What can digital marketing do for you?

Well, it’s the online promotion of a company’s products and services over the internet using a mix of techniques including social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, writing regular blogs, articles and press releases, uploading relevant video via YouTube and adding the right words, pictures and audio to websites. So why should your business be using digital marketing?  Considering the explosion of the internet over the last 10 years and current online users said to be over 2 billion people, quite simply this is a huge market that your business really can’t afford not to tap into.

Digital marketing is an extremely cost effective way to market your business compared to other more traditional marketing techniques and provides the opportunity to reach a targeted audience with ease. If your product or service is region specific you are able to direct your marketing efforts into more streamlined focus to help achieve the exposure your business needs. As mentioned, this can be achieved using a variety of promotional methods to ensure that you are reaching all of your potential clients in a media format that suits them. What’s more, digital marketing allows you the freedom and continuity to respond anytime and anywhere and is relatively easy to implement.

Let’s consider the market potential available to users of digital marketing.  Facebook has now exceeded 600 million users worldwide, with 30 billion pieces of content being shared each and every month. YouTube playbacks are hitting figures around the 7 billion each year and over 100million Tweets are sent every day. Email is now being used by over a billion people worldwide with nearly a 100 trillion emails being sent annually. Having the use of all of this technology at our disposal now allows us to reach out to and making lasting connections with an ever growing number of people.

Social media is here to stay. If used in the right way, digital marketing can help to increase your sales by allowing you to build a network of customers who will help you to build brand awareness, adding influence to other potential clients and if managed in the right way, develop customer loyalty.

Before you get started you need to define your digital marketing strategy and work out what your business objectives are. Use the social media websites and forums to find out what people are currently saying about your market. Listen carefully and identify where you can make a difference. Ensure that your online customer service skills are impeccable and sit back and watch how friends and followers become customers and then promoters of your product or services.

Learn to create an interesting thread of communication with your customers and share valuable knowledge and tips with them to maintain their commitment to following you. Fully engaging with your customers in this way ensures a steady stream of traffic to your website and allows you to measure the developing success of your digital marketing efforts.