As a business owner, you know that marketing is important for the success of your business. You also know the Internet is full of people that match your perfect buyer demographic.

But what about the benefits of digital marketing?

You hear about digital marketing and its benefits but you’re not sure what digital marketing means.

Keep reading and by the end of this article you’ll understand what digital marketing is and how it could be beneficial to your business. So let’s get to it.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is simply a marketing campaign that you execute using digital technologies, like the Internet and smart phones. It is a newer phrase for “Internet marketing”

Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia about digital marketing:

Digital marketing techniques, such as: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), display advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, and so on, are becoming more popular because the fact that people are using the Internet more than ever.

There are many traditional magazine and newspaper publishers who are scrambling to focus on online publication channels because the way digital technologies change the printing industry.

A lot more business owners today are interested in learning about digital marketing than there were a couple years ago. They want to know if digital marketing is a good investment for their business or not.

So the question is: Can digital marketing grow your business?

The short answer is yes. In this day and age you can’t ignore the fact that the world is becoming more and more digital. According to official Google statement, more than 50% of searches now come from mobile devices.

In addition, a report from Hitwise estimates that 58% of US searches come from mobile devices, and growing.

So if you’re one of the business owners who want to learn about the benefits of Digital Marketing, this is an article for you.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

1. Promote your business 24/7

One thing that’s certain is the Internet doesn’t sleep. That means, all of your online assets (websites, ebooks, articles, social media profiles, and so on) are always available to your potential customers all the time.

If you do digital marketing correctly, your online assets will be your salespeople who work 24/7 to get you new clients. Having the right sales team is also important, you may want to consider doing thorough job candidate screening to help you find the right people for your team.

2. Reach more people

Most business will benefit from running a digital marketing campaign because there are more than 3 billion people using the Internet every day.

Even if your business is local, chances are your customers use the Internet to search for things that you sell.

3. Generate leads constantly

One of the first things to do when running a proper digital marketing campaign is to create your “sales funnels.” A sales funnel is a process of turning Internet traffic into loyal fans who buy and rave about your product or service.

A sales funnel’s job is to separate the “window shoppers” from the real buyers.

An online sales funnel is specifically designed to generate leads constantly. Here’s an example: Before creating an online sales funnel, a divorce lawyer relied on his office location to generate walk-in leads for his service.

By using an online sales funnel, the lawyer is giving a guide or free advice for husbands or wives who are getting a divorce. The guide is available on his website and visitors must enter their name and email to download.

Now, the lawyer can generate leads in a much more systematic and predictable way.

Image credit: Mondovo

Here are some good resources about building a profitable online funnels:

The Beginner’s Guide to a Sales Funnel
How to Build a Conversion Funnel That Will Triple Your Profits
How Do You Build a Funnel? Start at the End

4. Scale quicker by having a better conversion rate

Online advertising platforms like Google Adwords, Bing, and Facebook ads allow you to test and run your ads much faster and cheaper compared to traditional TV, radio, or print ads.

This is a good thing because you can improve your ad conversion rate more conveniently than you can with TV, radio, or print ads.

For example: You have a banner ad that gets viewed by 100 people and 1 of them become a customer. That means that banner ad has a conversion rate of 1%.

If you tweak the ad and increase its conversion rate to 2%, that means you just double your income.

Doing A/B testing is crucial in any digital marketing campaign because it allows you to scale your business very quickly.

5. Reduce customer acquisition cost

One of the benefits of digital marketing is your conversion cost could be much lower than any other marketing.

In other words, you will spend less money to acquire a customer because digital marketing allows you to target a very specific demographic that suits best for your business.

Examining the cost of online vs offline lead generation.

6. Have additional revenue

A big benefit for an offline business to start doing digital marketing is because it’s an additional source of revenue.

If you’re the owner of a magic shop in a public market, it’s a good idea to sell your items online to capture more buyers from outside your local area.

7. Compete with the best

The Internet levels the playing field because now ordinary people can open an online store and compete with big retail stores.

In this day and age, there are many tools and software that let you “spy” on your competitions.

You can examine how their entire sales funnel converts Internet traffic into buyers and model (not copy) your funnel to function the same way like theirs.

Here are some good resources about how to spy on your competitions:

How to Spy on Competition – Learn 10 Secret Techniques
7 Sneaky Ways to Use Facebook to Spy on Your Competition
25 Online Tools and Gadgets to Help You Spy on Your Competitors
Everything You Need to Know to Spy on Your Competition

8. Have real time engagement

The Internet allows a brand to have real time engagement with their customers. In other words, it allows a brand to have real emotional connections with their customers.

This is very important because 90% of buying decisions are emotional-based.

Developing a real relationship with potential and existing clients is key in this day and age.

They may not buy what you offer right now, but guess what? The next time they need your product or service, they’re going to remember you because they’re emotionally involved with your brand.

9. Stay up-to-date with current events

Digital marketing allows you to stay up-to-date with current events in your industry.

Using big social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or Instagram, you can simply follow a big brand in your industry and see what they’re doing.

