Why Online Marketing is Important

If you’re wondering why online marketing is important to the success of any business, you’ve come to the right place. In short, the answer as to why online marketing (or digital marketing) is important is that it simply works.

Now yes, having a plan of action is a crucial factor to the success of marketing efforts, but generally speaking, online marketing is one the most effective and efficient forms of marketing in today’s day and age.

But generalities aside, what are the real reasons why online marketing is so effective? Well, here are 5 benefits that make the case for online marketing as a must have.

1 – Online marketing helps you reach the right audience

Being able to reach your desired target audience is one the biggest benefits to online advertising. As a business owner, you likely already have an idea of your ideal customer. Who they are, what they like, where they are located geographically, etc. With online marketing, you can ensure that you are only advertising to people that make the most sense for your business.

For example, with social media marketing, you can target ads to people by age, gender, interests, and location just to name a few criteria. If you are doing PPC ads (also called SEM, or search engine marketing), you can show ads based on keywords you select. This way, your ads only show for the words that you want your website to show up for when someone types in a particular search.

In doing so, this helps your communication be much more effective, while saving you money. Reason being? You’re not paying to reach everyone. Only the people you want to speak to.

Another option to consider for local service related business is pay-per-lead ads. Google Local Services Ads are an example of pay-per-lead ads and are an ideal advertising option for service related businesses who are trying to attract customers in their area.

2 – Lower cost to begin

Compared to other traditional forms of marketing and advertising such as TV and outdoor, online marketing is relatively inexpensive to get started with. Running ads on social media can be a low as just a few dollars per day in some cases. What’s more is that you are able to set your own budget, so you are able to spend as little or as much as you want to.

“So why would you want to spend more?” you might ask. Usually you’d raise your budget if you wanted to reach more people within your target audience (i.e. show your ad to even more people).

3 – Real-time data

Most online marketing platforms offer some sort of analytics tools where you can see real-time data and statistics from your advertising efforts. This may include information such as the number of people who saw your ad, as well as how many people clicked on your ad.

This is useful because it lets you know how your advertising is performing. You are able to answer questions such as “am I spending enough, am I not?” “Are people engaging with my ad, or do I need to make some adjustments?”

Being able to answer questions like these are going to help you optimize your online marketing efforts and run more effective campaigns as a result.

4 – Ability to quickly make adjustments

One of the other nice things about online marketing is just how easy and quickly it is to make changes. After some time, you may decide you need to change the wording or the image of an ad or landing page. Generally, this is just a matter making your edits and republishing.

Obviously it’s not quite this simple with other forms of advertising. Think about it. TV ads, newspaper, radio, or billboard ads – those aren’t changing overnight. So being able to make changes on the fly is one the key benefits that come with focusing your marketing efforts online.

5 – Most of your customers are online

Probably the most important reason why online marketing just makes sense is because that’s where your customers are. They’re on Google. They’re on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram – you name it. And because that’s where they are, that’s where it makes sense to meet them with your messaging.

One of the easiest steps you can take as a business owner to improve your online presence is to get set up on Google My Business where you can get a free Google business listing to promote your business on Google Search and Maps.

In conclusion

Online marketing presents an opportunity to speak and engage with your potential customers like no other medium. It’s a crucial and key component to any marketing strategy and one that should be taken into consideration when advertising your business. It’s easily one of the most effective and efficient methods to growing your business and your brand, hands down.

And that’s why online marketing is important.