Why use digital marketing to market your business?

Updated for 2021

In the business world, in times of struggle and success (particularly after the year that was 2020), it will always be the strong who survive. To be the strong doesn't mean you have to have 500 employees or own the whole floor of the most exclusive building in your city.  More often than not, in highly competitive market places, the companies that market themselves most effectively will survive and prosper. 

Today, effective marketing is digital marketing

One of the main advantages of Digital Marketing is the clear link and track-ability to clear return on investment (ROI).  Whether it's a Google Adwords campaign, social media advertising or content distribution and marketing, digital marketing's purpose is to attract prospects online to your business via your website or mobile app. Where digital marketing differs to traditional marketing is the ability to track every individual Dhiram spent on your marketing your business.

Traditionally, pre-millennial companies would spend entire marketing budgets on print media and offline advertising. While this approach may provide great brand awareness, is it cost effective marketing?

If you were to ask an auto dealer, how many cars were sold because of their billboard of Sheikh Zayed Road? Their answer will most likely be “we don't know”.  They may have sold 20 cars last month but was that because customers saw the bill board and came to the showroom, word of mouth or simply from a customer walking into the showroom?  That’s where digital marketing differs and allows businesses to track all marketing activity and results.

In addition, through digital marketing we can:

     1. Identity prospective target markets, target customers and audiences.
     2. Target these audiences with specific messaging and placing advertising on the platforms where they visit regularly.
     3. Capture their data for database building and future marketing opportunities such as re-targeting.
     4. Measure the exact success of each targeted advertising.

If we were the car dealership, the campaigns we would create would be geared towards tracking events and activities that drive sales leads.  For example, promoting test drives for a particular car.  Based on this, any sales activity (purchase of a car) can be tracked back to the website.  From this we can determine where that user found the website (Google, Social Media or other online advertisements) and then be able to measure the exact ROI for each individual advert.

Once ROI data is available, future marketing campaigns can be tailored so that you only invest in the platforms that provide your business with revenue and most importantly, a high level of ROI.  This allows your business to not only market your business more efficiently but will also save you money in the long term or allow you to re-invest this money into other marketing opportunities. 

The bottom line is that digital marketing not only makes your marketing more efficient, but also allows you to understand what works for your business and more importantly, doesn’t work for your business.