The Role of Digital Marketing (And How It Helps Your Business)

Simranjeet Singh • September 8, 2021
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Even though customer hunting approaches have changed, nearly half of businesses are not leveraging the power of digital marketing.


Suppose you're doing things the old-school way, and your business is performing well - may be beyond your expectations. So, you feel there's no need to embrace digital marketing.


But, have you ever imagined where your business could be if you paired your traditional marketing strategies with digital marketing techniques. Promoting your products or services on digital platforms is worth it to grow your business further.


The internet boasts 4.66 billion users, with 2.14 billion people buying goods and services on the web (1,2). As such, you cannot simply ignore digital marketing if you want to tap into new business opportunities and boost your revenue.


Keep reading for insights into the role of digital marketing and how it can help elevate your business.


Let's get started.

The Role Of Digital Marketing

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Investing in digital advertising may appear like adding a new marketing employee on board, but the rewards are worthwhile.


It's because this form of marketing usually targets people who already have an interest in buying the products or services your business offers.

In other words, it presents you with an opportunity to attract more valuable leads while utilizing your marketing budget more effectively.


Well, this often leads to a higher return on investment (ROI).


Before we go further, let's clarify a few things. You'll find the terms digital marketing and internet marketing used interchangeably. There's a thin line between these two phrases.


Internet or online marketing involves promoting your goods or services on the web. With digital marketing, you advertise using digital channels, not only on the internet. So, online marketing is a category of digital marketing.


These methods share many marketing strategies, but that's a topic for another post.


So, let's stick to the role of digital marketing.

Ways Digital Marketing Influences Your Business

Connecting with potential buyers through web-based advertising and other digital channels can drive your business to new heights. If you're not convinced yet, have a look at the following ways digital marketing positively impacts businesses.

1. All businesses have a fair advantage

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Back in the day, it was all about big brands. Small businesses and start-ups stood little to no chance when advertising. For example, marketing on TVs and radios could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per day, a figure, not many businesses could afford.


The availability of other digital marketing options has completely changed the marketing landscape. Today, you can invest a few bucks towards digital marketing and put your business in front of thousands or millions of potential customers.


While competition exists everywhere, the inexpensiveness of digital marketing helps level the playing field. Any business can compete, regardless of the size and budget

 

We like to give two examples of how digital advertising has brought a fair advantage in the game for all businesses. The examples touch on search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC). These are some of the areas of digital marketing that many businesses invest in the most.

Search engine optimization


  • You probably know that creating a website alone is not enough to maximize your online presence. Approximately 75% of your potential buyers don't go past the first page (3). Therefore, you need to adopt SEO tactics and strategies to make the cut.


  • Large companies and start-ups invest in SEO to increase their rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) for more traffic and leads. Organic traffic is rewarding, considering it accounts for about 53% of all website traffic (4).


  • SEO levels the playing field because businesses have to work their way to the top. You must follow what the search engine algorithms dictate and like.


  • All search engines have one objective - surfacing relevant and high-quality content that satisfyingly answers the searchers' questions. There's no shortcut to appearing high on Google and other search engines.


  • Let's assume you're a small business and you have published content, marketing the best webcams for laptops. If Google likes your content than what big competitor brands have published, it will rank you higher than them.


  • The issue of how much money your business rakes in doesn't have any bearing on your SEO position. It is all down to who provides the most relevant and helpful information to web users.

Pay-per-click marketing


  • When it comes to PPC advertising, the principle of relevancy applies as well. It is not impossible to outrank a giant corporation even if they bid a higher amount for each click. Besides the bid amount, Google also considers the relevancy score.


  • Search engines prefer ads that closely match the search intentions of users. The higher the score, the stronger your ad compares with other advertisers, whether you bid a low maximum. So, you can beat large corporations with a low score but a high maximum bid.


  • Many businesses resort to PPC marketing, especially when waiting for their SEO strategies to start paying off. Yes, SEO doesn't happen overnight. You'll need to wait a couple of months to see the results.


  • With PPC, the results are immediate. And with a good PPC marketing strategy, you can claim one of the first three spots to fight for a good share of clicks. We are saying this because the top three ads receive around 41% of all clicks on PPC ads.

2. Businesses target their ideal audience more effectively

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This is one of the appealing aspects of embracing digital marketing. You promote your products and services directly to users who have demonstrated interest.


For example, if you're running a carpet cleaning company, users have no reason to land on your site if they are not interested in the services your business is offering.


The problem with most conventional marketing methods is that you invest blindly, hoping to find customers in areas you advertise. There's a lot of guesswork in the process.


Even with a decent marketing budget, your team will be marketing products or services to people who may not want to buy. So, it's challenging to target your audience more effectively to avoid wasting money on less rewarding advertising campaigns.