This is a great way to get ideas for your content marketing.

Note: Talk about current events and put your twist on it. You’ll have a winning content every time.

10. Increase your business value

Did you know that your online assets like website, blog, social media accounts, articles, videos, and so on, could increase your business value?

The reason is because you have completely different venues to reach out to your audience. It’s like having a different sales channel.

Well-built and maintained online assets could improve your brand reputation to a new level.

11. Meet customers’ expectation

Your customers expect you to have a website and social media profiles. They also expect you to be found on search engines when they type your brand. However, why stop there?

Get ranked for your product or service, not just your brand. If you had a business called “Ray’s Landscaping” in Seattle, don’t just rank for Ray’s Landscaping, get ranked for Seattle landscaping too.

Create a social media calendar plan so you consistently publish meaningful content to your fans and followers.

The more consistent you publish content on social media or blog, the more your clients remember your brand.

Here are some good resources about creating your own social media plan:

7 Tips for Creating a Social Media Plan for Your Business
6 Steps to Create a Bare Bones and Profitable Social Media Plan
How to Create a Social Media Plan That WORKS!
Social Media Marketing Plan: An 11-Step Template

12. Easily show off your awards or great reviews

It’s very easy to show off your awards of positive reviews that you receive. Publish the award and positive reviews on your site and social media accounts.

In fact, multiple studies have shown that customers reviews and awards increase conversion significantly.

Awards and positive reviews build trust. In the digital world, trust is very key.

Brands that people trust perform much better than brands that people don’t trust.

13. Create a following/community

Digital marketing also allows a business to have a following of raving fans that are ready to read your article, watch your video, share your photos, listen to your podcast, and ultimately buy your product or service.

Read this post about 25 Experts Drop Wisdom on How to Grow a Vibrant Online Community.

14. Become more competitive

Digital marketing allows you to become more competitive but at the same time, the Internet provides the same opportunity to your competitions. This means competitions are becoming tougher but don’t let this discourage you.

There are a lot of angles that you can use in your digital marketing effort therefore making it unique from anyone else. Look for big brands in your industry. See how they’re doing their digital marketing.

It’s a good idea to hire a professional digital marketing company that can do the job for you.

15. Gather data or feedback quickly

Social media is a fantastic platform to get data or feedback instantly from your followers. Do you have a new idea for a new product, but can’t figure out which version you should launch? Ask your followers on social media.

Other than collecting product feedback, you can also conduct surveys or polls, host a focus group, and much more.

Here are some good resources about using social media to get feedback quickly:

Eight Ways to Get Social Media Feedback
How to Collect Customer Feedback Using Social Media
15 Very Effective Methods To Get Quality Customer Feedback
How to Gather Fan Feedback on Social Media

16. Showcase your work to the world

Digital marketing allows you to showcase your work to the world very easily. Here’s a great example of a law firm website that shows the amount of settlements they’ve won for their clients.

I’m sure this website generates leads constantly for this firm.

Showcasing your great work really shows your expertise and helps improve your conversion rate. Keep your followers updated by talking about your projects on social media.

17. Meet new business partners/suppliers/distributors

Digital marketing could help you meet new business partners, suppliers, or distributors who could help you grow your business faster.

Almost all kind of business is just one search away, so if your online assets are optimized using your niche keywords, most likely your business is easy to be found on the Internet.

This could open doors of opportunity that you didn’t realize.

18. Reactivate inactive clients

You can easily and affordably reconnect with inactive clients to increase your profit. Past clients or lapsed customers, who stop purchasing your product or service are still one of the best prospecting sources you could find.

In fact, it’s a lot more expensive to generate new leads or to convert brand new clients than to reactivate past clients.

After all, you’ve spent time and money to get them to be clients in the first place, so don’t let them go easily.

Here are some good resources about getting your inactive clients to buy again from you:

The Complete Guide to Reactivating Churned Customers
How to Attract Your Past Customers to Increase Your Sales and Revenue
5 Easy Ways to Win Back Old Customers with Email

19. Personalization

Digital marketing allows you to gather clients profile based on their purchase and order history. You can use this information to create a personalized offer that’s more targeted than your regular offer.

It creates client’s loyalty and improves retention.

20 Residual Impact

Most digital marketing activities have a positive residual impact on your business in the long run. For example, let’s say you decide to create a piece of content like an article or a video.

You write the article or shoot the video once, but it’s available forever once you upload it to the Internet.

Conversely, if it has a positive impact, it could also have a negative impact if you ignore a common problem such as bad reviews on review sites.

Conclusion

In today’s world, your clients have access to any information, any time they need it. Your focus when starting a digital marketing campaign should be to produce great content and generate positive feedback or reviews from clients. This combination will attract new customers and keep existing ones happy.

Overall, if you’re on the fence about whether or not you should try digital marketing, the answer is: you should commit to doing digital marketing because it has a lot of benefits that can grow your business quickly and build long-lasting relationship with your clients.

PS: If you have anything to add to this list please leave a comment or contact me. I will add your suggestion to this post. Thanks!