Why Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is an easy way to target the right audience, at the right time, with the right message…with pinpoint precision. The right audience, right time, and right message are things that are universal. Whether you are advertising in a magazine, on a highway billboard, or even in your local penny saver, you’re always trying to match your message to the medium and audience.

But can you measure exactly how many people drove by a billboard on a major interstate? Do you know exactly how many people reached Page 7C of your local newspaper? Can you measure the number of people who listened to your radio ad all the way through?

Because I can tell you with an incredibly high degree of certainty that I know what search term people used to find my website through Google Ads, and I can tell you how long someone stayed on my website from organic traffic as opposed to Facebook Ads. Not to mention having an in depth understanding of the location and interests of my users.

Digital Marketing Provides In-Depth Reporting

In an age of having to prove out your advertising costs at every turn, isn’t it important to have the maximum visibility into how your strategies are performing. Tools like Google Analytics offer in-depth insights into how your website is performing, how people are interacting with your website, and how you can optimize performance.

Being able to identify traffic by source and campaign is critical to understanding your return on ad spend/return on investment (ROAS/ROI). Google Analytics breaks down this reporting by those dimensions, in addition to user specific dimensions. Do you think it would be helpful to have the following information about your website audience?

• Location (Country/State/City)
• Device Category (Mobile/Desktop/Tablet)
• Device Type (iPhone 14, Samsung 10+, Google Pixel 6)
• Demographics (Age, Household Income)

Digital Marketing Offers Control Over Costs

Make no mistake, you can get yourself upside down in a hurry spending advertising dollars through Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bing, YouTube, Twitter, etc. If you don’t know what you’re doing, all of these channels are very good at taking your money without offering a lot of return value.

However, with the right expertise, you can get low-cost traffic to your website that is more engaged than the average prospect. Google Search allows you to target people by the actual keywords they’re using to:

• Find a Local Repairman
• Check Reviews at a Local Restaurant
• Find the lowest Airfare for an upcoming trip
• Book their next vacation

With 90% of all online searches (~5.6 billion/day) taking place in Google, doesn’t it make sense that you’d want to be atop those results pages?

Talking about the costs themselves, depending on the terms you’re going after, you could be paying $.50/click, or you could be paying $50/click — but the key is that you’re only paying when someone is taking the desired action on your ad.

Digital Marketing Offers Easier Access To Your Audience

In an increasingly digital world, people are ditching the annual newspaper/magazine subscription, and may not be listening to traditional radio. Digital marketing allows you to reach people on their computers, mobile devices, even Smart TVs, customizing a message specifically to each of those devices.

In addition to the insights you’re able to get when utilizing digital marketing strategies, you’re also able to control the targeting of your advertising, whether you’re targeting by geographic location, device, or even down to the specificty of a list. You can also continue to re-engage with customers and prospects through remarketing tactics with the help of tracking cookies.

My Take

Over the past decade, I’ve seen the marketing landscape shift in a very noticeable way to digital. Newspaper and magazine ads have turned into YouTube Videos and Google Discovery Ads. Even if your main business is brick-and-morter, it’s important to leverage digital strategies to take your business into the digital world.

Regardless of whether you’re a small business owner looking for some help to get started, or a Fortune 500 marketing agency looking to ensure your efforts are optimized, it’s important to make sure you are continuing to review your strategies, and continually iterating. If you need assistance, feel free to contact me to set up some time to review your efforts.