It’s no secret that digital marketing is more important than ever. In 2020, more than $200 billion was spent on advertising (in North America alone). With so much money going into digital marketing, it only makes sense to have a strategy for your company. In this blog post, you’ll read about the 10 benefits of having a digital marketing strategy in 2021.
Table of Contents
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a term that encompasses all the marketing efforts done online. This includes social media, email campaigns, sales funnels, and more. The goal is to increase brand awareness and/or drive traffic back to your website so you can convert them as customers (or subscribers).
Digital marketers are responsible for creating content on these platforms in order to reach their goals with digital advertising technologies and strategies such as: search engine optimization (SEO), email autoresponders, affiliate marketing, etc.
The Challenges of Digital Marketing
A common challenge is that digital marketing is constantly changing. It’s hard to keep up with the latest trends and best practices because they’re always evolving. So it can be difficult for marketers who are trying their hand at this new type of advertising medium without a background in traditional media or communications skill sets like graphic design or copywriting.
Another challenge that many people face when starting out as an online marketer is figuring out how much time you should spend on your business each day/week, etc. That means balancing personal life vs work life while still maintaining productivity levels high enough where there will eventually also become income coming from these efforts, too. This becomes even more challenging if working full-time hours elsewhere outside your own company.
Luckily, technology has made it easier for us to work smarter and not harder. There are many tools that can help you get the most out of your time, such as:
- A CRM like Salesforce or Pipedrive to keep track of leads generated from social media channels.
- Google Analytics for tracking website traffic data which will be invaluable in determining what content is resonating with visitors, so it’s worth promoting more heavily than other pieces (or vice versa).
- Hootsuite Pro, where one dashboard allows marketers to manage their Twitter accounts alongside Facebook pages they administer — all without having multiple tabs open at once.
It’ll take some trial-and-error before finding an approach/system that works best. But these tips should give anyone starting off with online marketing something useful when trying to figure out how much effort is needed.
Digital Marketing for Beginners
The first thing you need to know about digital marketing is that it’s not just for big companies.
If you’re a small business owner, digital marketing is your best bet to get the word out about what makes your products special and why people should choose them over their competitors in a crowded marketplace. It can be as simple or complex of an approach that fits with how much time/money resources are available. But no matter which way they go, there will always need some form of online presence because so many potential customers do all sorts of research before making any purchase decisions these days… And most start by looking at reviews from other buyers who have already taken advantage of the company’s services themselves.
The second thing you need to know is that digital marketing is a lot more than just having an online presence. It’s about using the Internet to your advantage in ways that can help you reach new customers, grow revenue, and get ahead of competitors.
Why You Need to Focus on Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Companies with clear marketing strategies enjoy significant results from their ad campaigns and social media engagement. On the other hand, companies without a strategy are wasting time and money on ineffective marketing efforts.
The following points will help you understand the benefits of having a digital marketing strategy in 2021:
1) Gives You a Straight Path to Your Goal
With a strategy in place, you’ll be able to create an online environment that’s likely going to make it easier for your business.
This strategy will help you guide your company in the right direction so you can reach your goals quickly and effectively. Even if that means directing them away from some of what may have been previous marketing efforts or tactics that were no longer proving effective enough at getting the results needed by 2020’s standards today (during this time period).
A clear path helps with focusing on key factors such as any new opportunities ahead while also looking back over past successes/failures when deciding how best to move forward into 2021 (without losing sight of overall vision during the process).
If you don’t have a clear path, you’re likely to get lost and spend more time figuring out where your company is headed than actually working on getting there.
On the contrary… having a well-defined marketing strategy can help you avoid potential pitfalls, such as not knowing which social media platforms are best for the future. Or how they should be used in order to reach a broader audience that’s typically looking towards those specific channels as their preferred method of staying updated.
2) Helps You Understand Your Market Share
If you don’t understand the online marketplace, you’re going to have a tough time succeeding in it. A digital marketing strategy can help sort out what the market size is, whether or not your company has an established presence there, and if so how strong that’s been over recent years (or months).
