10 Reasons Why Digital Marketing is Must for Every Business in 2022

The ‘Internet Era’ is well and truly upon us. Globally, the total number of active internet-users had swelled to ~4.9 billion by October 2021. In the last fourteen months or so, more than 225 million new users have started using the World Wide Web. Given the exponential growth in internet-penetration across the world, the opportunities for businesses to leverage the digital space and connect with an ever-growing audience are enormous. Here are a few factors that make digital marketing an absolute must for all businesses in 2022:

Reaching Out To More People

You can have the best of products or services – but it is all of very little value when people are simply not aware of your existence. Traditional marketing channels, like hoardings, print ads, etc., are geographically limited – and they cannot help you connect with all the people worldwide who are searching for what you have on offer.

It’s all about enhancing the overall exposure for your business – and this can easily be done by setting up customised digital marketing campaigns. You can connect with a focused audience from all over the globe, without having to spend exorbitant amounts. The more people you manage to reach out to, the greater will be your chances to drive up revenues.

Through geo-targeted digital marketing, it becomes easier than ever for businesses to target specific countries – or even people located in geographical proximity to the physical location of a store. The levels of business competition are rising, and without digital marketing, your company runs the risk of being lost in the crowd.

Building A Stronger Brand Presence

Building a robust brand presence and strengthening brand recall values through iterative digital marketing is immensely important for modern-day businesses. When customers repeatedly come across your brand in the digital space, that makes an impression – which is likely to boost queries and leads.

Right from blogging about the latest product offerings or market trends, to website development, maintenance & updation, and social media optimisation (SMO) – there are multiple channels through which your brand can make its presence felt online.

Online brand-building should ideally be done by a judicious mix of organic activities and paid promotions. The bottom line is always constant: to create such content that drives user-engagement, is easy to find, delivers value, and helps businesses establish & maintain a rapport with clients (both potential and current).

Ensuring Easy Accessibility

Nearly 90% of all online customers refer to online reviews before arriving at a purchase decision. In general too, people invariably tend to look up a business on Google, before deciding whether or not they should get in touch with it.

In such a scenario, your business simply has to be easily accessible to customers. If you have an optimised, user-friendly, dynamic and information-rich website, that can very well serve as a helpful first point of contact.

If information about your brand/business is easily available on the World Wide Web, that also builds the overall trust-factor. In fact, there is every chance of potential customers ignoring you if they cannot ‘find’ your business online.

Understanding Your Competitors’ Activities

In the absence of digital marketing, trying to get an idea of what your competitors are doing is, at best, based on guesswork. Marketing strategies are evolving, and without a proper setup, it is impossible to keep up.

Competitor analysis is an integral part of overall digital marketing campaigns. From understanding the type of content/visual elements they share on their website and social media, to what value propositions and USPs they are showcasing – you will get clarity on what your competitors are doing. You will also get an idea on the keywords you need to target, to ensure maximum visibility for customers’ search queries online.

In addition, you also need to understand that practically all of your competitors – irrespective of what your business sector is – are already involved in digital marketing. Analyse how the other businesses are establishing their brand presence and bolstering website traffic/leads. Understand their strategies, find out what’s working and what really isn’t, and optimise your own digital marketing strategies.

Getting Detailed Audience Insights

On average, a person spends around 7 hours online everyday. Digital marketing opens up excellent opportunities for businesses to take advantage of this ‘web-engagement’, and make an effort to ‘understand’ their potential/existing customers better.

Through optimised digital marketing, businesses can present themselves as ‘partners’ that people can rely on. Through personalised interactions, you can try to find out the requirements & pain points of your target audience, and the precise type of solutions they are looking for. You can also conduct online polls, surveys and live Q&A sessions for this.

Apart from delivering insights on user-intent and preferences, digital marketing also helps businesses focus their promotional strategies for different audience segments. At the end of the day, the key lies in delivering optimal experiences to buyers – so that they do business with you again.

Boosting Your Ranking on SERPs

There is a popular saying that goes like ‘the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google search results.’ While that may not literally be true (or feasible, for that matter!), the importance of ranking at or near the top of the SERPs can hardly be overemphasised.

In order to improve rankings and visibility, businesses simply have to be actively involved in search engine optimisation (SEO). Often dubbed as the ‘heart of digital marketing’, SEO involves off-site and on-site activities that contribute towards boosting the rank of websites in response to different search queries.

