If you haven’t yet jumped onto the digital marketing bandwagon, there’s no time to waste. In 2019, 58% of the global population was online, and only 10% of American adults said that they don’t use the internet. It’s expected that over 2.05 billion people worldwide will buy products and services online in 2020, compared with 1.66 billion people in 2016. The internet is increasingly the place to be to make sales and score customers.
If you still need convincing, here are five reasons why you need to digitize your marketing before we enter 2020.
1. Free up time for more important tasks
Digital marketing tools are great at saving you from time-consuming, tedious busy work so that you can focus on growing your business. Automation means that you can plan all of your email newsletters in one go, for example, and then “set and forget” them.
Other digital marketing tools include templates and shortcuts that speed up the process of planning a marketing campaign, creating landing pages, building and connecting marketing funnels, and other important marketing tasks.
When you embrace digital marketing, you can delegate work to tools and apps so that you can prioritize decision-making, deal with larger business issues that only you can resolve, and focus on growing your business.
2. Go where your customers - and competition - are to be found
In 2020, everybody lives their lives online, from ordering pizza to managing investments. Your potential customers aren’t looking for your business in flyers on the car windscreen or ads in the local newspaper. They’re looking for it on social media, in Google searches, or on Google maps. And in the first principle of marketing, you need to go where your customers are.
What’s more, your competition is already there. 75.3% of businesses will use Instagram in 2020; 93.7% already use Facebook, and over 85% publish video content at least once a month. If you’re not keeping up with them, you’ll be falling behind.
3. Get to know your customers.
Since the internet is where your customers spend their time, it's also the place to go to get to know them. Email marketing, social media interactions, and direct messages on messaging platforms allow you to communicate directly with your potential customers. Digital marketing opens up a golden opportunity to learn what your customers really want from you and to express your brand message clearly and concisely.
At the same time, digital analytics and tools like your CRM help you analyze customer behavior and understand customer preferences so that you can segment leads into groups and send customized messages that are hyper-relevant to each individual.
4. Achieve better results.
Digital marketing comes with advanced analytics that allow you to measure just about every aspect of your marketing campaigns. There's truth behind the popular saying, "What can't be measured cannot be managed."
With digital marketing campaigns, you can monitor and analyze engagement rates, click-through rates, and open rates; run A/B tests to find the perfect headline or ideal ad texts; and track your brand reputation across social media platforms. Analytics reveal what’s working so that you can double down on it, and help you find out what’s not working, so you can improve it.
5. Boost your reach
One of the main features of the internet is that it is everywhere. If you distribute flyers, you can let your neighbors know about your great coffee. But if you share a discount offer on Instagram, your entire city, region, or continent can find out about your great coffee!
Digital marketing in the form of social media, email newsletters, and online content like blogs and paid search ads can ramp up your exposure, bringing you to places you’d never have been able to reach otherwise. More brand awareness means more leads, more sales, and better ROI on your paid marketing efforts.
Drag your Marketing into the Digital Era
The advent of 2020 means that it’s impossible to ignore that we’re well into the 21st century. You don’t use a paper telephone directory anymore - you just Google whatever phone number you need - and Blockbuster videos is a footnote in history because you stream movies over Netflix.
It’s time to drag your marketing into the digital era as well so that your business can save time, connect with customers, keep up with the competition, expand your reach, and generally see better marketing results that will keep your business from going the way of the dinosaurs.
