internet, your business is on it’s way to becoming an amazing success story.
The main reason people choose digital marketing is to be able to target and reach out to a larger set of audience. The larger your customer base, the bigger your profit share. While traditional means of marketing are still prevalent, for true success in such desperate times as now, every business regardless of their magnitude of operation must embrace certain aspects of online marketing. The reason is simple if you put up a billboard, can you estimate the number of people who come across the banner – their backgrounds, their interests, their locations, etc.? However, if you put up a social media post, you can exactly see the number of people and the entire demography of the audience you are catering too. You can use this information wisely to customize your future products. This is just one advantage; the pros of digital marketing outweigh its cons by a huge margin.
Some interesting digital marketing facts:
- According to Mass Planner, Infographics are liked and shared on the internet 3 times more than any other social media content.
- According to MarketingSherpa, 60% of consumers subscribe to a brand’s list to get promotional messages and deals.
- According to IBM, 77% of internet buyers research for a product using social media.
- According to Statista, 12% of all retail sales globally in 2018 were eCommerce sales.
- According to KPMG, 65% of consumers look up price comparisons on mobile while in a physical store.
- According to CBRE, mobile commerce sales or mCommerce sales will account for more than half of all eCommerce sales by 2021.
- According to B2B Content Marketing Trends, customer testimonials and case studies are considered the most effective content marketing tactics.
- According to Forbes, 56% of brands that use an emoji in their subject line had a higher open rate comparatively.
- According to Isitwp, 72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO Tactic.
- According to Forrester, by the time a salesperson gets involved, up to 90% of the sales proceeds could be completed by social selling.
If you want to harness all the advantages of digital marketing and want to use it effectively to grow your business, read on to find out about the top 10 fundamentals of digital marketing success.
- CONSTANT UPDATES TO YOUR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
With the ever-changing dynamics of the 21st-century world, you will have to constantly update yourself and the goals and objectives of your firm to keep yourself in the market competition. There are new trends almost every single day and it is important to note whether your products are keeping up with the ever-changing dynamic expectations of the modern consumer. Your product must uphold the needs of the market and those of the consumers while being competitively priced. Adjusting your goals to the demands of the market will help you grow your businesses with fewer efforts at a faster pace.
- UNDERSTANDING YOUR COMPETITION WELL
One big mistake that a number of online sellers make is underestimating their competitors. Remember that on a digital platform, your competitor has access to exactly the same resources and the same customers, if not more. If you aren’t always a step ahead of them consistently anticipating and retaliating every move that they make, you will lose your market share within days. Things move at a much faster and smoother manner on an online platform since there is no human element obstructing the process. So, the best way to stay ahead is by knowing and understanding your competition inside out.
- RE-DEFINE YOUR BUDGET FOR OPTIMUM RETURNS
Just like we told you about reorganizing your goals and objectives to constantly stay on the loop, we will extend that suggestion to redefining your budget as well. Changing your goals will do you no good if you are unwilling to accommodate those changes in plans to your budget. Sometimes you will need to expand your pockets, while sometimes you need to do the opposite and shrink them. But you must not be staunch when it comes to making changes in your budget. The Web Success Team, in an article, humorously points out that skimping (cutting your budget) on marketing is like yelling in a vacuum.
- USE YOUR DATA SMARTLY
There is no possible end to the amount of data that businesses today have access to. Be it the demographics of your audience – their likes and dislikes, locations, age, gender, etc., you name it and companies know it. You also have access to the best post timings given the active statuses of your customers on social media. The best part about it all is that most of this information is available for top social media sharing platforms like Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and interest absolutely free of cost – you do not have to pay extra to obtain this information. How you use this information and whether you incorporate it into the development of your next project depends completely on you. But if you are wise enough, information via business analytics is extremely useful and can be used to customize your content and your products according to the exact demands of your customers and delivering them at the right place, at the right time.
- UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF SEO
If you have taken it upon yourself and your business to run a successful online marketing campaign, then Search Engine Optimization or SEO is your best friend. SEO helps you find the right keywords to describe and define your content so that it comes up as the first search result on any search engine. It has been statistically proven that most people open only the top five search results for anything. So, the whole idea of using hashtags and the right keywords to promote your content is to ensure that you are one of those top five search results. The correct SEO techniques give you a huge competitive edge over your competitors.
- TARGET THE RIGHT CUSTOMER
Due to the enormity of the internet and the huge number of people who use it on a daily basis, it is initially difficult to target the right person for your brand. However, gradually, by pertaining to your well-defined set of goals, budget, and the demographics of the people interacting with your content, you will be able to target exactly the right consumer who is in your brand’s best interest.
- REMEMBER YOUR CUSTOMER
After you are done targeting the right people, make proper efforts to retain them. It is easy to forget that you are doing everything in the first place for your customer, not for yourself or for your competitors. Most businesses get so caught up in growing themselves and eliminating their competition, that they tend to forget the customer who happens to be the most important element in this. Make sure that you always prioritize your customer satisfaction over anything else during your course of running.
- PUT EFFORTS ON BEING PRESENT
While using bots to reply to messages and emails and post content on your behalf, it is extremely important to take out ample time to personally handle all your social media accounts and online campaigns. While using customer-related data for your business is extremely beneficial, there must be some level of personal touch to your products which can only be achieved after some first-hand experience with knowing and understanding your audience and interacting with them on a personal level, something that bots can never do. Use the live features and story features on several social media sites to constantly be in touch with your followers and keep them updated with all your whataboutery. This will also help you build a personal relationship and trust with your customers.
- REGULARITY OF YOUR CONTENT
There are various tools and features available that constantly tell you about the right time to update your pages for maximum engagement. While timing is important to be in the loop, what is more, important is how regular you are with your content. With the simple amount of pages available on the Internet, you cannot blame people if they forget you or replace you easily due to your absence from posting content at regular intervals. You can use various applications and even bots to schedule your updates on a regular basis at the most popular times of the day. This will not only ensure that your people are constantly being reminded of your presence but also show them the efforts you are making every time your brand pops up on their newsfeed.
- FOCUSSING ON CONVERSION RATES
Conversion rates basically refer to the percentage ratio between the number of people who visit your website to the number of people who actually end up buying your product. It is indeed extremely important to focus on these rates and do everything necessary to increase them. A high conversion rate is automatically a determinant of your successful marketing campaigns.
On the ending note, all we would like to say is that Digital Marketing is a boon of businesses. Because of this platform even small and medium scale businesses can reach their targeted buyers with minimal costs. It has made the Internet a level playing field for all sellers to see their products and expand their customer base. In 2020, it is very difficult to fool the customer or get away with supplying an incompetent product because that is what it comes down to ultimately.
