Should I Invest in Digital Marketing?

Sure thing, Digital is the latest trend in Marketing in this generation of people-too-lazy-to-go-out. Big brands like Nike, Adidas, Taco Bell, and small companies as bakeshops and barbershop locally are rapidly turning their traditional marketing strategies into Digital. And you can't help but wonder why do these companies invest in such a marvelous breakthrough when they can just stick to the old traditional marketing.

 Easy-to-do, less manpower needed, and, easier to set-up an advertisement online are some of the perks of having digital as a primary way to advertise. It may be the wonderland of marketing, it can also help you get healthy "leads" and "inquiries" for your business, and lastly, it would help you cut cost on hiring additional manpower to do the marketing. Sounds enticing when you hear it, right? But the big question is, would you really need it for your company?


Before searching google on ways to "digitalize" your brand, perhaps it is essential to understand the simple fact that converting into digital marketing is not as easy as posting online on Facebook or having your own website. The reality  is, starting a Digital Marketing for company can be exciting but time-consuming, while hiring a digital marketing agency can be really expensive. So that leads to the question "should  I invest in digital marketing?   So without further ado, here are the factors to consider before investing in digital marketing.

Key Factors to Consider:

1. Goal

1. Budget

1. Time & Effort

1. Resources

Goal

know your goal, so you know what you are

doing

I literally put Goal in the first factor to consider. GOAL is the most important factor to consider when deciding. It is the backbone of marketing (in case you are not marketer) and should be clearly stated in order for you to know the directions are you going to. Many markers disregarded this and let the agency state the goal, WHICH IS TOTALLY WRONG. In my previous employers, none of them really have a clear goal on why they considered Digital Marketing. The result? A complete disaster from start to finish of the project.  Okay, to make a fair example on setting goals on digital marketing, imagine that digital marketing is a  

As an expert in digital marketing, I gave them the suggestion  additional Channel of sales. We do know that all people know how to write a blog or an article, but it's not always about being educational nor being a marketer when it comes  to digital. Digital is a hybrid world of both being educational and ability to sell. Making money out of it is one goal you can consider. Here are some goal you can use:

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Promote online shop
3. Encourage customers to visit the store

By having a clear objective on what you want for your company, you will be able to determine if you need digital for your marketing efforts or not.

Budget

Putting more budget is essential in digital marketing,

but controlling the funds is harder

Budget is the second of the top factors to consider in digital marketing. We all have to face the fact that money makes the world go round, well it is the same in the digital world. People might say that it does not need money to make it work since you just have to be crafty. It is somehow true, but having no budget for digital is like having a printed brochure stocked on a computer-layout, since you need money for the mail man who will distribute the brochure, as well as the labor of the printing company that will print the brochure. This is the same for digital. In Facebook, everyone has the chance to post their stuff online, however, for fan pages, it would take an audience to look up your company name in order to see what you are offering, by using Facebook ads, your post will be able to be distributed to a larger market at your disposal.  This approach also enables your business to be visible in areas in which you operate. Meaning, Google and Facebook, and other websites utilizes premium monthly subscription fees ranging from $5-199 dollars for  SEO features and promotional features.

If you have the luxury of budget, you should look at your goal, and then what are your expectations on a specific timeframe and your target reach. This should enable you to have a clear sight on how much money should you spend on your digital.  On my previous company,we are spending only 5% of the total marketing budget for digital. But due to the flexibility of digital marketing, we improve our 5% to 35% of the budget because there is a 22% sales acquisition from digital sales itself.

Time and Effort

Digital marketing is a tedious task, while most people think that posting into Facebook is considered as full digital marketing. If you have a lot of sparetime, or have a specific individual who can be able to answer inquiries online, produce an online post for distribution and be able to come up with reports on digital marketing, you can consider digital marketing as an additional weapon in your marketing efforts. 

Digital marketers tend to write articles in order to attract clients, and if you as an owner is passionate in helping your customers find what will suit their needs, then digital marketing is for you. Don't hire digital marketers who are not going to go for an extra mile for your business. You as an owner should be accountable for your business image, same as through with digital marketers. They can write articles for you, they can market the product for you, but they can't fully understand the product if they are not the once who know what the products are for.

Resources

Digital marketing is not all about textual contents and articles. It involves all materials you can scavenge to make your marketing efforts look attractive to the viewers. Resources like professional product shoots and cameras will help you generate content. Remember, out of 200 people, almost 42% of them are visual learners, and not all people wanted to read 3000 character articles which bores them. One of the important factor to consider is what content are you willing to give in order to make your products enticing to customers.

If you are serious in making pursuing digital marketing, you should consider this important factor. You can always go create your campaign, but without  resources to supplement it, it would be an ordinary post and your audience would not be happy to engage with it.

Conclusion

Digital Marketing is neither hard or easy. It does require a lot of time and effort from the conceptualization to execution. First of all, you need to establish your goals why set-up digital, and then the next important part is to know how much are you willing to spend for advertising online, then it requires resources to make it worthy enough for viewers to watch/view it.  You as a decision maker should be the one to decide if it is important or not for your business because in the end, you will be able to earn from it at the end of the line.