Importance of Digital Marketing in a Difficult Economic Environment
People always need things. But most also need messages telling them how and where to find those things. Discover the importance of digital marketing in 2021.
Digital marketing has been very important for a number of years now. The number of advantages to being digitally present and literate was significant before the pandemic, but things have only amplified.
The economy is hurting right now, businesses are facing challenges, and consumers have shifted online out of necessity. We’re going to talk a little bit about how adding digital marketing to the mix might help keep your business afloat, as well as some of the methods you can use to start marketing yourself.
So, let’s talk about the importance of digital marketing.
The Importance of Digital Marketing in 2021
Digital marketing is sort of a loaded concept that includes a number of things. “Marketing” yourself online, in many ways, simply means being present and active on a few digital platforms.
Within those platforms, you can do a lot of good for your business by engaging with the various advertising and marketing options that they provide. Those spaces tend to be social media platforms where your demographic spends time.
Another huge opportunity for success lies in search engines. Individuals are using search engines as much as they ever have, and landing in the top results for popular searches in your niche is a great way to draw traffic to your site.
We’ll discuss some of the methods for optimizing those things in a moment.
First, though, let’s talk about the bare-bones facts of most people’s economic and personal situations right now.
Where People Are Shopping, What They’re Doing
We can’t speak for everyone of course, but most individuals are doing their best to stay home and try to snuff out this virus. Staying home means that people are either working from home as well, or they’re going out to work and mostly heading straight back after they’re done.
Additionally, they might be worried that the sudden economic downturn will impact their employment status. That means that people are trying to be frugal, they’re unable to go out as much, and they’re spending a lot of time online at home.
Home delivery and digital shopping options have increased a lot over the course of the pandemic, and that’s because options to find the things you need online are literally life-savers right now.
This also means that just because people aren’t out and about looking to spend money, that doesn’t mean they aren’t available to engage with your brand online and potentially make purchases.
That’s about the only spot where you’re going to see success, though, which makes digital marketing so crucial to our situation right now. Digital marketing gives you the opportunity to reach thousands of people in your target audience for relatively little money.
Let’s talk about some of the methods you can use to reach your audience through digital marketing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a method of tailoring your website and content to rank well in search engine searches made by your target audience. If you can establish yourself with high ranking spots within your niche, your posts will gather a lot more traffic.
Additionally, the more success you have on those posts will indicate to the search engine that your content has more general value, and you’ll have a better time ranking in subsequent posts.
The first piece of the ranking puzzle is keyword research.
Keyword Research
Search engines like Google are loaded with tools that help you analyze the kind of searches that your users are making. You can look at trends within your niche by isolating different demographic points such as location, gender, age, and general subject matter.
Then, you can take a look at how many people are searching for particular things. This gives you a good idea of what your audience is interested in and you can make content to meet those needs.
You should also look at the search phrases that are popular and see what your competition looks like. It’s no use trying to rank for a term that is already locked down by industry titans.
Instead, small businesses should try to corner less-popular terms that will still bring in a good deal of traffic. That way, your site actually has a chance of competing with the other businesses that are vying for those spots.
Content Creation
The content you create should respond directly to your insights from the keyword research. Instead of posting content that only deals with what you can freely discuss, try matching your content right up to the needs that your users are expressing through their keyword searches.
For example, if the term “where can I take my cat outside” is popular in your niche, then you have a clear response as to what the content should be. You should write about options for where a person can take their cat outside.
You can also glean a few different content ideas from that term. For example, you might imagine that these people are having trouble coming up with ideas about how to make their cats happy. You could then write a post about different ways to keep your cat entertained and happy, inserting the keyword “where can I take my cat outside” at key points within it.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a little more direct in how small businesses can achieve more success. Search engine optimization takes a little more time for things to develop but you can place ads immediately on social media.
One of the heaviest hitters for social media marketing is something called PPC. PPC stands for pay-per-click marketing, and its a method of getting sponsored posts in front of thousands of potential customers for a smaller amount of money.
Plus, you’re only charged when your content is engaged with, so you get exactly what you pay for.