Does Digital Marketing Deliver?
Statistically, digital marketing delivers results every time, when practiced by experienced professionals. That’s key. Digital marketing when compared to other more traditional forms of marketing and advertising consistently has a far greater Return On Investment ratio.
Anyone today can set up a seemingly-free Do-It-Yourself template and then expect to be listed at the top of Google, and anticipate more phone calls and emails from new customers rolling in. Right?
That’s certainly the premise and assumption of 99.9% of business owners out there.
But, Is That DIY View of Digital Marketing Realistic?
No, that view of digital marketing being something anyone with a pulse can utilize and benefit from is not at all reality. It is the fantasy of someone who is simply not fully informed and in experienced in actual marketing.
If that view of digital marketing something anyone with no prior experience could benefit from quickly, there simply wouldn’t be a dozen or more digital marketing agencies in every city in the United States (and every other medium-sized city in the world for that matter).
When Digital Marketing Delivers
Digital marketing works when it’s used as a whole, and used correctly by experienced professionals. It’s an important distinction to make that holistic digital marketing is far more effective than simply pasting together a random haphazard collection of disconnected tools, especially when we see tools and templates advertised over organized methods of achieving our goals using these tools and templates.
What Blocks Business Owners from Using Digital Marketing Effectively
What usually prevents business owners from using digital marketing in any effective manner is a combination of denial combined with price-shopping.
By denial, I mean a lack of understanding of how digital marketing assists them in achieving long-term, important, valued business goals such as increasing their customer base and therefore refusing to invest adequately.
Secondarily to that, is a lack of understanding in how to budget appropriately.
Tactics without strategy doesn’t help anyone and so it is that a website with no SEO, or incorrect SEO, no eCommerce, no content, no strategy or branding behind it or thought-out ways to promote the brand, serves no one and can even cause your ideal consumers to have a negative first impression of your business.
Here are some interesting facts you should consider:
- 83% of small business owners who already own a professional website have a competitive advantage over those without one (GoDaddy, 2018)
- 59% of small business owners who already had professional websites reported their businesses growing once online.
- Companies with blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t have a blog
- 75% of people who find local, helpful information in search results are more likely to visit the physical stores (Think with Google, 2014)
- Businesses make $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on Google AdWords (Google Economic Impact Report).
- 90% of searchers haven’t made their mind up about a brand before starting their search (HubSpot, 2021)
- 84% of people will not make a purchase if they are dealing with an unsecured website (Blue Corona, 2018)
- 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles (Forbes, 2019)
- 76% of adults use Facebook daily (Pew Research Center, 2016). Most small businesses refuse to advertise on Facebook and have no content to share on it, either.
- According to a recent piece by The New York Times, digital marketing is the future of advertising as more companies invest increasingly more revenue into different social media platforms, outlets, and sites daily
When you look at those statistics, it’s easy to see that digital marketing is effective at converting internet users into paying customers, across the board.
The only reason not to use holistic digital marketing, would be because you don’t want more customers.
(That actually is how some business owners feel, believe it or not. I consulted with a small retail shop owner once who complained to me about her sales. She ran a small local antique clothing boutique shop. I told her ways to increase foot traffic into her store, then use local SEO and special offers on her website and eCommerce to increase sales. She balked at the idea, complaining that if she had more customers, she’d have to hire more staff to handle supplies. I agreed with her and assessed that growth was just not something for her in that case and wished her a nice day.)
As more consumers continue to purchase laptops and tablets, use smartphones daily, use Google to find businesses, and use eCommerce to pay bills and shop online, digital marketing will continue to become an even greater factor in determining which businesses increase profits and which file for bankruptcy.
Those businesses that are online and take digital marketing seriously, are organized sufficiently to handle more customers, more phone calls, and respond to more emails on a regularly recurring basis subsequently get more Returns On Investment every time.