How Does Digital Marketing Help My Business?
In the age where technology holds dominance with almost everything the human eye can meet, digital marketing is a necessity for your business to get visibility, build trust and drive sales. Digital marketing has made it possible to be accessible virtually and with the ongoing pandemic driving further dependency on digital touchpoints, it is one of the most sought after models of information dissemination. The time when digital marketing was just for larger organisations is passé; Every organization needs digital integration if they must survive the digital-first consumer preferences. A consumer today looks at your digital presence to ensure that the product or service they wish to opt for is genuine, has good reviews and is cost-effective, in comparison to others in the market.
To secure a strong presence in the internet marketplace, businesses are taking various measures to keep up with the dynamic world of marketing. Age-old brick and mortar businesses are widening their existing strategies by adopting a mix of digital and traditional marketing to ensure sustainability, growth and profitability of their businesses, while new-age startups are making digital the only form of marketing because it works better than anything else!
A process that manipulates the mind into indulging in a product or service at least once, Digital Marketing, is a game-changer.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing, Online Marketing, Internet Advertising, are various names for the same thing and form an important lead in your overall Marketing Mix. It utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies, such as desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote a particular business.
And how Digital Marketing has turned the tables?
We are a digitally driven society and technology has impacted us to a point where citizens in a country may not have access to running water, but own smartphones. Technology has influenced major aspects of human life and habits. As such, companies today feel the growing urge to have a firm grasp on the digital universe to aid their businesses with reach, reputation and research.
Not only has it benefited businesses, but people have also experienced a more convenient way of life, with everything available at the click of a button. Digital Marketing has definitely changed the game of the marketing world.
What are the benefits of Digital Marketing, and how can it help your business?
- Levels The Online Playing Field
Wave goodbye to the days where Digital Marketing was a notion existent and accessible only to big-budget businesses. Today, Digital Marketing levels the online playing field for all calibres of businesses from small and medium enterprises to corporate giants as it gives them the resources to perform sales, marketing and human resource processes that were previously available only to large corporations. They can reach multiple customers and create a large presence among audiences that cannot be reached physically.
- Caters To Mobile Consumers
Undoubtedly, mobile internet usage is increasing at an exhilarating pace and forms a major percentage of the overall internet consumption. The information available at the tip of your finger and the convenience of the user, at any point and place, has brought us one step closer to the virtual world.
Smartphones, tablets and various other mobile gadgets have evolved from the basic purpose of being alternatives for laptops and personal computers to being drivers of digital consumption and digital marketing, by influencing people in their purchasing decisions. With almost everyone, from a businessman to a common daily worker owning a smartphone, access to information with regards to a specific product or service is readily available, and digital marketing plays the role of targeting your audiences and delivering the product or service they seek, with repeat recall.
- Cost-Effective As Compared To Traditional Marketing
When it comes to small businesses, the resources and capital are less in comparison to a larger organization, that is when digital marketing steps in as a more cost-effective way of marketing and promoting their business. Digital Marketing allows all kinds of budgets to help increase visibility and sales for a brand. The ability to ensure specific targeting, achieve high visibility and gain insights into your marketing efforts makes digital marketing highly effective as compared to traditional marketing methods. Having said that, consumer touchpoints are many, and if the budget permits, an omnichannel marketing approach can do wonders for your brand.
- Digital Marketing Helps Measure Conversions
Conversion rates in context to business marketing products and services online estimate success by the rate of incoming traffic which gets converted into leads, subscribers and sales depending on the purpose of the website, advertisement or campaign. Without conversion, all your marketing efforts, as well as traffic, would mean no worth. It would be very difficult to measure these factors through traditional marketing tools.
Knowing the impact of your business marketing campaigns is the top priority and this can be done through various tools available such as Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Digital Advertising, Influencer Marketing and Content Marketing, to name a few. These tools, if used with the right insights and a planned strategy, can generate quick and efficient communication and interaction with target audiences and deliver excellent conversion rates. The Return On Investment through Digital Marketing can be mapped from the day you start your marketing efforts.
- Helps Generate Better Revenue
This comes as an added benefit with higher conversion rates generated by effective digital marketing techniques which will reap loads of profitable benefits in terms of better and higher revenue.
With better growth expectancy, companies can then further invest into expanding workforce and business which will aid large businesses and small and medium enterprises to grow locally and globally.
