Did you know that traditional marketing spending is expected to decrease worldwide by nearly 20%, compared to just 2.4% for pure digital budgets (with the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic playing a major role)?
Yes, that’s right. Traditional methods of marketing such as TV advertising, print ads, and billboard ads are quickly becoming a thing of the past.
On the other hand, spending on Search Engine Optimisation and the gamut of digital marketing campaign efforts is predicted to almost double during this same time period.
What is Traditional Marketing?
Any type of marketing that is not online is considered traditional marketing. These include broadcast, print, outdoor (billboard advertising), phone advertising, and direct mail.
What is Digital Marketing?
Conversely, digital marketing is … well … digital. Basically, digital marketing refers to any type of marketing that a company conducts online, like PPC advertising, paid social media ads, and email marketing. The cultural, technological, and societal changes around us have driven digital marketing to become wildly popular.
So why should you follow the trend and focus more on digital marketing than traditional marketing for your small business?
It allows you to easily reach new and existing audiences
Today, small businesses are more digitally focused than they’ve ever been due to more Internet penetration, better smartphones, and higher-speed internet access.
Digital marketing is making it easier for businesses to reach the most relevant audiences and easily promote their business with smaller budgets.
It’s more targeted
Magazine ads, for example, do quite a bit of targeting. You’re likely aware your target group reads that publication. You decide the size and where you want the placement. You create the message within the guidelines of the publisher.
The ad may reach tens of thousands of readers or even a million. But what percentage of these readers are really your target market?
One of the advantages of digital marketing is the ability to analyze huge demographics in detail. This allows you to narrow them down to very targeted groups and make your message super-targeted at the right kind of people.
When you focus on such a precise audience, your ad makes a real impact on your target market. That is what gives it its power to influence decisions because it is so directly relevant to the target audience that more general advertising cannot do. It has the power to build connections.
There is much more interaction and customer engagement
It is easy to see why an incredibly large number of people and businesses are turning to the internet to make their business a success. The internet makes it easier for a small business to be seen by a lot more people as there are no geographic boundaries like we have with traditional marketing.
Digital marketing saves you precious time, money and energy and it gives better insight into your customers which is often difficult with traditional marketing.
It allows you to personalise your audience’s experience
Besides often being very expensive, time-consuming and less effective than they used to be, most traditional forms of marketing offer much less personalisation than digital marketing allows for. And this could make all the difference between closing a deal and missing that all-important sale.
It offers continuous, long-term results
A big advantage of digital marketing, and more specifically SEO copywriting, is that it constantly increases your website’s traffic. The more highly ranked your site is in search engine results pages, the more consumers will click on you.
When your website receives more traffic, you’ll see a higher ROI. When you increase your rankings on search engines and get more traffic, you get more paying customers.
In addition, your high ranking on Google search results page (SERPs) will also help to increase brand awareness. As it shows on the first page of search results, your website will become more familiar to your target audience, thereby building a better reputation.
As a result, your website will gain authority, thus increasing the visibility of your brand.
The results can easily be tracked and measured
It’s more cost-effective
Traditional marketing can get quite pricey, especially if you’re a startup or a small growing business. But when you spend your cash on digital marketing, you get a better return on investment. Be it low-budget PPC campaigns or
One of the advantages of digital marketing for small business over traditional marketing is that you can make the choice to publish blog posts which could instantly be shared with millions of people and read in countries across the globe.
If you want your readers to click links to visit your website there are lots of ways that you can do this.
Distributing content that’s highly relevant and helpful is an effective way of doing it – don’t be spammy or too sales-y, though! Make sure that you’re being helpful first and foremost before thinking about conversion.
Your audience can view your content across different devices
Research has shown that consumers spend more time on mobile devices than they do watching TV. This is why online marketing is becoming more important for small businesses. Customers can access information about your business and products using their phones, tablets and computers, which means you have to adjust how you are marketing your brand to a more digital marketing format.
It provides equal opportunity for all sizes of business
Small businesses can truly thrive thanks to digital marketing, as it helps them to achieve top ranking positions online.
By exposing your company to a wider audience on a much smaller advertisement budget, digital marketing allows you to compete with your competition. Businesses can effectively use it to find and spend their money in the most cost-effective manner.
If you’ve ever looked at the cost of billboard advertising vs posing on social media, you’ll understand what we’re talking about.
Having this sort of control and the data right in front of you helps you make smarter decisions. As you go along, it becomes increasingly clear how digital marketing equalizes the business and product/service marketing playing field.
Bottom line
While traditional marketing will always be important, digital marketing is becoming increasingly important as a revenue generator. In fact, almost half of annual revenue is influenced by social selling, according to new business reports.
The way we market has evolved as the world becomes more digital. Besides being more cost-effective than traditional marketing, digital marketing is a more direct way to reach target audiences globally.
Conclusively, using digital marketing is absolutely the best way to promote your small business. It’s easy, cheap, and lightning-fast. Traditional marketing, like direct mail, has had its day.
Digital marketing is a vital aspect of running a successful business today and cannot be ignored. It has the agility to reach your target audience whenever and wherever they are.
