Bewildered by digital marketing?
Or more to the point: are you bewildered by what really works in online/digital marketing?
Do you run the danger of listening to self-proclaimed “gurus” who don’t, in fact, put their own techniques into practice every day?
Here are thirteen things which might give you a little insight of what is involved:
- Digital marketing or originally known as online marketing is the use of digital media ranging from video to email and everything in between – to promote your business.
- The increasing number of marketing options can be overpowering and perplexing for many small business owners.
- The growth of “experts” in social media marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation) has added to this feeling of bewilderment, particularly when a lot of the strategies being endorsed are not shown to have worked for businesses like yours.
- The irony is that the prominent social media “gurus” and experts, depend heavily on email marketing to grow their business.
- Digital marketing provides the small business owner with an exceptional opportunity to engage with their target market at a fraction of the price needed for traditional advertising or direct marketing.
- “Direct marketing” is a phrase made up by Lester Wundermann, in Boston in 1967. He later stated that he wished he had called it “personal advertising” which gives you a clue to the power of direct marketing because it consist of targeting your potential customer directly.
Compare this personal method with an advertising campaign on the TV, radio, newspapers, magazines for a product like cat food. Your promotion will clearly interrupt non cat owners too.
- Digital marketing enable the small business owner to engage in smart, cost-effective guerrilla marketing type tactics. Using the most suitable digital channels in the right way will see an impressive return on their efforts.
Approximately two decades ago the small business owner had no chance of rivalling the ad spend of the bigger and richer competitors.
- It took Cocoa Coke fifty years to build a global brand using traditional advertising channels.
- It took Google two years to become a global brand via the internet, with no ad spend. Yahoo required three years and YouTube managed it in one.
- You rarely see an advertisement for Facebook, Amazon, Ebay, Google, Twitter, Pinterest or YouTube on TV, radio, newspapers or magazines?
- Twitter launched in 2006 and has approximately 271 million active users.
- Facebook is believed to have 25% of its servers devoted to the phrase “lol”.
- Pinterest launched in beta in 2010 and was listed in Time magazine’s list of “Fifty Best Websites in 2011″. In January 2012 it had 12 million users and worked out of a small flat up to 2011.
- 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase.
- 50% of companies that are using digital marketing, don’t have a plan!
Ok, so none of these facts alone will help you grow your business online.
But with any luck you will take away one thing: there is no one size fits all tactic for every business, and any social media or online marketing professional who has this opinion is either wrong or foolish.
Every business is unique, and there is a strategy that requires a combination of online marketing platforms that will perform the best for your business.
As a small business owner, it is your job to either find what’s right for your specific business or find the right professional to help you.