- Facilitates Interaction With Target Audiences
The major reason why digital marketing is taking over is the ability to reach larger target audiences in real-time. The most vital aspect of marketing is engagement; your customers expect to interact with your brand or business which will determine business success or failure. Interacting with customers will give you deep insight as to what your audience wants, which in turn will help your business make the next right move and facilitate business growth.
- It Earns Loyalty And Trust
The major problem businesses face is customer retention and that is where digital marketing plays the role of the saviour. Digital marketing rides on a trend where you focus on a more personalized approach in terms of interaction with customers in the form of testimonials, reviews, and social proof from actual consumers of the brand. The more reliable and accredited the feedback is, the higher will be the conversion through potential customers.
- Helps Build Brand Reputation
Brand reputation is what makes or breaks a brand – That is the power of digital marketing. Delivering on what the brand promises will help build better relationships with the customer, which will then lead to a growing brand reputation among the customers. This will prove beneficial for the growth and sustainability of the brand as existing customers will preach about the experience with the brand.
Explore opportunities of using customers, engaging with digital influencers or celebrities, to further amplify the goodness of your brand. Keep it genuine by allowing them to try your product or service and share their reviews.
How Artificial Intelligence is shaping the future for Digital Marketing
With the ability to mimic cognitive functions that the human mind relates with other human minds, an area where computer science strives to understand the functioning of the complex human mind, AI is a new machine that responds and performs tasks based on the data that is fed into it thereby mimicking humans.
AI systems are now advancing at a faster pace than ever before, thanks to detailed algorithms. It is now taking big strides in research and development areas around the world.
In the early years, marketers were reluctant to incorporate Artificial Intelligence into their marketing strategies but that notion has changed over the years. Companies are adopting and using it within their marketing, with brands like Amazon, Tesla and Spotify using AI systems successfully towards product integration and marketing. Here are some ways in which AI could aid digital marketing:
- AI helps personalize email marketing based on user behaviour, providing users with personalized content which helps email marketers reach the right customers at the right time.
- AI helps in the field of digital advertising, which is one of the most successful areas to have adopted AI, by analyzing user information and showing users relevant advertisements. It also aids marketers to analyze and study micro trends and future trends which helps them in strategic decision making and mapping to improve their targeting and enhancing their products or services to better cater to their audiences.
- AI helps in content marketing as it studies what content is most effective and positively accepted by target audiences, allowing you to shift your content strategy in a way that improves engagements, responses and sales.
The integration of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Marketing has proven to bring down overall marketing costs by almost 40%.
The time to evaluate if Digital Marketing is meant for you is over, it is now the time to analyse what tools would be most effective for you to reach your customers and develop insight-based strategies to develop a sense of trust, recall and sales for your business.
About MindShift Interactive: MindShift Interactive is an Insightful Digital Outreach powerhouse that provides businesses with a data-centric approach towards achieving an insightful, intelligent and impactful Digital presence. MindShift Interactive combines digital marketing, research and content creation to provide a better experience for the consumer and brand. It currently houses four business verticals, namely, MindShift Digital – A Digital Marketing and Influencer Relations Agency; MindShift Metrics – Digital Research Consultancy; MindShift Studios – Personalised Content Production House and MindShift Activate – Digital Activations and Events Agency. Each vertical is working towards achieving a unified goal of providing brands with an ideal and relevant outreach. Key clients of MindShift Interactive include JW Marriott, Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai, Taj Falaknuma Palace, Taj Hotels Resorts Palaces Safaris (Corporate), IndiaBulls Real Estate, Four Seasons Hotels, Phoenix Marketcity, Sula Vineyards, JUICE Hair Salon, Max Bupa Health Insurance, L’Oreal, Practo, SWIPE Telecom. MindShift has been instrumental in conceptualizing some of the largest Twitter campaigns, namely, #FeelingBlue for Reliance 3G, #ChappalMaaro for The Bombay Store & the first-ever high outreach Instagram campaign, #GoNoFilter for Lancôme, and India’s 1st Emoji-based contest for Za Beauty, from the House of Shiseido. Their digital-first hotel launch campaign for Taj Swarna, Amritsar, #TajInAmritsar saw high outreach and leads while large amounts of influential user-generated content were witnessed through the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai #HeritageWalk.
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