For B2B manufacturers and exporters as well as B2C businesses, the value of ranking high on Google is immense. Depending on your marketing budget and overall goals, you can also complement SEO services with paid ads, social media marketing, content marketing, and more.

The year is 2022 – and the single biggest thing you should be wary of is slipping down the rankings.

Data-Driven Marketing is The Future

Unlike static conventional marketing methods,digital marketing is dynamic, and works on a 24×7 basis. Campaigns are driven by actionable data and in-depth analytics – helping businesses make more informed decisions to pave their way forward.

Irrespective of whether yours is an enterprise business or a small organisation, the measurable information and results generated through digital marketing are extremely important. The data helps you track the success (or failure) of particular campaigns, and frame future marketing strategies accordingly.

The role of CRM software tools is also steadily gaining in importance in the overall digital marketing space. With these tools, businesses can easily maintain huge databases of potential/existing customers, frame communications, track the progress of leads through funnels, and optimise their promotional plans.

Building Online Value Proposition(s) For Greater Brand Loyalty

At a time when customers are literally flooded with options, ensuring high customer-retention is very important for businesses to survive and thrive. Digital marketing opens up the scope for you to define and share customised digital value proposition(s) with your target audience. After all, they need to know what makes your company stand out.

At this point, it is also important to note that digital marketing is not a single-channel, one-shot game. Instead, it has to be done on an ongoing basis through multiple channels (search marketing, email communications, blog posts, social media marketing and more).

Going forward, it will be absolutely vital to follow ‘integrated’ digital marketing strategies. There has to be full consistency in your communications through different media (e.g., if you are announcing a new product launch through Facebook, your website should have a dedicated section for it). A fragmented digital strategy is hardly ever effective in the long-run.

In a true integrated approach, digital and traditional marketing work in tandem, complement each other, and contribute to business growth.

Preparing For A ‘Mobile-First’ World

80% of all active mobile handsets at present are smartphones. More than 90% of the internet-users typically use their smart devices to access the Web. People are asking questions, looking up information, and doing business on the go. If your marketing strategy does not have a ‘mobile-first’ approach, you will fall behind.

Right from building fully responsive websites with fluid designs, to framing mobile-specific marketing communications (SMS and WhatsApp marketing, email marketing, and more) – businesses have to prioritise the task of connecting with mobile-users. It also has to be kept in mind that user-behaviour on mobile is different from that on the web medium. The focus has to be on capturing attention fast, and making a consistently positive impression.

Businesses across the world are also exploring the option of building dedicated smartphone applications to cater to their customers. These mobile apps can help in revenue-generation, brand-building, information-sharing, building engagement, and providing customer support. Businesses need to make all relevant information available right at the fingertips of users – and having a mobile app helps you do just that.

Boosting Revenues In A Cost-Effective Manner

Traditional marketing endeavours are expensive & time-consuming, and there is a lot of uncertainty over their effectiveness. You can spend big bucks on setting up a hoarding beside a high-traffic freeway – but how can you be certain that people who are interested in your products/services will actually see it?

This is where the biggest advantage of digital marketing comes into the picture. Businesses can boost their website traffic, consolidate their brand awareness, chalk up email/social media marketing, and go for paid advertising – without having to go beyond their budget. The result? Significantly higher sales.

Digital marketing expands the chances for businesses to capture and nurture quality leads quickly and in a cost-effective manner. With higher conversions, ROI figures get a significant boost, and your business stays ahead of the game.

In 2022 and beyond, businesses have to expedite & smoothen the journey of turning potential customers to actual buyers. Integrated digital marketing is the ideal tool for attaining this goal.

The Final Word

The World Wide Web has become ubiquitous in our daily lives, in a way that was unthinkable even a couple of decades back. Everyone is active on the internet – and in such a scenario, having a strong digital presence is no longer an option for businesses worldwide. The choice is simple: you can either have an integrated digital marketing plan in place, or risk being left behind by your competitors.

Give your business an edge with digital marketing. Do not let your competitors eat your ‘digital lunch‘!

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Amit Roy

Amit is a Digital nomad at Brandwizz. An avid learner who believes in the magic of Words and Music. Eternal Optimist. Book Lover. Cinephile. Creative Soul, Down to Earth human. Connect to Know more!!