As a digital marketing specialist, the objection I hear most from business owners is why they should invest in digital marketing at all. The answer is financial, and it comes down to eight things.
- The market in 2023
The market has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, and the shift online has forced even the largest corporations to adjust or go under. Household brands such as Blockbuster Video and Woolworths went bankrupt because they were unable or unwilling to change their business model.
In order for a business to understand why to invest in digital marketing they first have to come to terms with the fact that previously viable business techniques have in the most part become unsustainable.
2. Audience location
The digital revolution has forever irreplaceably changed the way we consume information, content and research or commission services. Even if you one of the few who still buy locally or flip through the phone book to find a company, the unfortunate reality is, your the minority.
In 2022 , the number of recorded internet users by “statistica” was 4.9 billion, with the vast majority of them using the internet as a daily active tool. What this means is that the tides have changed and where as leaflet drops, cold calls and shop fronts may have drawn in perspective clients, the new commercial battlefield is online.
Sole trader or blue chip company, your audience is now online.
3. Get seen with SEO (search engine optimisation)
All search engines are indexes. They file information by keyword and display it in an order set by Google’s internal algorithm. That algorithm is not public, so it falls to agencies like ours to work out how to structure your site and your listings so you appear for the terms that are worth money.
SEO is not black magic, Google has two branches the service provider (Google search) and the commercial branch (Google ads). On the service side Googles only MO is to provide the best possible result for the keywords searched for. It decides who is best on a long list of factors, but it comes down to what people search for, where they search from, and which page answers the question best.
4. Return on investment
The main reason anyone invests in anything is return. Traditional marketing relies on manpower and human interaction. Printing leaflets or making cold calls takes bodies.
A digital marketer is still an expense, but for the reach you get it is a much smaller one.
For example a call centre with 10 agents , can make on average 200 calls per shift , per person. That is 2000 untargeted interactions, and you have to account for salary, tax, premises, internet and the phone system on top. One skilled digital marketer can put you in front of ten times as many people per day at less than 10% of the cost.
*(subject to industry, assumed staffing costs and average product interest, calculation based on figures from SEMrush in August 2023)
5. Reduced overhead
With interest rates rising and inflation on a steep up turn , every business in Ireland needs to ensure its reducing overhead wherever possible. Digital marketing is a primary avenue to cut costs, with traditional marketing strategies its very hard or impossible to track ROI, digital marketing is the polar opposite.
From a paid perspective Google/Bing ads console are the most advanced marketing tools in the world, by being able to track impressions, clicks and conversions you can definitively see what a client costs you to obtain.
You can then use your own business analysis to ascertain what your average lifetime value of a client is. By knowing these business fundamentals , you can understand what profit you retain on each and every client.
From an SEO Perspective its just as easy to quantify how much your spending and what income is generated.
6. Cost Effectiveness
Traditional marketing is slow and expensive to change. Paid digital campaigns can return money in the same week, and you can back them up with longer term work such as optimising your site for search engines.
If you want cheaper places to start, DesignRush keeps a list of marketing trends for small businesses.
7. Increase Brand Equity
Brand equity is important for every business regardless of size, but brand equity can be particularly important for brands with high end commercial products. For example, a business offering business or development loans would rarely see an inbound enquiry from a paid ad alone. But when someone is researching companies that offer that service, you want your brand in front of them.
8. Target specific Audience
One of the more recent additions to major marketing suites (meta, google, bing, etc) is audience targeting and segmenting, It lets businesses target individuals on gender, age, job role and even device type. Review the conversion data across your campaigns and you can build a profile of your ideal client, then target that profile directly.
Again by targeting the ideal client type, you reduce over head, marketing spend and increase conversion.
Digital Marketing Agency
At Bubblehub we start with your business goals and build the marketing strategy around them.
We do web design, search engine optimisation, pay-per-click marketing and social media marketing. Used together, they put you in front of more of the people already looking for what you sell.
If you want to know what digital marketing would look like for your business, contact one of our marketing specialists.