Digital marketing is a game-changer. Your business appears to people who are actually looking for it.


For instance, businesses utilizing local SEO strategies tend to gain more relevant traffic and leads. The chances of converting local leads into customers are encouragingly high. Stats show that 88% of potential clients who search local products or services on their mobile devices visit or contact a business within a day (5).


Using several customer qualifying parameters, you can target audiences in different towns, cities, states, and more. That way, you know anyone that comes to your website is a person that already fits your target market. 


Let's say your ideal clients are female Indians aged 20-45 years with annual earnings of at least $25,000. You could deliver more customized content that targets this group of customers.


You will realize that digital marketing offers better results from your campaigns for a fraction of the traditional marketing budget. It also saves a lot of time, which you can use to focus on other areas of your business.

3. Digital marketing promises a better ROI

Another role of digital marketing is to generate a positive return on investment.


Because digital marketing allows you to target your ideal customers more precisely, you stand a good stance of capturing valuable leads than traditional advertising methods.


And the more leads you get, the higher the conversion rate is likely to be. You can't convert what you don't have.


For every dollar you invest in PPC marketing, for example, you'll get an average return of $2 (6). That's a 200% ROI. When it comes to email marketing, the returns are approximately $44 for every dollar invested (4400% ROI).


With a well-thought-out digital marketing approach, the returns will far outweigh the cost of investment.


Of course, some businesses prefer to do things in-house. But as they say, time is money. While you will save money if you avoid outsourcing your marketing campaigns to a third party, you also need to factor in the time factor.



Building, launching, measuring, and tracking the effectiveness of campaigns with an in-house marketing team usually takes a lot of time.


Business owners also think they will have little control over the costs if they hire a third-party digital marketing agency. That's not true. Online advertising agencies usually work with your budget for PPC, social media, email marketing campaigns, etc.


No two digital marketing campaigns are the same. Your marketing agency will offer recommendations on what budget works best for your business and industry. Your budget needs to be realistic to achieve your goals and objectives with a decent return on investment.


We can't think of a better way to get the most out of your budget other than incorporating digital advertising in your marketing strategy.

4. It is easier to track the performance of your marketing campaigns

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Measuring the progress of a marketing campaign is imperative to understand what's working and what isn't. That way, you will know which areas to work on to generate more leads for your business.


In some cases, you may need to cut off a few campaigns from your marketing approach if they are constantly dragging down your ROI.


With digital marketing, it is possible to determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns for better decision-making.


Traditional marketing methods prove unreliable because it's challenging to know where the leads are coming from, especially when running multiple campaigns.


It can mean asking the new buyers that walk into your store how they heard or found your business.


Whether it's through surveys or by word of mouth, your customers will probably find that annoying. Besides, that's time-consuming.


Also, when using traditional marketing methods, you can't accommodate changes in real-time in most cases. You might have to wait until the existing advertising ends and then include the changes in your next campaign (if you intend to run another).


Internet marketing has many performance tracking metrics, which vary depending on the marketing campaign you're running. Metrics like impressions, click-through rate (CTR), dwell time, likes, comments, shares, and conversions can tell more about the effectiveness of your campaign.


You can implement changes immediately at any marketing campaign stage to ensure your business stays on the projected path. 


However, please note not all marketing campaigns have conversions as the ultimate goal. The purpose of some campaigns can be to build brand awareness. Others could focus on bringing customers into the marketing funnel.


Tracking and measuring your marketing results will depend on what your unique business goals are.


Business owners have access to free different performance tracking tools. Nevertheless, you'll want to work with a professional digital marketing company.


Agencies are backed by various premium tools that offer more valuable insights to drive your business to greater heights. With experts by your side, you'll always know if things are panning out as desired.

5. Your competitors have already adopted digital marketing

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If you're still on the fence after the above explanations on the role of digital marketing, hopefully not, take a moment to think about your competitors.


You cannot possibly continue to rely solely on the traditional methods in this fast-changing environment. Buyer behaviors are shifting.


That's why your competitors have welcomed the idea of digital advertising to stay relevant and boost their growth. They have optimized their websites, created social media profiles, and are tirelessly running paid ads.


Some of your competitors' customers could be walking into your store if you invest in digital marketing. And the earlier you embrace the change, the better for your business.

Final Thoughts On the Role Of Digital Marketing 

Do not underestimate the role of digital marketing when it comes to generating new valuable leads for your business. What's more, it is cost-effective, and results are trackable for most digital advertising campaigns.


This is not a definitive list of the ways digital marketing can positively influence your business. Consider partnering with digital marketing specialists to learn more about digital advertising and get the best result out of your campaigns.