Why digital marketing is important in 2024
Why should your business invest in digital marketing? People are spending more of their time and their money online. The Internet now plays a central role in how people make purchase decisions.
For some more insight into why digital marketing is important in 2024, check out the following statistics:
- More than 5 billion people are active on the Internet.
- About 71% of business buyers begin their product research with a search engine.
- By 2023, 90% of Americans are expected to buy goods and services online.
As people spend more time and money online, businesses can increasingly use the Internet to reach new customers, drive more leads, and earn more revenue.
So, how can digital marketing help a business grow? There are many advantages to using digital marketing, but here are some of the top benefits:
- Digital marketing expands your business’s reach
- Digital marketing enables you to target your audience precisely
- Digital marketing enables you to track results accurately
- Digital marketing brings customers to you
- Digital marketing increases brand awareness
- Digital marketing helps to improve sales
- Digital marketing is cost-effective
- Digital marketing prepares you for the future
Let’s looks at each of these benefits of using digital marketing in more detail:
1. Digital marketing expands your business’s reach
With digital marketing, you’re no longer limited to your local area. As mentioned earlier, a huge number of people actively using the Internet is a major reason why digital marketing is so important in 2024 and beyond. Digital marketing gives you the ability to reach more people, no matter where they are in the world.
With the enormous potential customer base of the Internet, the opportunity for growth is massive. Even small, relatively new businesses can reach a wide audience around the globe. And thanks to the Internet’s vast user base, businesses that sell niche products and services can find enough customers to be viable.
2. Digital marketing enables you to target your audience precisely
With digital marketing, you can target your ads and content to highly precise audiences. You can target ads based on:
- Demographics
- Location
- Past purchase behavior
- Interests
- And much more
Plus, you can easily adjust your targeting throughout an ad campaign as needed. When you use traditional marketing, on the other hand, your targeting capabilities are limited or hardly existent at all. You often have to just put your ads out there and hope the right people see them.
With a billboard, for example, you have little control over who sees your ad.
3. Digital marketing enables you to track results accurately
Using digital channels for your marketing enables you to get much more feedback about your campaigns. You can easily access detailed information about who’s clicking on your ads, visiting your website, and following you on social media. Here’s an example of a report from Google Analytics, one of the most popular web analytics tools, that shows the age of users visiting a website: Thanks to tools that track and report on digital marketing metrics, you can see how your campaigns are performing as they’re running and adjust them to improve your results.
For example, you can test several variations of a PPC ad and see which gets the most clicks. That way, you can focus your efforts on the most effective types of ads. You can also track ROI metrics to evaluate your campaigns’ overall performance.
4. Digital marketing brings customers to you
Traditional marketing is typically outbound marketing, while digital marketing lends itself to inbound marketing.
- Outbound marketing involves reaching out to customers to tell them about your business, service, or product. Often, this type of marketing is viewed as an interruption. Examples of outbound marketing include TV commercials, cold calls, and direct mail.
- With inbound marketing, potential customers or leads come to you. They discover your business while browsing the Internet, conducting research, or shopping. For example, a customer may find your blog post after doing a Google search.
In the case of inbound marketing, because customers are actively looking for information, they are more likely to be genuinely interested in your business and more likely to make a purchase. In addition to attracting more qualified leads, inbound marketing also attracts more leads overall. Inbound marketing drives 54% more leads than outbound marketing.
5. Digital marketing increases brand awareness
Digital marketing is excellent for increasing brand awareness, which is how familiar your audience is with your brand. In fact, online ads can increase brand awareness by as much as 80%. Awareness is the first step of the marketing funnel, which helps visualize the customer journey.
The more people that are aware your company exists, the more chances you have to turn leads into customers. Digital marketing offers lots of opportunities to increase awareness of your brand in seamless, non-disruptive ways. A few of your options include blog posts, videos, social media posts, PPC ads, and infographics.
6. Digital marketing helps to improve sales
Digital marketing generates leads that are more likely to convert, boosting your sales and revenue. Exactly how can digital marketing help a business grow its revenue? Take a look at the following statistics:
- SEO leads have a close rate of nearly 15%, as compared to the less than 2% close rate of outbound leads.
- When users conduct local searches, such as those that include the phrase “near me,” they convert 80% of the time.
- Content marketing can double your website’s conversion rates.
7. Digital marketing is cost-effective
Digital marketing helps to improve sales, and it does so cost-effectively. Smart, data-backed digital marketing strategies like those offered by us drive an impressive return on investment (ROI) that makes them well worth it. Check out these examples:
Working with an experienced digital marketing company like us can help you get the most for your money. We can also help you choose the digital marketing services that are right for your needs.
8. Digital marketing prepares you for the future
As mentioned earlier, people are increasingly using the Internet to research products and services as well as make purchases. If you’re not taking advantage of the benefits of using digital marketing, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, especially since your competitors are likely using digital marketing. The expected growth of digital marketing is further evidence that now is the time to start investing in it if you haven’t already.