The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Digital Marketing
Everything is moving to digital and adjusting your marketing strategy is crucial to the success of your business. Understanding the nuances of digital marketing is something that takes time to sit down and study. With an increase in demand for more personalized consumer experience, digital brings your product directly into consumers hands.
Before digital media, you had more traditional outlets to reach consumers. Billboards, magazines, newspapers, and radio were once the traditional way of marketing. With internet and smartphones, the world of information consumption moved into a realm of funny cat videos and the latest tweet from your old friend from high school.
Now, don’t overthrow old media just yet. Traditional mediums can still serve an effective role in your marketing strategy if used correctly with digital marketing. We understand what it takes to thrive in the melting pot of new and old media within the Wiregrass. Knowing your options is vital to understanding how to reach your target consumers in a growing digital market.
Understanding Consumer Behavior
You’ve spent years keeping the pace with your consumers interested by telling them about your products. With the new age of digital marketing, your consumers can dictate the value of your product just by leaving a review on a review site. This is where the value of a consumer increases.
With the ever-changing digital market, one thing stays consistent and that is metrics. Being able to track consumer behaviors via a like or click tracking can give you insight into how to better understand your consumers. The accuracy of these metrics wasn’t possible with traditional media and serves as a great tool when creating ad campaigns.
The Power of Digital Media
Digital media creates an abundance of information that can sometimes seem overwhelming when trying to find where your business fits into the scheme of things. First, you will need to understand the different types of digital media: owned media, paid media and earned media.
Owned media represents your social media profiles, blogs, and information articles. Anything that your business produces online can serve as owned media. Paid media is when you pay someone else or a company that specializes in digital advertising to place digital advertisements throughout the internet, such as Facebook Ads, Web Banners, etc. Finally, earned media is media your business accumulates through consumer conversations, news media coverage or press releases. Whenever your content is shared or a conversation is created around your business that is considered earned media.
The Power of Digital Media 2.0
Before digital media many companies would pay millions of dollars in billboards, newspaper ads or TV commercials. Now reaching consumers have moved from a local or national market to global. Digital media allows your business to connect with consumers on a more personal level which creates a dialogue for direct consumer input. This can be translated through social media or the use of Chatbots on your website. Traditional media could never match the accuracy of targeting technology that is used today to better understand consumer behavior. More detailed analytics means a precise way of creating a targeted ad campaign.
Where should I put my money?
Businesses are turning to digital media to meet the needs of consumers, but traditional media is still very much alive and kicking. Don’t throw traditional media completely out of your strategy just yet. There are still great uses for traditional media in the Wiregrass. Considering we live in a city that sits on a crossroad for the young and old, blending your marketing strategy to include both demographics can help you reach a wider audience. Depending on who your target audience is, utilizing local advertising methods can raise your business to the top of the local listings.
Digital media is taking hold of advertising and redefining the relationships between consumers and businesses. It is important to create a marketing strategy that incorporates a good blend of traditional and digital media.
If you would like help with your marketing strategy or need a Brand New Idea, contact us today at 334-446-6149 to learn more.
Posted: Feb 20, 2019