Top Benefits of Digital Marketing in 2022-23

Due to the pandemic, the retail industry has dramatically transformed. Customers have forged new shopping habits and have upped their expectations for brands. The digital landscape has evolved just as much, with campaign redesigns to acknowledge the new reality, which means offline marketing isn’t as effective as it used to be.

Given the rapid onset of new behaviors, trends, and technologies, every business needs a digital marketing strategy in 2022. But what are the benefits of digital marketing?

Are you ready to learn why digital marketing is the best strategy for companies of all sizes and industries? Before we explore the benefits of digital marketing for your business, let’s get the basics out of the way.

What is Digital Marketing?

In a nutshell, digital marketing, also called online marketing, refers to the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers through an electronic device or the internet. It encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet.

We can categorize digital marketing into seven primary forms: 

• ● Search engine optimization
• ● Pay-per-click
• ● Content marketing 
• ● Email Marketing 
• ● Affiliate and influencer marketing
• ● Social media marketing
• ● Mobile marketing

Digital marketing often gets compared to traditional marketing techniques such as billboards, magazine ads, and direct mail. Oddly, we regard television as part of traditional marketing.

Why is Digital Marketing Important

One of the top advantages of digital marketing is the engagement it brings.

Digital marketing enables a business to connect with its customers online and is effective in all industries. It allows digital marketing pros to communicate with prospective customers when browsing through SEO and PPC, with social media marketing on social media, and via email with email marketing.

If you want to reach potential buyers in 2022, you must go where the people are.

Before switching to digital marketing and diversifying your marketing strategy, you probably want to understand the advantages of these new digital marketing tactics.

Let’s have a look at the top digital marketing benefits:

Get Faster Results with Digital Marketing

Cost-effective and Faster

Digital marketing is cost-effective and faster than traditional marketing techniques. If your business has limited resources, spending your money to advertise traditionally is not enough. Securing a billboard beside a busy road isn’t cheap. Even printing flyers is expensive and time-consuming.

However, your business can start the process almost immediately with digital marketing. All you need to do is conduct some studies and try any digital marketing techniques best for your business.

Convenience

Your customers are online!

There were 4.88 billion internet users worldwide in October 2021 – that’s almost 62 percent of the world’s total population.

There are many more people to reach out to should you decide to practice digital marketing. Exposure is vital if you want to find customers, and digital marketing is the best way to make it happen.

When prospective customers hear about your business, they instinctively want to learn more about it. So, what do they do? They check your presence online to know if you exist. If people can’t find anything about your business online, chances are you’ll lose them as a customer.

Build and Develop a Digital Marketing Sales Funnel

A digital marketing sales funnel is the step-by-step online journey a user takes to become a customer. Essentially, if people are purchasing your product online, you have a marketing funnel, whether you know it or not.

A sales funnel comprises of three parts:

• ● The top - Let people know you exist by increasing your brand’s visibility, awareness, and authority.
• ● The middle - Capture and nurture visitors into leads
• ● The bottom - Focus on a transaction  

Creating an effective digital marketing funnel to generate leads and convert sales is crucial in any digital marketing strategy. While the concept is simple to understand, marketing funnels can be very complex for a variety of reasons, including:

• ● There is a wide range of marketing channels to choose from
• ● Your customers may have different needs
• ● Each customer has a different level of awareness

Now that you know what a marketing funnel is and how it works, here is a proven marketing funnel framework that will help you generate leads and convert sales regardless of your industry.

Stage 1 – Recognition

Realizing that you have a problem is the start of the buying process.

If you can’t tell that you have a problem, why would you purchase a solution for it?

Picture this; you might have a problem with your eyesight, but you won’t do an online search for an optician until you see or feel something unusual. On the other hand, if your laptop screen cracks, you immediately know that you have a problem and will quickly jump to the next step (information search)

Stage 2 – Information Search

Recognizing you have a need or problem triggers a search for more information, bringing potential clients to the second stage of the funnel.

