Digital marketing is the terminology that people use to refer to their online marketing efforts either via websites or social media.
More and more people, from your 5 year old nephew to your grandma are spending a huge amount of time surfing the internet or scrolling on their mobile phone or tablet. In New Zealand alone, the Media Trends Report 2016 uncovered that 88% of New Zealanders aged 10 and over use the internet at least once a week. At least. I bet it’s more than that too.
These guys don’t just access the internet for the sake of it (or do they…?) In fact, a lot of discovery goes on while people are surfing their fave websites. Findings from a 2015 Facebook report indicate that potential buyers will visit Facebook first to check out your product or services before even thinking about visiting your website. Who knew!?!
So, why Digital Marketing?
You have to consider why you need to market in the first place. Marketing allows your brand to be discovered, among other benefits such as connecting with customers and building trust. Today, no other media allows you to do that better than digital marketing. It’s true.
Digital marketing is becoming super popular as the years go by. Companies are waking up to the reality that you can no longer just rely on the old methods of marketing offline. These days by the time someone has even made a phone call to your business, you can guarantee that they’ve scoped you out online. They know.
So this year, if you don’t have a digital marketing strategy, you need to contact us to help you get your shit together. This is why
Without a digital marketing strategy:
Your online resources will be wasted
Cool – you have a website, a blog and social media accounts, that’s great! If you have not worked out how to use these or what you want to achieve from them – Not so great.
A strategy will help you know what your goals are, and when you know your goals, you’ll work out how much effort and resources need to be put into achieving them. You got this.
You will miss out on customer demand
You can only understand your market by researching it. Researching your market will allow you to understand your customers’ needs, identify gaps in demand fulfillment and carve out a sweet spot for yourself within that market.
Competitors will grab your market share
True! If you don’t want your competitors to steal your customers and run you out of your market, then now is the time for you to get more serious about creating a strategy for reaching your customers on digital media. Get to it!
Your value proposition will not be compelling
Taking time to plan will allow you to define your value proposition in a way that differentiates it from your competitors. Customers will be encouraged to stick with you when they see how much value your product or service is to them.
You’ll miss out on customer sentiment and engagement opportunities
While it’s cool to measure the good stuff such as visits and shares, it’s also important to know what visitors and customers are saying about your brand. There are tools for measuring feedback and sentiment. By using these bad ass tools, you’ll increase engagement, understand your vulnerabilities and take steps to improve.
Your company runs the risk of operating in silos
When a company’s departments and functions are not integrated, silos develop. When a company has silos, efforts will be duplicated and money will be wasted. Having a clearly worked out digital strategy allows you to kill the likelihood of silos.
You will be understaffed and under budget
Without enough people and sufficient budget, you will find it difficult to take advantage of marketing services that will put you ahead of competitors.
When creating a kick ass marketing strategy, one of the things you have to pay attention to is resources.
You’re likely to invest in the wrong things
While digital marketing is really good, the different methods of digital marketing are not all created the same. They will not serve serve different companies the same way. A strategy prevents you from getting caught up in trial and error of different methods and platforms.
You’ll never be at the front line of top trends
The online market changes all the time. Companies that work with a clear strategy find that they are always ready for it. Unfortunately, a lot of companies collapse because the rapidity of change in the online space surprises them and they can’t adapt – Best not be part of that group.
You’ll market, but you’ll never optimize
A strategy will allow you to define stages and how to get better results after every review. Every time you get results on your analytics, you can review them, and improve on the different aspects of your marketing.
When it comes to the crunch
The bottom line is in view of the above 10 things that can go wrong when you don’t plan your online marketing strategy, it’s clear that if you are serious about doing business, good business, you need to work on a digital marketing strategy before moving forward.
Hit us up and we’ll get you started on a successful journey for your digital media.
