As technology advances, so does the way businesses reach their customers. Digital marketing has become an essential tool for companies to reach their target audience and increase their sales. Digital marketing is now a growth engine for many companies in various sectors, such as financial institutions and telecommunications companies. According to McKinsey, some financial institutions have seen a fivefold increase in digital sales, while telecommunications companies have reduced customer loss by 15 to 40 percent.
Retailers have also seen a significant increase in sales. The algorithms used to boost visibility on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, LinkedIn and publishers control how much you pay and how much visibility you get. To gain visibility, digital marketers must familiarize themselves with the latest techniques. That's why my books on professional marketing are more than 500 pages long, but they only cover the best practices that we detail in Smart Insights.
Focusing on each of these is important, regardless of the size of the company. The pillars help demonstrate that success in digital marketing is not based only on digital media and platforms, no matter how important they are. Creating an effective digital experience, messaging and quality content to drive your digital strategy are also critical. Not sure where to start? Access our marketing strategy solutions specific to members of the company and get all the tools you need to optimize your marketing strategy on 10 of the most popular marketing channels and strategies.
Incredibly, I originally suggested these 10 reasons to invest in digital marketing twenty years ago, but they are still important, which is why I have continued to evolve approaches to developing digital strategies in line with the latest digital marketing trends. So, if you don't have a strategy yet, or you might want to review what business topics are important to include in a strategic review, we've established the 10 most common problems that, in our experience, arise if you don't have a strategy. We recommend a 90-day planning approach (template) to prioritize your activities through the RACE growth process, which identifies 25 key digital activities that you must continuously refine by prioritizing those that matter most. Our 90-day RACE Growth system approach will help you create a similar process to improve your results.
While digital marketing offers a set of marketing tactics, it is not a methodology that incorporates strategy into your marketing decisions. Growth marketing, on the other hand, starts with strategy and allows you to implement marketing tactics that support your company's specific growth objectives. It is very common for digital activities to take place in silos, whether it is a specialist in digital marketing, IT or an independent digital agency. Another way to assess the importance of digital marketing today is to look at how many jobs there are now in digital marketing.
You can use all of the digital marketing tactics listed above, throughout an inbound marketing strategy, to create a customer experience that works with the customer, not against them. While you can rely on a variety of traditional and digital marketing approaches, there are several that offer consistent performance and results for companies. However, that's not to say that all companies should implement a digital marketing strategy in the same way. Finally, to create an effective long-term digital marketing strategy, it's vital that your team learn to change based on analytics.
In smaller companies, it can be one person, such as a digital marketing manager, responsible for everyone, or one from each pillar with many team members in larger companies. Digital marketing allows you to identify and target a very specific audience and send them personalized and high-converting messages. Everything from SEO to email marketing, PPC and digital advertising is considered digital marketing. And depending on the objectives of their marketing strategy, marketers can support a larger campaign through the free and paid channels at their disposal.
