The marketing industry likes to throw around the term digital marketing, assuming everyone knows what it means.

So what’s digital marketing all about, and how different is it from just ‘marketing?’

Digital Marketing Delivers Reach more Efficiently

The biggest advantages of digital marketing are reach and efficiency.

Reach forms the foundations of any successful marketing. Marketing without reach is like setting up an ice cream stall in the middle of the Sahara – the perfect product but nobody around to buy it.

Digital marketing achieves reach really cost-effectively. If somebody is on social media, if they use Google to find things, or has an email account, you can reach them.

For a relatively small cost you can target search terms, locations, job functions or demographics with paid search or social media posts. So your reach can also be selective.

This is a highly efficient way to reach potential customers.

Once you have reach you can raise awareness about your brand and offer. You can direct traffic back to your website. You can even sell products directly from Google or social media posts.

Lead Nurturing

Digital marketing lets you experiment with content formats and channels. There are also tools to track how people interact with your content. Ideal if you want to nurture leads through the stages of the sales process.

A qualified lead suddenly means something. You understand the path they’ve travelled and you’ve answered many of their questions and doubts along the way.

Depending on where they are in the buying process, prospects might want a short video or article explaining how to solve a problem that’s bugging them.

They might want an infographic to get to grips with a process or some facts and stats. Or perhaps a longer in-depth piece will help educate them and influence their thinking. Later on they might want more direct and regular communication through email.

Digital makes it all so much easier and efficient to deliver. And much of it can be automated.

So what Hasn’t Changed?

Effective marketing, even if you do it digitally, is still based on knowing your target customer, having a value proposition that hits the mark, distinctive branding and a clear message.

You still need to have a strategy and develop the story. Digital lets you tell it to more people, in many different ways, and track how they react.

If you’d like to explore what digital marketing could do for your sales pipeline, Contact Andy Palmer at andyp@accessperformance.co.uk or call 01823 429339.