One of these points might be more important than others depending on where things are at currently for any given business owner. But they all carry weight when determining which goals need attention first before you look ahead towards 2021.
“What channels should I use?” “Which markets would benefit from our services most strongly?” “How much do people spend online each year?”
These questions will lead you right down paths paved by previous generations who were able to think about their market share and how the market behaved. Because understanding the market is key if you want to succeed.
You can’t just dive right in without a plan. If you’re successful with traditional marketing, then that’s great. But it won’t necessarily translate well to online success.
3) Keeps You Updated on the Latest Trends in Your Niche
Why do you need to be updated?
First, it keeps you “in the know” about the latest customer behavior changes.
Second, it’s not going to be enough just knowing your product or service. You’ll also need an understanding of how people use these products/services now so when someone is browsing online, they can find out exactly what their needs are right away because there will always be something new coming out too!
Third, it helps you prepare financially for a shift in the market. For example, if for some reason your customers started using the app Clubhouse, and they’re hanging out there more often, you have to adapt so you’re able to channel their desires onto your brand. Even if it means spending a little bit more initially. Staying ahead protects you from losing out on potential revenue.
Here’s the risk… if you don’t start building your digital marketing strategy now, who knows what the Internet will look like by 2025 and how many of these changes you’ll have to deal with? You may be thinking, “It’s not going for me…” but it could end up being a really hard decision in hindsight if businesses are already making those decisions right this moment!
4) Gives You a Powerful Online Value Proposition
What is an Online Value Proposition? Every company needs to have some sort of value proposition that will make their product/service the best choice for customers who are looking around at other similar options available from competitors (even offline as well if they’re already established there, too).
Not only does having an online value proposition give you something your prospects can identify with right away… but it also sets you apart when comparing prices against the competition. This means developing a value proposition for your online business is a critical step in digital marketing.
5) Tells You More About Your Target Audience
Knowing your target audience is key to any marketing strategy. With digital media, this is even more important because of the specificity that you can achieve by targeting your desired demographic through social and other channels for promotion (Facebook is a great example).
With powerful tools such as Google Analytics, you can get a deep understanding of your target audience. For example, if you want to find out the country distribution for your blog’s visitors last year (2020), then all you need is some basic Google Analytics skills and a few minutes to generate an output that gives you information about how many visits there were by day or month from 2020 until now on your website.
In just a few minutes, you can get information that would help you make better business decisions. This is an excellent way to understand what your customers are most interested in and how to best engage with them through personalized content or ads on social media channels like Facebook that are tailored for the demographic.
Google Analytics provides invaluable information about who visits websites regularly, so it’s possible not only to track marketing efforts but also change targeting criteria based upon data collected from analytics reports.
Here are the seven standard reports available:
- Demographics Overview: The distribution of Sessions (or other key metrics) on your property by age group and gender. Sessions is the default key metric. You can also use % New Sessions, Avg. Session Duration, Bounce Rate, or Pages per Session.
- Age: Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions metrics broken down by age group. When you drill into an age group, you see the breakdown by gender, then by interest. Ages below 18 are not included in the data.
- Gender: Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions metrics broken down by gender. When you drill into a gender, you see the breakdown by age group, then by interest.
- Interests Overview: The distribution of Sessions (or other key metrics) on your property by the top-10 interests in Affinity Categories, In-Market Segments, and Other Categories.
- Affinity Categories (reach): Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions metrics broken down by Affinity Categories.
- In-Market Segments: Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions metrics broken down by In-Market Segments.
- Other Categories: Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions metrics broken down by Other Categories.
6) Helps You Personalize Your Content For Your Customers
When you personalize your content for your customers, you’re going to be able to find the right type of customer. This is important because many people might not want your product or service if it doesn’t fit their needs and wants.
A digital marketing strategy will help with that by personalizing everything so when they share things on social media there’s only one stream promoting an event which makes sense as opposed to just posting promotions on each channel separately without knowing who should see what message about how many products/services you offer. More targeted messaging can increase sales opportunities by 20%.
Another benefit of personalized content is increased customer engagement. Because your customers are able to not only see when there’s something new from their favorite company but also share with friends interesting products or learn about things related through ads. This means people are going out learning all sorts of information for themselves, as opposed to just being sold one product at a time.
