There’s no denying the trusted and successful traditional marketing tactics across printed media, broadcasting, direct mail and telephone. Up until the early 2000’s traditional media dominated the advertising landscape, but then it all started to change…. rapidly. The digital age caused a disruption which saw these traditional methods significantly lose their impact. As a result, digital marketing began to flourish, particularly amongst SME’s still in their early stages of growth. The relatively low risk associated with reaching their target market while yielding a solid return on investment was too hard to ignore. This continues to be the case today. With that being said, traditional methods still have their place for those businesses with enough budget, established brand identity, or that are well past the honeymoon phase of operations. But for those that aren’t, here are some reasons why a tailored digital strategy should be a major part of your overall business plan.
Key Benefits of Digital Marketing
There are many hurdles an SME faces when trying to establish themselves, therefore, it’s important to spend wisely and minimise costs wherever possible – all while reaching your target market and generating enough leads to maintain a steady cash flow and keep your head above water. This is why digital marketing appeals to so many SME’s – it is highly measurable, highly targeted, and therefore, a highly affordable place to start for any small business owner.
With digital analytics you can instantly start seeing how users are interacting with your online content and website, providing data driven insight into whether it’s worth continuing to invest in certain areas or not. Unlike traditional methods, which usually resort to a reach and frequency model to obtain data, digital methods provide a much more accurate view into how many people you are reaching and where, how they are behaving and even which stage of the purchasing funnel they may be in. With this data you can begin to fine-tune your digital marketing strategy and tailor your online content to provide real value to potential customers, converting them to actual customers or pushing them further down the funnel. The ability to effectively communicate and engage with your target audience at different touch points becomes much easier in the digital realm and is a cheaper alternative than traditional channels, which can’t fully guarantee to bring in genuine business.
The variety of channels in a digital marketing strategy presents an SME with a lot more options than a traditional strategy, making it easier to launch a marketing campaign on a tight budget. For obvious reasons it is better to utilise all the digital channels at your disposal, but reality holds limitations that can’t be ignored when running a start-up. So, depending on your business goals, you can start by launching your campaign on less, and as your business grows, so too will your strategy – enabling you to harness the full potential of the digital space for your business.
The Future of Digital Marketing
The world around us will only become more digitalised. With the introduction of smart technology, consumers are literally everywhere. But, it’s a confusing time for many businesses as reaching them and actually reaching them has become quite the paradox. Information overload has created a new era of thinking and demand, and fulfilling these needs has become quite complex. This means that we have to become savvy and adapt to these trends by clearly establishing our value proposition, understanding our business objectives, how we will achieve them and how we measure our successes.