Advantages & Disadvantages of Digital Marketing
Reuters reports that digital marketing spending rose 44% last year in the US and UK, which takes us close to a total global outlay of $100 billion. Digital marketing isn’t so much important as it is unavoidable – moving ahead without it is like opening a ‘bricks and mortar’ store without putting a sign outside.
Advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing 2019
That said, the benefits of digital marketing do not disqualify the downsides. Those drawbacks shouldn’t dissuade you from concentrating on digital, but you should certainly consider your future marketing in terms of the industry’s pros and cons if you’re to enjoy the best results.
Make the Most of the Advantages of Digital Marketing
PRO: Targeted
When you advertise on the back of a bus or in a local newspaper, you only have the vaguest idea of who you’re reaching. When you launch a digital marketing campaign, you can focus your efforts down to a single type of customer.
Gender, age, and socioeconomic status are all important, but you can also target using other parts of a customer’s online profile. That means you can produce clearer messages and spend less time and money acquiring each customer than you would by using traditional marketing.
Digital marketing uses a sniper rifle instead of a shotgun.
Pros and Cons – target your audience for optimised results
PRO: Fast
When you publish an advert in a magazine or newspaper, you wait weeks or even months for results. With digital marketing, you can put together a blog post or a landing page in just a few hours and have it boosting your business almost as soon as it hits the web. Even the results are direct. Whether you’re looking for online sales or email signups, you won’t have long to wait if you’ve done the job right.
PRO: Analytical
The best digital marketers measure everything they put out into the digital world, then analyse it to ensure a better job next time around. Everything from the wording of an email header to the time a blog is posted can have an impact – making small changes can lead to big results.
PRO: Interactive
While digital marketing can involve a lot of work, it can also give back much more than it takes. Someone might share your content or keep checking back with your site, and that interactivity means you’ll bring repeat visitors and reach new customers without lifting a finger.
Adapt Around the Disadvantages of Digital Marketing
CON: Misdirecting
Business owners sometimes misunderstand what their customers want, which often leads to digital marketing efforts that don’t compliment a visitor’s needs. If you don’t know what your customers want, you might lead them away from the right type of conversion and alienate them at the same time.
Make sure you understand who you’re reaching and what they need.
CON: Confusing
Digital marketing is a huge industry. There’s no one figure who knows it all, and it’s easy to find yourself lost among all the tools and varying advice currently on the web.
You might start blogging and then wonder if email marketing is the way to go. You might start on Twitter and suddenly worry that Facebook was the way to go. You might invest too little or too much in digital marketing, or invest your capital where it’s needed least.
Hiring a digital marketing professional can help avoid such issues.
Pros and Cons – Finding the right digital marketing path can be confusing
CON: Impersonal
Digital marketing can be great, but don’t concentrate so much on traffic and other metrics that you forget about the human touch. The best way to replace face-to-face contact is by making your business feel more human. That means building rapport with your customers, developing a brand identity, and writing conversationally.
CON: Time Consuming
Digital marketing doesn’t always cost much money, but it can take up too much of your time; recent research suggested that 23% of bloggers spend one to two to three hours on each post. That’s time that could be spent better, especially when business owners are taking responsibility for digital marketing efforts themselves or handing them off to another team member. Avoid this problem by outsourcing your digital marketing.
Opace & Digital Marketing
Understanding digital marketing advantages and disadvantages is an important consideration in SEO, but it’s only a part of the puzzle. For those interested, here you can find a detailed guide providing our most essential SEO tips to improve your ranking, covering aspects ranging from ‘search intent’ to delivering continual improvement.
You can contact us on 0121 222 5757 to find out more about how to create the perfect digital marketing strategy for your business needs.
Image credits: PxHere, TeroVesalainen and qimono
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