Importance of digital marketing in 2021 is even more than ever before in the UAE. Like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and other emirates are very densely populated communities and almost everyone has access to the internet. This leads to a completely different customer approach to make a purchase. Everyone these days tries to find something from the search no matter if you are searching for a restaurant near you, a gas station, nearest bank branch, clinic or hospital near you, government offices or anything, people tend to search for it online first.
As online search is convenient and more accessible, so everyone is going for it. In that kind of ecosystem, the need to be available online is greater than ever before. This is the reason why digital marketing is so vital and important to grow in 2021. There is a common saying that “if your business is not on the internet then your business will be out of business.”
In this blog, we will try to establish a factual analysis of digital marketing and its benefits along with its comparison with conventional marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
Online marketing, internet marketing or most commonly known as digital marketing is a form of marketing in which we promote a business on various online platforms and mediums for business awareness and business development purposes. In short, digital marketing allows businesses to reach out to audiences in the online or internet domain. This is the simplest definition of digital marketing. Here are the three major classifications of digital marketing:
Content Marketing
The content is like the gold in the digital world, it never gets old, never get out of demand, it never loses its worth. No matter what kind of marketing campaign you are running, whether it is a brand awareness campaign, brand identity, new product launch, special offers, or anything, the content will decide the failure or success of the campaign. There is a thumb rule in the content which is “the content should be engaging/appealing and it should provide value/information at the same time.”
Social Media
Effective and active social media presence is very important for digital marketing. Without social media engagements, you may not achieve the desired results. The social media platform are very useful for brand awareness, lead generation, instant communication and customer engagements. Social media endorsements, shares, likes, etc are very useful in establishing the brand identity.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Website
A well-designed website is the backbone of digital marketing, especially when you need online conversions. As the website can provide a deep insight into your business, your products/services and other relevant information which prospects seek before converting into a lead. Having an engaging and interactive website is important. If your website ranks higher in the search engine results, it could do wonders, which is why a proper search engine optimization is always recommended if you want maximum output from your digital marketing campaign.
Email Marketing
Although email marketing is a very old digital marketing tactic, still it is highly relevant and can generate amazing outcomes if done properly. The email marketing allows you to communicate one on one with your customers, you can generate personalized messages and share links, information and many more at a very low cost, and in fact, the email marketing is the cheapest marketing medium till date. Email marketing is still used by millions of businesses worldwide and is a very effective marketing tool.
Checkout: Building a Successful Email Marketing Funnel with Email Marketing System
Benefits of Digital Marketing
The impact of digital marketing in today’s world is far greater than conventional marketing. In fact, it has completely transformed the marketing industry. Especially in developed countries where most of the population has access to the internet, all kinds of businesses, from large multinational corporations to small local street businesses are benefitting from digital marketing. Here are some benefits of digital marketing:
1. Reach out to large audiences
Digital marketing has enabled businesses to reach out to vast audiences and unexplored markets without a hefty cost.
2. Precisely Target any Audience
Another remarkable feature of digital marketing is that it allows you to target precisely the audience you want, this also reduces the overall cost.
3. Cost-Effective
Digital marketing is the most cost-effective marketing method. As you already have control over the targeted audience and spending which makes it very cost-effective.
4. Excellent ROI Rate
The cost-effectiveness and the freedom to target specific markets or audience groups makes results in excellent return over investment (ROI) rates.
5. Real-time Analysis
The digital also allows marketers to get real-time statistical analysis and comprehensive reports to measure and scale the output of the campaign.
6. Instant Feedback and Response
The businesses can get instant feedback and response to their marketing campaign from digital marketing mediums.
7. Easy and Quick Setup
Digital marketing campaigns can set up instantly and you can initiate a marketing campaign within a few hours and start getting results.
8. Low Resource Consumption
As the setup is simple and easy, the campaign analysis and reports are all automated, so digital marketing campaign management requires very fewer resources.
These are some of the unquestionable benefits of digital marketing. Apart from that digital marketing is way too innovative and is rapidly evolving and improving as comparing to conventional marketing. All digital marketing platforms are simple and easy-to-use and are becoming more effective and more useful day by day. The future of digital marketing is very promising in the modern world.
Comparison of Digital Marketing and Conventional Marketing
The conventional marketing has its own merits and demerits, I am not saying that it is totally irrelevant now, but for specific objectives, this conventional or traditional marketing is way too less efficient than comparing to the digital marketing. Such as:
Targeted Audience
In conventional marketing, you can’t really target a specific audience, for example, if you are running an advert on TV or Radio then everyone who is tuned to the TV or Radio will get the ad. For example, you want to sell something to the healthcare sector, then there is no way you can make sure that your advert will reach out to all the healthcare businesses or their concerned personals. But in digital marketing, you can specifically target only the people working in the healthcare industry. This makes the campaign more effective and way too cost-efficient than conventional marketing.
The Advertisements
In traditional or conventional marketing if you are advertising on TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspaper or anything else, you have to pay for each word or each second your adverts last. Whereas in the case of digital marketing you can share links, bigger videos, images, much more on a fractional cost of what you have to pay for the conventional marketing mediums. Digital marketing allows you to share more information.
The Scope of the Marketing Campaign
The traditional or conventional marketing campaign is always limited to a certain group of subscribers, or even if you are sharing the leaflets or brochures, only a few handfuls of people will consider reading it. However, in the digital marketing, the response rate is way too higher, if you are reaching a large audience then people don’t mind on clicking on an irrelevant advert too, so if you are targeting properly you can achieve higher results.
Customer Engagements
The digital mediums provide a more easy and simple interaction with customers than conventional or traditional marketing. The customer engagements are way too higher for digital marketing. You can also communicate easily from the digital mediums, database management is also way too easy for digital marketing.
The Communication
The communication in traditional marketing is delayed and the communication in digital marketing is immediate. You can instantly communicate with your customers and they can instantly respond to your digital marketing campaign. The setup and launch of a digital marketing campaign can be done in a few hours, however, a traditional or conventional marketing campaign can take weeks or months to kick start.
Cost and Return over Investments
As conventional marketing is loosely targeted, requires longer initiation time period and the start-up cost of the traditional marketing campaign is very high so it tends to deliver a lesser return over investments (ROI) rates. But the digital marketing campaign requires less time, money and expertise to get it started and the results are completely measurable with precisely targeted audiences, so the output or the return over your investments (ROI) rates are way too higher than the traditional marketing.
Read also: Read this before starting Digital Marketing Campaign in Dubai
Conclusion
Digital marketing is way too better than traditional marketing. The digital marketing campaigns are easy to set up, cost-effective, measurable results, precisely targeted audience with a variety of different types of advertisements and marketing channels/mediums, which allow you to prepare specific adverts to target a specific audience to keep your cost under control. The world has to notice huge growth in digital marketing. In case if you want to survive in the future you must have to have the digital marketing campaigns. This will not only give you a competitive advantage but it will also ensure a steady stream of prospects/leads and sales through your marketing funnel.
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