Sunday, 21 July 2013

A case for Digital Marketing

 
Most modern organisations set objectives that drive their businesses for its growth and progress; these objectives give your business a clearly defined target. Setting goals and objectives is an effective way of ensuring that you are headed in the right direction.
However, objectives cannot stand alone; they need the support of solid plans. These plans are set in motion to enable the realisation of set targets.
When setting business objectives, ensure your objectives are SMART (that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely).
Impact of SMART goals on your business
-They keep you focused on you main goal, When your goals are SMART, the company is focused on the specific goals and steps to achieving them. This eliminates waste of resources and manpower.
-Progress can easily be monitored and measured. With smart goals, there are key measurement metrics in place by the company to measure the progress on the goals. Each department’s goals will be measured weekly, monthly, quarterly or at a chosen time by the company. Questions to ask to make sure your goals are measurable include: How many? How much?
-They enable you to have a positive outlook and increase enthusiasm. Since the goals are specific, it is easier to envisage the success as goals look more achievable when they are broken into smaller fragments.
After setting SMART business objectives, discover ways and strategies of achieving them. One major strategy is marketing. Every serious organisation has a marketing department; and every focused marketing department sets objectives which ensure that the organisational objectives are met using trusted and tested marketing strategies.
Marketing is the practice of realising organisational objectives by pooling and surpassing customer desires. For a marketing process to be effective and successful, you need to identify, anticipate and supply customer needs and requirements. Marketing plays a major role in achieving the objectives of a company as it is seen as the main driver towards achievement of your set objectives.
Two main media of marketing
-Traditional Marketing: It makes use of Product, Price, Promotion and Placement to introduce and market products and services. Tools used in this form of marketing include: television, radio and newspapers.
-Digital Marketing: focuses on the use of the internet platforms and mobile applications to disseminate information about products and services. Tools used include: social networks, videos, search engines, and other options.
Over the years, most companies used the traditional marketing platforms to achieve their marketing goals. In recent times, the business world has changed and currently operates at a faster rate; the Internet has therefore been employed by a lot of companies to realise their objectives. Hence, it is therefore advisable for companies to follow this lead and take up this profitable trend.
 
What you benefit from digital marketing
-Your business can achieve measurable results and objectives.
-You can make your business decisions using real data and qualitative results.
-Digital marketing affords you the opportunity to reach your target audience exactly where they are.
-Direct and immediate feedback from customers: Customer feedback is paramount when determining a customer’s needs and taste; social media enables you communicate directly with your customers and target audience.
-An affordable way to get your message out without breaking the bank: For medium-sized companies that cannot afford the traditional marketing charges and bills, a well planned digital marketing strategy is ideal as some of the platforms used for digital marketing is free while results gotten from the paid ones last for a long time.
-Business of all sizes can employ digital marketing strategies to drive their business as it is cost effective. A recent survey by Constant Contact shows that the adoption of various online marketing tools by small sized companies has rocketed: “98 per cent of survey respondents now use email marketing (up from 64% saying they used them 5 years ago), while 87 per cent use social media marketing (up from just 10 per cent  five years ago).
And while finding new customers remains the chief concern for small businesses today, among those who are finding this task easier, a leading 53 per cent  say that’s due to more affordable online marketing tools”. (www.marketingcharts.com)
-You are able to build and develop relationships with your customers via social media and communities: With digital marketing, your customers find it easier to get in touch with you and convey either their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your company services. This will facilitate reputation monitoring and control. Also, new product/service lines can be developed based on feedback from customers on what their current needs are.
-You can modify your message on the various online platforms whenever you want.
In essence, digital marketing has become a trusted way of measuring and achieving your business goals, with digital marketing you are more likely to record a successful business year.
 
                                                                                 By Amara Nwankwo

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