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It’s not surprising that 92% of business owners believe that having a website is the most effective way to pursue digital marketing. After all, your website serves as your online storefront.
However, not every business owner understands the importance of internet marketing as an overall strategy. Your website needs to be more than an online business card or digital store. You can use marketing on the internet to build your brand, bring in new leads, and get customers.
What is online marketing, and some of the benefits of internet marketing? Let’s take a look.
A lot of businesses struggle with e-marketing simply because there is no clear and easy internet marketing definition. The truth is that digital marketing encompasses a variety of strategies. Each one is designed to help you connect with your ideal customers while building your brand and online reputation.
Here are just a few of the strategies that are part of online marketing for a business:
Using these marketing strategies together will help you harness the power of internet marketing and build your business. Now, let’s look at the many advantages of an online marketing campaign.
The first advantage of internet marketing is that there are billions of people there. You know the old business adage, “Location, location, location?” That saying is about having your store where your customers spend time.
Given that there are 4.6 billion people worldwide on the internet, it’s clear that digital marketing is the way to attract attention and be where your ideal customers are. Of course, you don’t want to spend time and money on advertising to all of them. That’s where the second benefit comes in.
When you put up a billboard next to a highway, or put an advertisement on television, you’ll reach a lot of people. However, it’s unlikely that the majority of those folks will be interested in your product or service.
Using search engine optimization (SEO) and social media outreach, you can specifically target people based on their interests and demographics, which is a benefit of advertising online. Best of all, you can draw these people to you instead of interrupting them with ads.
All you need are the right internet marketing tools or a team that can provide expertise. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on reaching folks who will never buy from you!
One of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is that you can draw people to you, instead of interrupting them with ads. The right internet marketing strategy positions you as an expert in your field and invites people to visit your website to learn more about your product or service.
When people visit your website to learn more, they’ll start to know, like, and trust you, which means they’re much more likely to buy from you. Plus, depending on the specific search that brought them to your website, the customer might be ready to buy now!
Did you know that you can run an entire Facebook ad campaign for $5 a day? Compared with radio advertising costs in Toronto, that’s nothing!
The specific outreach you can do using internet media and ads is far less expensive than any traditional approach.
The less overhead it takes to run your business, the more profit you can make. You can also adjust your prices to be more competitive if you don’t have to spend so much on marketing. Direct communication with leads and customers is another one of the advantages of the internet.
Building your brand and engaging with customers has never been more affordable!
In the past, small businesses were limited in their growth depending on how many customers were in their local area. Not anymore. When you operate your small business online, you can serve people from all over the country and even the world.
On top of that, executing your marketing is easier and more convenient when you focus on digital website marketing. No matter where you are, at home or at the office, you can make updates, answer questions, and set up your next outreach.
When you serve more people, you can grow your business and expand your impact in your community. It’s a win-win.
You can’t know your true return on investment (ROI) unless you can measure and track results. With traditional marketing, this is almost impossible unless you use dozens of coupon codes — and people remember to mention them!
One of the biggest internet advantages is that links are trackable. When someone clicks on your marketing, you know exactly which ad they used. This gives you valuable information about what’s working and what’s not.
It’s not just ads, either. You can track whether your website is getting more traffic due to SEO and measure exactly which search terms are bringing in the most traffic.
All of this data allows you to focus your budget and your efforts on what works, and get rid of ineffective marketing outreach. You could rarely do that with traditional marketing!
We mentioned earlier that one of the benefits of the internet is that you can reach a large audience worldwide. However, it’s also true that small local businesses have a big advantage when it comes to search engine optimization.
How is that possible?
Local companies often have customers that need a nearby business. Someone can’t hire a plumber from two provinces away. Instead, they want a local business that can come to their home and fix the problem quickly.
As a local small business, you can capture those customers by focusing on local keywords in your SEO strategy. Including your city, province, and neighbourhood helps you attract leads who are looking for your services nearby.
At the same time, using local SEO strategies helps improve your chance of appearing in Google’s Local Pack. This small map appears above the top organic search result and shows nearby businesses that match the search. When you’re in the local pack, it strongly boosts your chances of getting a sale!
Imagine having the services of an excellent salesperson. They would talk to potential leads, help them understand your expertise, and encourage them to contact you for an appointment. That would be amazing!
Now imagine having that 24/7, anytime anyone expressed a need for your product or service. That would be incredible — and it’s possible with the right website.
Excellent website design matched with top-quality content makes your website irresistible to both ideal leads and search engines. Whenever someone looks for a keyword related to your industry, you’ll have a chance to attract that person and share information — any day at any time.
Having your website be your best salesperson is possible, and you don’t even have to provide vacation!
Digital marketing allows you to automate a lot of your efforts so that you can spend more time focusing on your core business duties. No matter what strategies you use, there is technology that makes it easier.
For instance, you can use email marketing software that allows you to answer all inquiries right away through an automatic reply. You can also create personalized but automated marketing campaigns that allow you to promote specific products, services, and specials to your audience.
When you use social media, you can both automate posts and be alerted right away when someone sends a message, mentions your company, or reaches out to your team. Technology allows you to respond to customers much more quickly, which gives you a higher chance of making the sale.
Don’t assume that automation means that your messages have to be generic and dull. In fact, personalization is easier than ever due to digital marketing tech. Your email marketing can address leads by name and you can send messages that are highly relevant to each segment of your customer base.
Because there’s so much data available online about your audience, you can specifically target only your ideal customers and share marketing messages that will resonate strongly with them. This kind of personalization makes your outreach much more effective than a generic commercial or billboard!
If you find out that a commercial or billboard isn’t performing well, how quickly can you change it? Not very! It takes a lot of time to stop your current production and review and redeploy traditional marketing.
With digital marketing, it’s a completely different story. You can make changes and tweaks to your marketing campaigns in a matter of minutes, and the new marketing will deploy immediately. There’s no comparison when it comes to taking advantage of new data, results, and feedback.
As you may have realized, internet marketing is a significant challenge. There are a lot of moving parts and it is very difficult to stay on top of everything when you are already running a successful small or medium-sized business.
Fortunately, you can get expert help with SEO and other aspects of digital marketing. For instance, when you work with Local SEO Search, we can take over your website design and SEO, optimizing everything to bring in new leads and improve sales. You can focus on what you do best while our in-house team of experts takes care of your website and SEO.
If you’re like most business owners you know that your website is a vital part of your marketing outreach. However, you may not be making the most of it. When you understand how important digital marketing is, you’ll realize there’s so much more you can gain from your online presence.
However, most business owners don’t have the time or energy to become marketing experts along with running their companies. That’s where we come in. Let us help with your website and SEO by contacting us today!
