Importance of Digital Marketing in Today’s world

July 07, 2022 · Geethu Sambhu

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. If you want to understand the importance of digital marketing in today’s day and age, then you need to know that there are various factors that influence it.

Scope of Digital Marketing

Marketing techniques have evolved as the ways in which consumers get information change. Radio advertising led to TV advertising, which then shifted to digital marketing with the rise of the internet. Besides these natural market progressions, the COVID-19 pandemic is driving the scope of digital marketing even further online.

The Scope of Digital Marketing: Social Media and Beyond

More than half of consumers discover companies through social media news feeds. Companies can reach almost 1 million customers via Instagram alone, and more than 9 million businesses use Facebook to connect with consumers. Companies leverage social media platforms for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) digital marketing campaigns.

B2B: To generate leads, B2B marketers are active on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. They also often rely on PPC campaigns to reach their target audiences without spending too much money.
B2C: B2C marketers focus on improving brand awareness and attracting customers to their websites and products using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. While posting ads and content on Facebook and other popular platforms continue to be an effective way to reach your target market, the scope of digital marketing encompasses much more than just social media. In addition to social media, savvy businesses also employ the following methods to reach new audiences while building (and maintaining) their brand awareness:
Paid search: Marketers pay Google and other search engine companies a fee whenever someone types in your keyword, and their ad is shown at the top of the search results (“PPC” model).
Organic (or natural) search: This method takes more finesse than PPC since marketers are using keyword analysis and other search engine optimization (SEO) methods to naturally push their content to the top of the list of natural search results on Google and other search engines.
Email marketing campaigns: Believe it or not, email marketing campaigns (if done properly) are still very effective at reaching your target market, and they’re also very accessible for small businesses.
Content marketing: Publishing helpful articles, guides, tutorials, and other online content (in addition to webinars and podcasts) that engages your target audience is the essence of content marketing.
Webinars: This is a great way to provide something of value to target consumers while also promoting your brand and products.
Podcasts: Compelling audio content is another way to reach your audience and can be used in conjunction with other media for broader marketing campaigns.

Why Do Companies Use Digital Marketing?

As the scope of digital marketing technologies evolves, companies are staying current by adding online components to their brick-and-mortar stores or combining various digital marketing strategies to create an internet presence. Because most consumers use smartphones and research products online before buying, digital marketing strategies are crucial to businesses. But companies across the globe also employ digital marketing to more easily target their audiences online and via mobile devices — and many are seeing a significant return on investment (ROI) because of these efforts.

Ease of Audience Targeting
With digital marketing, businesses can use data to target audiences based on factors like gender, age, location, interests, and education. Companies can also retarget potential customers who are already familiar with their brand using different methods and messages for each audience. There are advanced online marketing certifications that can help digital marketers learn how to best target audiences.
Low Investment, High ROI
The cost per lead with digital, or inbound, marketing, is 61 percent less expensive than traditional marketing. Businesses that advertise on social media, use paid search and employ other digital strategies spend considerably less on their campaigns. This is because many companies use pay-per-click (PPC) strategies to keep costs down and target specific audiences. Generally speaking, digital marketing campaigns offer both a greater and faster ROI.
Reaching Mobile Users
There are more than 14 billion mobile devices worldwide, and that number is projected to grow to almost 18 billion by 2024. Because almost all smartphones have internet access, it is easier than ever for businesses to reach potential customers anywhere, anytime.

Importance of Digital Marketing Pre and Post Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has truly transformed how businesses carry out operations. With health and safety concerns many businesses opted to virtually market their brands and also take customer interactions online. Right from groceries and medicines to clothing, the world has taken to the internet.

(Source: IBM)

Let’s talk a little about the pre-covid era. Small businesses in India account for about 95% of the country’s economy. Many of these small to mid-sized companies did not believe in their capabilities when it came to technology. However, with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the world, there came a need to adapt. Change is a constant need for effective evolution – there was a complete digital transformation in business overnight. According to a survey, 59% of these companies accelerated their digital marketing efforts and 66% of them completed digital marketing tasks that previously seemed to be a huge challenge.

They delivered more results as well and saved on various traditional marketing costs. Many say that the Covid-19 pandemic has really brought about permanent changes in operations and the workings of an organization. Cloud-based business activities are saving time and also witnessing bigger results.

So it is pretty evident that the pandemic didn’t stop this industry from growing and in fact, gave it a major boost. Read on to find out the importance of digital marketing for businesses and students which will compel you to upskill yourself in digital marketing.