Technology is dramatically progressing with new inventions and new ways to do familiar things. Keeping up with the latest trends in technology is a necessity for your business to survive in a market filled with competitors. Is your business fully embracing the digital age? Are you and your team engaging in digital marketing to reach out to your customers? If your business does not adapt to new technology, it will result in loss of business and getting left behind. The majority of your prospects and customers are reaching you online and are buying online; therefore it is imperative that you address their needs efficiently and effectively. Focusing on marketing to your customers through digital channels will not only help keep your business ahead of the competition but capitalise the market that your business is in as well.
At some stage, every business owner has typed their business name in a search engine to see the results that come up. Whether you own a small or medium sized business, digital marketing can boost your online presence if you feel you are lagging behind your competitors. Making technological improvements to your business shows that you acknowledge and understand the needs and wants of your customers as well as makes you a more attractive venue compared to your competitors. No matter how small your business is, digital marketing can be very beneficial and pay off all your hard work and effort. Transforming your website firstly requires a modern website presence. Keeping your website updated regularly is one way of engaging digital transformation for your business. Not all businesses utilise the internet in the same way. This all depends on a number of factors, including having goals and objectives in mind and ensuring technology decisions are in line with your business’ transformation.
What Is Digital Marketing?
What exactly is digital marketing you may wonder? Digital marketing is the marketing of products and services using digital technology, mainly the internet. It also includes the use of mobile phones, display advertising and any other type of digital medium. It helps improves a business’ presence by optimising the search engines or through search engine marketing as well as various other techniques. Unlike traditional marketing such as print advertisements, television commercials, or radio, digital marketing provides a much better way of reaching out to a larger audience. It is efficient and cost-effective. It also provides businesses with the opportunity to grow by doing real time analysis of the data. With digital marketing, you handle real time data from your customers and you can then pinpoint the techniques to enhance your business. For example, if your business has a Facebook page and a particular product has little likes and negative comments, you can find out what the exact problem is and find a solution.
In order to transform your business, you must leverage on existing technology as much as possible. Take advantage of the different (and not to mention free) social media platforms that can help you reach out to your audience as well as engage with them. Customise your blogs, shopping carts and content management to suit your business. Your website users and customers will be more likely to purchase off you when your website is consistent and is in line with your brand and products. Inconsistent content on your website can confuse your users and can lead them to your competitors.
The Power Of Digital Marketing
Your business may already have a website set up where your customers can reach you, but you may not be utilising digital marketing to its full potential. With the use of digital marketing, your social presence will be enhanced, especially when a customer searches for your business’ product or service. If your business is hard to search for and is invisible, your customer’s attention may be captured by one of your competitors instead, which they might be using digital marketing strategies to improve their business. As a result of your business being invisible, you will lose a valuable customer and consequently gift it to your competitor. By acknowledging the power of digital marketing, it can allow your business to gain the attention of not only your customers but potential customers as well. In this day and age, most of us have our mobile phones or laptops close by and hesitate to ignore our devices even while we are watching television. Digital marketing can instantly grab the attention of users and influence their decision to purchase a particular product or service.
When it comes to your website, it is also important to ensure it is compatible and optimised to a number of devices and not just a computer. Almost everyone uses their mobile phones to surf the internet, which is why mobile optimised websites are now the way to go. A mobile optimised website is far more advanced, but it can influence your user’s decision to stay on your website and purchase or to leave. Depending on your business, you may even consider mobile application. The popularity of mobile devices and applications provides a great opportunity for you to extend your products or services to your customers. For instance, if you own a restaurant your mobile application could consist of online reservations, requests for delivery, ordering capabilities and payments.
Uniting Your Business With Customers
With digital marketing, you can build long-lasting relationship with your customers and it can also help you gain new customers with its features which has the ability to attract them. Creating a strong bond between you and your customers is important for loyal and recurring customers. Loyal customers are just as important as new customers. If your business has many loyal and recurring customers, it gives a good indication that your products or services are liked enough to be bought again and again. Not only do they provide repeat business, but as you build your relationship with them, it will become increasingly easy to sell to them in higher volumes. Selling higher volumes obviously leads to more sales and more revenue. Loyal customers can bring about new customers through word-of-mouth and provides cross-selling opportunities. Your business also has the option to reach out to your followers with a number of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn simultaneously. Regularly engaging and communicating with your followers can lead to a positive reputation for your business. With this said, you can also analyse the activity levels of your customers and work on certain areas that need more attention and care.
Set SMART Marketing Goals
In order to fully embrace the digital age and transform your business in line with this change, you must first develop measurable goals that allow for strategy changes and reviews along the way. In addition, measureable goals help us prove how effective we are and what else can be done for improvement. Setting goals and objective are a great way to check the progress of your business’ transformation, however, goals are useless if they are not realistic. With this said, it is pivotal to set SMART goals.
S- Specific: Set real numbers with real deadlines. A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal with no real deadline. In order to set a specific goal, answering the six “W” questions will help:
Who: Who is involved?
What: What do I want to accomplish?
Where: Identify a location.
When: Establish a time frame.
Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
Why: Specific reasons or benefits of achieving the goal.
M- Measureable: Make sure you can track your goals by establishing a solid criteria for measuring progress towards the accomplishment of each goal set. When you measure your progress to determine if your goal is measurable, the following questions will help:
How much/many?
How will you know when the goal is accomplished?
A- Attainable: Work towards a goal that is challenging but attainable. When you identify goals that are important to your business, you can develop ways to achieve them through the development of attitudes, abilities, skills and financial capacity.
R- Realistic: Be realistic honest with yourself, including what your team can and cannot do. Address the challenges that might come up and be sure that every goal set represents substantial progress.
T- Time-bound: Give yourself a specific deadline. If you do not set a goal to be completed within a time frame, then there is no sense of urgency and it could never be accomplished.
Setting SMART goals will enable your business to effectively transform into the digital age and your business will reap the benefits and opportunities that digital marketing brings about. Every business is unique and different; therefore setting specific goals to your business is important to ensure your business is moving in the right direction. These are different times and success can be as simple as fulfilling your customers’ needs to your full potential, having the best customer interface or building brand awareness. Don’t let your business be left behind and develop digital marketing strategies that can change your business for good.