Information gathering strategies tend to vary based on the size and scope of the purchase. If you’re hungry, you’ll just do a quick search for the closest restaurants in the area. Deciding which new motorhome to buy, on the other hand, will involve doing research online, watching YouTube reviews and walkthroughs, calling around, visiting showrooms, and talking with salespeople.

Stage 3 – Evaluating Alternatives

Once prospective clients know the solution, they’ll then compare the alternatives.

Again, the time spent in the evaluation stage will vary based on the type of purchase someone is contemplating.

Choosing a restaurant is as simple as feeling like you’d want some burritos. When buying a motorhome, though, you’ll go through a more thorough evaluation process since it is a much more significant investment.

If you’re running a motorhome dealership, you might create content about:

• ● Choosing the best motorhome
• ● Best luxury campers in 2021
• ● Buying a new vs. used RV

These examples are educational and non-promotional resources that help prospective clients decide which solution is best for them. Note that the leads reaching this stage are more serious about purchasing customers doing initial research.

Stage 4 – Purchase Decision

The purchase decision is the final stage of the preceding three steps.

The potential client has identified a problem, evaluated their options, settled on the best option… and now they’re getting ready to make a purchase.

At this final stage, optimizing your website for conversions is a great way to increase sales.

Consider providing money-back guarantees, risk-free trials, money-back guarantees, and similar offers to make purchasing your product or service a no-brainer.

Important tip - Although most prospects enter the sales funnel at the top, it doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people will enter at subsequent stages. However, the process remains the same regardless of which stage a lead enters the sales funnel.

How to Begin Enjoying the Benefits of Digital Marketing

Now that you know what a digital marketing sales funnel entails, how do you start digital marketing in 2022? Here is a 10 step guide on how to succeed at digital marketing in 2022:

Identify Your Goals

Without goals, the marketing strategy will not work. Make sure that the marketing goals you develop are suitable and measurable.

Identify Your Target audience.

Who do you want to target?

As a marketer, you should find a niche market to target that your competitors are missing out on. Besides targeting your competitor’s clients, try to find your niche market.

Define a Budget

For a digital marketing campaign to succeed, you will need to come up with a budget. Keep in mind that while digital advertising is the cheapest form of advertising, you will need to budget for paying for services when you hire a digital marketing company.

Find a Balance Between Paid and Free Digital Strategies

You want to utilize as many channels as possible for your digital marketing campaign.

A combination of social media marketing, Email marketing, optimizing your website, and using pay-to-click can build a robust strategy if done correctly.

Create Engaging Content.

Content is king!

Creating interesting and engaging content is essential to increase brand awareness and improve lead generation.

Optimize for Mobile.

It’s a mobile-first era, so all businesses should focus on offering a seamless mobile experience. 

Target the Right Audience

You need proper keyword research to target the right audience if you plan to run pay-per-click ads (PPC) or optimize your website for search engines (SEO).

Keywords are words people type into search engines to find a product, a service or answer a question.

So, how do you find great keywords for your business? Just put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Compile a list of keywords you think your customers will be searching and then test them!

Without proper targeting, a digital marketing campaign loses a lot of its luster.

Optimize and Obtain Better Conversion Rates

Constant monitoring of your digital marketing campaign is essential to ensure that your strategy works effectively. Remarketing is a tool that you should use throughout your digital marketing campaign as it allows you to capture leads that you might have otherwise lost.

Remember to learn from your mistakes and always find improvement opportunities!

Constructing a Winning Digital Marketing Campaign

Designing a winning digital marketing campaign isn’t easy, but an effective and well-thought-out plan will make it much easier.

GoMarketing is an award-winning digital marketing agency in Thousand Oaks, CA. They offer a range of online marketing strategies to help businesses of all types and sizes establish a strong online presence and generate higher ROI.

Ready to nail online marketing? Leave your company’s online presence to their team of experienced digital marketing professionals. Contact their online experts today!