The world around us is becoming increasingly digitalized, and to stay relevant, many companies have turned to digital marketing to sell their products and services. But what exactly is digital marketing?
Digital marketing makes use of various internet-based technologies, such as websites and social media, to advertise a business’ products and services.
Why is it important to learn digital marketing?
As of April 2021, over 60% of the world’s population is online, and this number is set to increase over the next few years. People use their mobile phones, tablets or computers daily to access the internet for various purposes: work, school, or leisure.
Therefore, it is now highly beneficial for businesses to go online, since they will be able to reach a wider audience as compared to if they were to only focus on operating offline. Digital marketing is one such method that these businesses use to engage with their audiences, as it is relatively simple to understand and execute, and can help them stand out from the many other businesses found online.
Still not convinced that digital marketing is something you should pick up? Well, read on to find out the top 7 reasons why others are learning about digital marketing, and why you should too!
1: Digital Marketing is Growing
The world around us is evolving rapidly, especially with the advancement of technology. With the digitalisation of many different facets of our lives, the digital industry is growing at a faster rate than any other industry, creating countless new job opportunities. In particular, the digital marketing landscape is growing ten times faster than the traditional economy, since many are now online.
To keep up with the changing digital landscape and engage with a wider audience online, businesses of all sizes are doing whatever they can to stay relevant, especially when there are so many other businesses competing for customers’ attention. For this purpose, many are now focusing on digital marketing.
By making use of the various digital marketing techniques, businesses can reach out to potential customers from all over the world at a low cost, allowing them to grow their businesses more effectively. At the same time, they can target specific customers and promote their brand to them.
2: Digital Marketing is Affordable/Cost-Effective
Digital marketing is useful in helping businesses increase their brand visibility on the internet, allowing more people to learn about their products and services.
Digital marketing is not reserved for big companies with an extensive budget – small and medium-sized businesses can use it too. Many businesses have made the mistake of spending large amounts of money on their digital marketing campaigns, only to find that they were not as effective or useful as they had hoped. Digital marketing, if used right, can help drive more traffic to your website, even without spending a single cent.
Some cost-effective digital marketing strategies include blogging, social media management, building links, and email marketing. These strategies might not cost much, but can easily help to create greater brand awareness and generate more leads.
Take blogging, for example, it is an easy way to get people’s attention and drive traffic to your website, while at the same time remaining cost-effective. Through their blog posts, brands can provide valuable information to potential customers, which is important especially if these potential customers are actively searching for information online. By sharing relevant information with these users, the brand can establish expertise and boost brand awareness, such that these users will be more likely to purchase from them in the future.
3: Digital Marketing is 24/7, Global
There is no need for you to engage with an overseas marketing agency if you want to market to an international audience since you can do it yourself! You can target various groups of people all over the world with different types of ads, such as display advertising, social media ads, podcasts, etc.
There are various methods for you to choose from if you want to market to a wider, global audience. However, this will only be useful if you have a good understanding of your target audience: are they more likely to be found using social media? Will illustrations work better than videos? These are some of the things that you will need to consider before embarking on your digital marketing campaign. Additionally, when working with global markets, you must also be sensitive to the different cultures to create campaigns that can resonate with the domestic audience.
4: Digital Marketing as a Career Opportunity
Digital marketing is one area that has grown tremendously in the past few years thanks to the rise of the internet, and due to the fact that digital marketing is in fact, a very broad area, many people have been able to work in the field, although they might specialise in different areas. While most of this work can be done independently, there is the common goal amongst the employees to market the organisation to their intended audience.
In digital marketing, there is a wide range of career opportunities: web marketing, web analytics, content writing, search engine optimisation, etc. No matter what your skillset is, there is a high chance that you will be able to find a role that suits you.
However, if you are interested in joining the field of digital marketing, but feel like you do not have the necessary skills, not to worry! There are many institutions that can help equip you with the necessary skills to become a digital marketer, including MAD School, a reputable digital marketing school based in Singapore.
5: Essential Skills for Entrepreneurs
It probably comes as no surprise that digital marketing is something that every entrepreneur needs to know. If you are just starting out as an entrepreneur, you need to know how to market your business to your target audience, which will help your business grow quickly and more easily. By picking up digital marketing, you will be able to reach out to potential customers and successfully market your products and services to your customers.
When your business is brand new and you are just starting out, having the necessary digital marketing skills will give you a head start, as you will already know how to reach out to potential customers, for example, on social networking platforms. By establishing your own social media account and posting engaging content, it will help to establish brand awareness and build rapport with potential clients, encouraging them to buy from you even though your brand is still new.
After you have successfully established your brand, you will still need to make use of certain skills to ensure that you remain relevant to your customers, and reach out to new ones. These skills include search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing and data analytics.
6: It’s a Useful and Powerful Skill to have Today
With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting everyone around the world, many businesses have not been able to sustain themselves and have had to close down while others are barely holding on. However, there are also businesses that are instead flourishing during these trying times, and the reason for their success would be their ability to market their products digitally. They know how to optimise their platforms to stay connected to their customers and reach out to new ones.
That being said, digital marketing is not something that people should only focus on during the pandemic. As everyone gets used to the new normal and more countries start to open up, digital marketing is still a powerful tool to have, since businesses will always have to stay connected to their clients.
Conclusion
The Internet has become a very powerful tool in recent years, allowing people from all over the world to connect with each other. This is a great opportunity for businesses, especially small ones, to reach out to potential clients, educating them and building rapport with them. Even though users might have stumbled across your page while searching for information, if you can successfully build rapport with them, they will be more likely to purchase from you.
The Internet is also important in helping businesses stay connected to their existing customers, encouraging them to come back time and time again to buy from them. And in order to achieve this, businesses must have a good understanding of digital marketing.
Just like the ever-changing digital landscape, digital marketing is also constantly evolving. So as a digital marketer, you must stay updated on all the latest trends to ensure that your organisation remains relevant. Sometimes, this means that you will need to pick up new skills, which you can learn if you were to take a digital marketing course in Singapore. MAD School has just been nominated by Mirchelley as one of the top digital marketing courses in Singapore alongside schools like the NUS and SMU.
Attending such courses will allow you to be more familiar with the various marketing channels you can leverage to give your organization greater visibility online.