Digital Marketing Is No Longer Optional for Small Businesses

It’s not simply a matter of how much you spend on marketing, but also of how you spend it.
There are easier and more efficient ways than conventional marketing to generate a far better
return on your marketing spend.

And that is through maximizing and refining your digital marketing efforts. Internet penetration in the United States is at its highest point ever, and
thanks to services like BuyInternetCable, more people will continue to sign up for residential and
business internet.

The state of the internet today, given search engines, browsers, cookies, social platforms,
devices, e-commerce, and more, is perfectly positioned for brands to reach out to qualified
audiences and generate better results.

Moreover, it doesn’t just offer better results, but transparent ways to measure the effectiveness of your ongoing efforts. The best part? The
digital world offers a level playing field to small businesses competing against much larger
competitors. There are still many compelling reasons why your small business can’t succeed
without consistent digital marketing.

Benefits That Align With Key Business Goals

No two businesses are the same. They vary in terms of business models, talent, infrastructure,
capital, and capability, among other factors. But certain key goals remain common among
almost all businesses, regardless of size. Digital marketing offers several advantages that can
be leveraged to align with many of these key business goals. In very brief terms, digital
marketing can help small businesses to:

• Interact with prospective customers on a more personal level.
• Reach out beyond local prospects to a global market.
• Spend less money and acquire a better quality of customers.
• Engage with your audiences to establish credibility and brand loyalty.
• Track and improve digital marketing efforts accurately and in real-time.

Getting Faster Results

Don’t make the mistake of thinking your digital marketing efforts can be postponed to a later
date. Instead of focusing on conventional marketing, leverage digital channels to start
generating results much faster. The right search engine ads or social media ads can help you
start generating traffic and revenue even before your business is up and running.

Most Of Your Consumers Are Likely Online Anyway

It is the Age of The Internet. Everyone has smartphones, computers, tablets, and other devices
to access the internet. They use it to socialize, look for interesting content, find information, get
entertainment, and of course, engage with businesses. In the United States, over 80% of the
population has internet access. As any good business leader will tell you, you have to go where
the customers are. Don’t wait for them to find you, reach out to them with what they need.

The Competition Likely Has An Online Presence

Just because you don’t invest in digital marketing doesn’t mean your competition thinks the
same way. Just search for businesses similar to yours in your city on a search engine. Now
search for similar businesses all over the country. Consumers have grown used to the instant
gratification the internet offers.

If you want to learn about Plato, you no longer visit the library and pore through dense and
complex books. You simply Google “who was Plato?” and the search engine will give you all the
information available, instantly. The same applies to products. Consumers will often search for
specific products or services and make instant decisions. Since you don’t have a digital
presence, they won’t see you. But they will see competing businesses and choose one, which
means you just gave up revenue to a competitor.

Be More Accessible To Audiences

Of course, digital marketing isn’t just about attracting audiences, but also about engaging with
them. Again, the internet serves as the perfect medium for audiences to engage with brands
and vice versa. It is low-cost, convenient, and a great opportunity to establish a brand image
within audiences. This can be anything from answering queries to offering after-sales service or
even a memorable customer experience. Audience engagement is key to growing both your
customer base as well as your brand visibility.

Get Qualified and Relevant Potential Customers

Acquiring new customers can often be hard work, as anyone who has worked in sales can tell
you. Too often, sales teams waste valuable time and resources chasing the wrong customers.
The “wrong” customer is someone who has no interest in buying your product and is not likely to
change their mind.

Yes, persuasive techniques and slick pitches are often effective sales tools.
But even they cannot alter a firm ‘NO!’. The result? You get very inefficient results from all that
time, money, and effort you spent. But thanks to modern search engines and transactional queries, you don’t have to spend time barking up the wrong tree.

In fact, the tree will come to you of its own accord. Search engines like Google have become very intelligent over the past decade, as services like Spectrum internet plans ensure even more people have access to the internet.

This allows them to identify the context of transactional queries and offer the most relevant results to that query. If you build your digital marketing efforts around this correctly, your business website pages can often be part of these relevant results. In other words, your business appears as a relevant option to a customer who is already looking for what you offer. In essence, you have to spend far less effort and resources on acquiring customers who already need what you sell.