7) Reduces Advertising Costs Because People Will Find You Online
Having a digital marketing strategy can help you find customers who are interested in what your company has to offer. This means you can spend less money on advertising because people will be coming directly from search engines, finding you online and not through the TV or radio ads they might have been subjected to for a long time now.
By emphasizing only those products/services that relate best specifically towards your customer’s needs… it reduces pressure when it comes down to selling something just based on intuition-honed response skills. The result is better conversions at a lower cost per sale. All that for having such strategies planned out ahead.
People finding you online also means that your brand will be more accessible. You’ll get many different messages from people who are interested in what you’re doing and can then have a better idea about the direction their feedback might go for certain products or services. This is really beneficial in figuring out where it’s best suited as well-needed new innovations come into play (or if there happens not to be any). This saves you money because you don’t have to throw money at trial-and-error ads.
8) Immediately Shows You the ROI of Your Marketing Campaigns
You can track what’s working and what isn’t. This is a tremendous benefit in the digital marketing world because there are many different ways to do things. But only some of them work better than others for your goals or company size (I would argue that you can make these decisions with careful judgment though).
A good strategy will help you find out quickly which projects have more potential. So that they don’t get wasted time on something else not as effective while cutting back costs where it makes sense.
It also gives you an idea about how much you should invest in certain campaigns. Knowing your return on investment beforehand means no surprises down the line when money comes pouring out of budgets unexpectedly later.
Your ROI will also be higher because you’ll have a better understanding of what content to produce and how best it should reach your target audience. That way, the money spent on digital marketing will go further in terms of achieving business goals or increasing sales.
You’re not wasting time trying out different campaigns without knowing why they don’t work for other companies. All while still being able (in some cases) to give up when something isn’t working before going too far with that campaign’s budget investment.
This is an extremely valuable thing!
Especially if budgets are tight like many businesses find themselves these days. You want as much return as possible but at minimal cost. This can only happen by following sound strategy decisions from day one.
9) Lets You Reach More People Unlike Traditional Methods Like Flyers and Door-to-Door Sales
Gone are the days of flyers and door-to-door sales. It’s more important than ever to have a digital marketing strategy in place when you want your business’ name out there. But instead of spending time with old traditional methods that don’t work as well anymore, it makes sense for businesses who care about their bottom line to develop an online presence now so they can reach all the potential customers.
With the Internet, you’re not limited to whatever information you can get in your local area. You’re able to reach more people, including international customers that are a potential market for businesses with products and services offered online.
One example of an effective digital marketing strategy is social media such as Facebook Ads, which allow companies the ability to target certain demographics like age groups. Here, it’s better than flyers because if someone doesn’t want something, then all you have wasted was time writing up your advertising material. But not gas money going door-to-door asking strangers whether they want what you promote.
You might also consider building an email list for future advertising efforts. Through newsletters, you can provide potential customers value in advance by providing them offers before they don’t know exist!
The other benefit of having an email list is these people are already interested enough in what you have to offer. On some level. So… their likelihood of converting into customers will be higher when prompted again down the line. It’s a lot higher as opposed to if someone stumbled upon one random advertisement without context.
10) Automates Your Processes
Automating your processes means you don’t have to figure out or do all the tasks manually anymore.
It means the computer will be your assistant… who doesn’t get tired one bit. Your computer assistant can even work for you 24/7 and do all those tasks that are taking up so much time! This allows you more free-time, less stress on your mind in figuring things like process management. This is key when managing an online store as well because not only does automating these processes save you money but they can also be done remotely which allows you flexibility with where you want to work.
Think about how many people could work from home across different countries utilizing automation without having any major issues vs. working in one physical location? The possibilities really open themselves up when you have a well-defined digital marketing strategy.
Conclusion
I hope this blog post has not only given you a few ideas about the benefits of having a digital marketing strategy in 2021, but also encouraged you to take action now.
We understand the struggles of finding balance and prioritizing. Which is why we’re here! If you want a FREE strategy call for your business, contact us today by clicking here.
