Physical marketing, such as billboards and print, has been surpassed by the significantly greater benefits of digital marketing. The ability to reach a broader customer base through the internet is a tool invaluable to SMEs (small to medium businesses) for developing their brand. An increasing number of these businesses are realising the gains they can earn by embracing digital marketing and investing in associated resources such as SEO and PPC.
Digital marketing is a transformative tool that can help connect businesses and improve customer engagement. With increasing customers engaging with eCommerce, digital marketing has become an essential tool that companies can’t afford to ignore. So, the question is, what are these benefits for SMEs?
Digital Marketing Promotes Brand Awareness
Businesses that invest in digital marketing services will significantly increase their brand awareness for potential customers. This, in turn, drives more people to you than your competitors. In addition, when customers decide between you and an alternative, they will usually use the internet to try and research your brand, which can include looking at customer reviews to try and gauge the quality of your product or service.
In 2021, roughly 36% of SMEs operated without an online presence. Without a website, many customers will assume yours is an amateurish operation that is not worth considering and look for a competitor with a web presence instead. Additionally, with the increase in eCommerce spending, more customers will attempt to find their products online before heading to the high street. By investing in an online presence, you can promote your brand and provide yourself with the tools to remain competitive in your field.
Monitoring Marketing Campaign Performance
Digital marketing campaigns are easier to monitor and analyse than traditional physical marketing. Many computer tools, such as Google Analytics, can help you see the progress of your digital marketing in real-time rather than waiting until its completion. This can provide invaluable insights into the success or failure of your campaign and allow you to adapt it accordingly to suit your brand’s and customer’s needs.
When analysing your digital campaign, SMEs can easily track metrics such as conversions and engagement and have a clear image of how many visitors your website is getting, the number of clicks on your ads and if your social media posts are going viral.
Increased Enquires
More customers mean more business and increased profit. Digital marketing provides many methods for connecting with potential and existing customers. From your main website, you can expand into video marketing and social media to grow your brand. Digital marketing can also help to attract the increasingly growing market of mobile customers. 52.6% of global website traffic in 2020 was generated from smartphones and tablets, a considerable increase compared to 2009’s 0.7%. With no signs of stopping, this growth is predicted to continue, and by investing in digital marketing, you can ensure your business is not left out.
Manage your ROI
Marketing generally has a clear purpose, to maximise profits for the company in question. However, ensuring a positive return on investment (ROI) is a goal all managers will have, and it can be achieved easier with digital marketing.
An immediate benefit is the reduced marketing costs when choosing a digital strategy. Digital marketing is surprisingly cost-effective compared to physical options. In addition, the previously mentioned analytical tools can be used in real-time to decide if you should put more money into a current strategy or re-allocate the budget.
You’ll find that the main KPI for your eCommerce business will be the paid advertising you invest in. Return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) is dictated by dividing ad spend by the ad’s revenue, thereby assisting in your decisions regarding your digital marketing budget.
Increasing Conversion Rates
Digital marketing embraces the convenience of not needing customers to visit your brick-and-mortar store anymore. By providing your customer base with an online presence, they are just a few convenient clicks away from becoming conversions, and at any time of the day or night as well.
Your website should be considered your store and stocked with everything potential customers could want to know about your products and services to make informed decisions. For example, when spending your marketing budget on digital ads, you can embed codes that enable you to track when, who and how people saw your ad. You can also observe what they did afterwards; you want them to visit your site, but where did they go? What interested them the most, and most importantly, did they place an order?
Digital Marketing Supporting SMEs
When applied appropriately, digital marketing will promote significantly positive changes to your website, but to achieve this, you’ll need a strategy to make the best use of the resources available. Many SMEs will lightly experiment with digital marketing by exploring social media and posting occasionally. However, a more comprehensive approach is needed to get the most out of digital marketing. Efficient strategies involve collecting many different digital channels together to create a coordinated campaign with elements that support each other collaboratively into an effective campaign.
By investing time and budget into developing an effective digital marketing campaign, you will see surprising improvements in no time. Contact us online if you have questions about supporting your business’s online presence.
