What Is The Role Of Digital Marketing In Modern Business?

In this post, we’ll deep dive into the role digital marketing has for your business and explore if you can use it to improve your leads, enquiries, customers and, notably, your bottom line.

Before the days of the internet, marketing your business would have looked very different.

Let’s say that your options were somewhat limited.

Back then, the idea of ‘modern marketing’ would have been adverts on Television, radio or in newspapers and magazines.

If you wanted to take it to another level and try to find customers where they were,  you were looking at flyers through customers’ doors, pin-boards in local shops or posters where your likely customers might congregate.

All of these options were and still are brilliant forms of offline marketing.

Indeed, they are still used to great effect today.

The downside to these methods is they are always one of these two things.

Expensive or Time-Consuming (Or Both!)

Off-line marketing is brilliant, and it continues to have its place.

Times have changed…

There are now more than 5 billion internet users globally.

We live in a time where you can no longer rely on offline marketing methods on their own.

You need a digital marketing strategy to meet your audience where they are – on the internet!

The Goal of Digital Marketing For Business

So, if your audience is on the internet, the best place to reach your customers is online.

Customers will expect you to have an online presence.

Even if you don’t have a website, they’ll at least expect you to have a presence on social media.

Your online presence is the best way for your customers to learn more about your business and what services and products you offer.

It’s one thing to have an online presence for your business.

But…

It’s quite another thing to find customers online, target them and get them onto your online properties so they can learn more about your business and purchase your products and services.

This is where the art of digital marketing comes into its own.

Digital marketing for your business has one main goal.  That goal is to reach and engage your customers where they spend their time: online.

What Are The Types Of Digital Marketing Used By Businesses?

Given the rapid growth and development of the internet, we’ve seen digital marketing evolve rapidly.

So here is a list of 8 types of digital marketing you can deploy in your business:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is the process of optimizing your website and its content for your site to get found in the search engines when a user types their search query into Google.

Social Media Marketing – This involves promoting your business or brand on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn or many other social media platforms.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – This is the process of placing ads on search engine results pages and other websites.  When a user types in a particular search query, your advert will appear on the search result page and on websites related to the service or products you offer. With this type of advertising, you pay each time the user clicks on your ad.

Content Marketing – You’ll use a blog to write valuable and relevant content for your target audience. The content should be written consistently and for a clearly defined audience. Content marketing allows your website to attract and retain an audience base which will help your business rank on Google search results and enable you to drive profitable customer action.

Email Marketing – This involves you sending personalised emails to a list of subscribers. For this to work, you will need to provide value to your email list with information that will help and guide those on your list. Having an email list will allow you to build rapport and good relations with your audience, and in turn, it will enable you to drive sales.

Video Marketing – This is a powerful way for potential and existing customers to get to know your brand. When your target audience can see you, your product, your brand or your services visually, it will help you drive more sales as your audience will feel like they have a better connection with your business.

Mobile Marketing – This is the art of promoting your products or services to mobile devices using various techniques.  These techniques range from sending SMS messages, having your own mobile app or using mobile advertising.

Local SEO – If you are a local business, local SEO is the process of optimizing your online presence so that you rank higher in search engine results for specific geographic locations. Suppose you have a local shop front, or your business serves a specific local area, city or region. In that case, local SEO will help potential customers in your area to find your business or service.

Digital Marketing Levels The Playing Field

You’ll find that digital marketing levels the playing field when competing against big companies to get business.

And why is that?

It’s because:  “It Ain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It)”.

It doesn’t matter how much money a big company you might be competing with throws at their marketing. Just because your competitors spend money on digital marketing does not mean they are spending it on the right thing.

If you can be clever and resonate with your target audience in a better, more personal way, then there is nothing stopping you from winning the business over a competitor.

If you have better content, make more engaging videos, and fine-tune your website with SEO, your audience will be able to find you and will be more engaged with your business or brand.

To get instant results, you can use pay-per-click advertising to appear at the top of Google or Bing. 

By handling your digital marketing efforts better than your competitors, you can not only level the playing field – you can tip the scales in your favour!

So, digital marketing gives you and your business every chance to compete and take your slice of the pie.

So we’ve shown you the role of digital marketing in modern business.

You can now see that by using a variety of digital channels and tactics, you can reach your potential customers at every stage of your customer’s journey, from awareness to consideration to purchase.

All you need now is a digital marketing strategy.

To get your free digital marketing strategy for your business, use our Contact Us page and complete your details, and we will create a bespoke digital marketing plan for you.