It is believed that the concept of marketing began during the Industrial Revolution.
Companies started getting more competition as time passed and more people were producing consumer goods, which led to the demand of marketing; companies needed to persuade the public and convince them their product is in fact better than the competition.
How did they do this? Create campaigns using print, radio, and television. There were billboard ads, and transportation ads, direct mail letters and what we know as traditional marketing. Fast forward to 2022 and the world is online. Everyone is online shopping, promoting their brand via social media, using influencers to showcase a product or brand etc.
While traditional marketing is still used, it is important to know why you should be using digital marketing as a technique, which is why we will discuss below, the top 5 reasons you need digital marketing.
- Expansion
Are you a retail store with a physical location? Using digital marketing is a way to expand your clientele and see an increase in sales. One of the most popular tactics to use to gain traction are:
- Google Ads
- Shopping, and display ads are a great way to be noticed on the search engine. A shopping ad features detailed information about the services and/or goods your company offers. Display ads are a method used to attract an audience from a website, social platforms and more.
- Influencer Marketing
We’ve all seen posts on Instagram and TikTok of someone trying on their Shein haul and offering their audience a discount code. That right there, is influencer marketing, a form of digital marketing. Plenty of benefits come from collaborating with an influencer such as:
- Building brand awareness
- Building your brands credibility and trust with its publics
- Increase in sales
- Enrich your content strategy
- And more!
- Affordability
Traditional marketing is a great tool, however using tactics that include radio and television can get quite expensive. Even when you consider print advertising, the cost can add up quickly. Running an ad campaign on social media can be as cheap or as expensive as you want. You have the freedom to put an ad up for two weeks and spend $800 or put an ad up for four weeks and spend $300.
Google ads can vary in cost, but the average cost per click in google ads across all industries is $2.69 for search and $0.63 for display.
- Technology and Convenience
For most, we have everything at our fingertips; social media, google, our favourite hair salons Instagram page. Your digital marketing efforts can always be in front of your audiences’ eyes while they are browsing on their phone.
- Multimedia
It is important to be engaging with audiences as it helps build a rapport. With digital marketing, there’s a handful of engaging tools at your disposal.
With social media alone you have several types of content to play with to increase engagement. Instagram allows for users to share high quality photos, reels, stories and allows for you to also go live. Facebook, you can share plain text, engaging videos and photos, go live and then some. Not to mention video platforms like those of TikTok and YouTube. Unlike traditional marketing, digital allows a variety of ways to engage without increasing your budget.
- Tracking
With marketing comes analyzing and when using digital marketing tactics, it is all that easier to do so.
If you’re using social media platforms you can analyze using their insights that they provide to track the engagement, new followers and what type of content brings you the most value. You can also use social media scheduling tools such as Buffer or Hootsuite to analyze your data. This allows you to have freedom to refine your marketing strategy at any given time.
So, while traditional marketing isn’t dead, digital marketing can be a cost-effective strategy for any business, small or large.
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