Why You Should Invest in Digital Marketing
by Amelia Hodges on February 28, 2022 in Online Marketing
Digital marketing refers to advertising strategies on digital media channels like social media, search engine results pages (SERPs), blogs, email newsletters and the internet. The main benefit of digital marketing is its ability to target specific audiences. Prior to the digital age, advertisers and businesses would need to utilise a host of media channels to reach a wide variety of customers. Digital marketing allows marketers to reach specific demographics and reduces the need for television, radio and print ads which are more expensive and less targeted.
Digital marketing channels allow for two-way communication between consumers and marketers and analytical reporting which is another unique quality of digital marketing. Companies can measure how well certain ads are performing with metrics like ad clicks and purchases made from the link recorded every time a customer clicks it.
With these capabilities, marketers have the ability to change their ads if something isn’t performing well. It also makes it possible to send optimised ads to specific people based on their search history, buying behaviours, interests and more.
Digital marketing makes it possible for businesses to speak directly to prospects. Businesses can code emails to have them address people by their first name or show them products they have previously looked at. The likelihood a prospect will make a purchase if it is catered to them is much higher than a general advertisement.
Digital marketing opens products up to a worldwide audience that can be segmented based on demographics and psychographics. Businesses get more value for money with digital ads because they don’t need to waste their budget sending ads to people who are unlikely to purchase the product.
Digital marketing is the future of advertising. Australian digital marketing expenditure reached $11.4 billion in the 2021 financial year with the market experiencing 24.2% of growth despite the pandemic that detrimentally affected businesses worldwide. Investing in the lucrative digital marketing is skyrocketing many businesses to success. Here are the 7 main reasons why:
1) Targeted
Digital ads are extremely targeted. Unlike traditional advertisements like TV ads and billboards, digital ads give marketers the ability to specify who will see their ad. Digital advertising gives marketers access to a tonne of information about prospects like their age, gender, interests, buying behaviours and more. This saves companies money and increases the rate of sales made from the ads.
2) Fast
Digital advertising requires less production and backend administration than television and radio ads. Digital ads can be created and promoted in minutes by anybody.
“Social media allows marketers to create free ads easily and push them out to thousands of people for a small amount of money” says graphic design company Poskitt, “There are a tonne of free tools online that can be used to make beautiful ads for cheap or free”.
3) Cost Effective
Digital marketing saves money at every stage of the campaign. Production costs are minimal, promotion costs are targeted and optimised and there is a unique ability for businesses to reach a worldwide market for no additional cost.
Once a business has established a reasonable customer base, advertising can even be free. Extensive email lists and social media following allow marketers to share advertisements to interested leads for free.
“We even enjoy promotion from our customers posting pictures of their meals on social media and tagging us” says Arthur Street Cafe, “It is incredible the reach your customers have on Instagram”.
4) SEO
Because digital ads are served online, they can be directly linked to the business’s website. Having the power to direct buyers to your product purchase page with one simple click increases the likelihood of a sale dramatically. The more people who visit the website by clicking on ads, the higher the search engine ranking will become. Google’s first 5 organic results get 67.60% of all clicks so improving the search engine ranking is key to having a competitive position online.
5) Measurable
Digital ads record analytics like how many people viewed or clicked on an ad and who made a purchase. These metrics can be used by digital marketers when assessing the effectiveness of ads, allowing them to optimise campaigns using real data from their target market.
“We use online digital marketing tools to track how many people click on our ads to determine which ones are appealing to our target audience” says e-commerce protein supplement store Iconic Lifestyle, “We even have tools that show how much our customers spent after clicking on an email advertisement which is really helpful”.
6) Instant
Unlike traditional tv or billboard ads, digital ads can feature a call to action and a direct link to the purchase page. Instead of prospects seeing a product, remembering it and going into the store to buy it, they can see it and buy it instantly.
The expedition of the purchase process increases the likelihood of a sale and reduces the chance that a prospect will forget your product after seeing your ad or go elsewhere to research other options. They want to click and buy as soon as they see the ad.
7) Growth
In order to keep up with the times, marketers need to follow consumer behaviour. In the last 4 years Australians have experienced a major shift. The internet has overtaken TV as the primary news source with 60.8% of Australians saying they use the internet as their main source of news. 37.7% of Aussies specifically get their news from social media. Only 33.4% said they primarily got their news from television, a huge reduction from just a few years ago.
Newspapers and magazines are becoming redundant as readership shifts to online news sources and radio is losing listeners to Spotify and podcasts. The fact that the future is digital is glaringly obvious. The digital marketing industry is also expected to grow at least 10% annually in the next few years, becoming the superior option for marketers and businesses worldwide.