Do you have an unlimited advertising budget? Probably not.
Your budget is probably as thinly-stretched as your working capital, particularly now that the world is still attempting to recover from the Covid-19 shutdown…and re-shutdowns.
Digital marketing is one of the best ways to spend your advertising budget, for several reasons.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is advertising that takes place online – ads on social media such as Facebook and YouTube, and on digital TV and streaming channels.
People’s viewing and reading habits are changing – rather than print books and magazines they’re going to digital ones via Kindle and other readers, rather than TV – even with cable or satellite – they’re watching on-demand programs on their computers.
And this trend will only accelerate as that’s what the children of today’s generation are going to grow up with.
Benefits of digital marketing
- Target specific interest groups
All generations and all types of people use social media and search websites for things they want and/or need. But they all hang out at different “corners” of the web.
With digital marketing, you can affordably run several different ads or advertising campaigns, each one designed for a different audience. (Language and “enthusiasm” you use would vary depending on the age level of your expected readership!)
- Track success or failure daily
Analytics programs, such as Google Analytics for websites and Sprout Social for social media, allow you to see data on a day-to-day basis. You’ll know within 24 hours just how well, or poorly, a certain ad, or a certain post, is performing – how many people are seeing it and how many are reacting to it.
Even if a marketing campaign starts out slow you may want to keep it up for a month or so, rather than chopping and changing midstream, but again, you’ll know how the campaign is working on a daily basis.
The more information you have, the better you’ll be able to target your potential customers and keep your current customers.
- Easy to modify advertisements
Because your marketing and advertising campaigns are digital, they are not set in stone. You are not trapped into a campaign that isn’t working because everything is on paper. Instead, you can modify an ad within seconds if you wish!
Of course, you may want to give an ad campaign sufficient time to work before you change anything, but with digital marketing the point is that you could change your ads within seconds if so desired.
- Be a resource for your customers
There are two types of advertising – direct and indirect.
With indirect advertising, you are establishing your business as an “authority” on a certain subject. You make blog posts in which you share “how to” information on how to use your product, for example.
Potential customers searching for such information find your site, appreciate the fact that you are sharing information they need, and feel a sense of gratitude, or at least appreciation, because of it.
For a certain percentage of individuals, this feeling of appreciation will result in a new customer.
Don’t delay, therefore.
Start developing your digital marketing campaign(s) today.