In a 2018 survey, 99 percent of respondents (businesses) said they were planning to increase their digital marketing spend.
If you’re one of these businesses, you’re probably reaping the benefits of your investment. Digital marketing is an effective way to reach your brand’s target consumers and increase sales.
But if you’re yet to have a digital marketing campaign, you could be wondering whether the investment is worth it. In fact, you might be asking, “Just what do digital marketers do?”
Well, worry not! We are here to shed light on the work of digital marketers and how they can help your businesses.
Continue reading for more insight.
Building a Digital Presence
It’s 2019, but a whopping 46 percent of U.S. small businesses still don’t have a website. Yet, the vast majority of consumers now shop online.
If your business doesn’t have a website or any other form of online presence, you’re leaving money on the table.
A digital marketer will help take your businesses online. They will start off with the basics, such as building a professional, user-friendly website for your business, and creating pages on the right social media platforms.
Other tasks will include claiming your business on Google My Business, and setting up profiles on review sites such as Yelp.
Designing and Implementing Digital Marketing Strategies
As a digital marketing rookie, you might be thinking that having a website and being on social media is all you need to reach your target audience. Taking your business online is a good start, but there is a long way ahead.
A digital marketer will design a custom digital marketing plan for your business as a whole or for specific products and services. Designing a plan involves setting a budget, identifying the digital channels that will deliver the best results, and setting campaign goals. You can read more about the process of creating digital marketing plans to gain a clearer understanding.
After designing the plan, the next task is to implement it.
Depending on the strategy, this might involve running pay per click ads on search engines, purchasing social media ads, creating content for your business blog, or even working with influencers.
Auditing Your Current Digital Marketing Efforts
Some business owners take the DIY approach. They create their own business websites and create blog content.
If this describes you, thumbs up! Putting effort into taking your business online, even if you aren’t an expert, is far better than staying offline.
If you’re wondering how digital marketers can improve your efforts, wonder no more. They will, for instance, perform website audits to identify gaps and recommend measures you can take to improve. They will check website speed, bounce rate, user-friendliness, responsiveness, keyword optimization, and other key metrics.
Even if you don’t fully leave the digital marketing task to them, you’ll at least have a clear idea of what you’re doing wrong and how to better it.
Competitor Analysis
As a small business owner, the only competitor analysis you care about is their products or services, right? You want to know how it works so you can create a better one.
If you want to beat your competitors, it’s time to start caring about their online efforts too. What’s their digital marketing strategy? How much are they spending on digital marketing? How far ahead of you are they?
When you have this information, it’s easier to devise a plan on how to beat their digital dominance.
This is another area where digital markets will help your business. They’ll perform thorough competitor analysis and let you in on their digital marketing efforts.
Online Reputation Management
Did you know 90 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business?
If your business has poor ratings and lots of negative customer reviews, you’ll lose potential customers to your competitors. Even existing customers will jump ship when they realize your business has a poor online reputation.
What’s more, you cannot prevent your business from having an online reputation. Even if you operate entirely offline, nothing stops a dissatisfied customer from ranting about your business on social media or review sites.
This is where digital marketers come in. They provide online reputation management services, helping businesses maintain a positive digital presence.
To do this, they deploy online listening tools, which enable them to capture real-time comments about your business. If negative, they’ll advise you on the corrective measure to take, such as getting in touch with the customer and addressing their concerns.
Help Businesses Save on Marketing Costs
Is your marketing budget keeping you up at night? You have probably tried to find opportunities for cost-cutting, but nothing seems to give.
Do you know what you haven’t done? You haven’t hired a digital marketing firm!
Sure, outsourcing your digital marketing will cost you money, but they’ll help you save a lot more.
You see, if you aren’t a digital marketing expert, there’s a good chance you’re spending your dollars on the wrong platforms, or you’re targeting the wrong keywords, or you’re paying more than you should.
Digital marketers are experts at what they do. They know how to get the best results with the lowest possible spend. In other words, they will save you money.
What Do Digital Marketers Do for Businesses? Now You Know
If you’ve been asking, “What do digital marketers do?” you now have your answers. Their job is more than just creating websites and online content. They’ll help you build a stronger business with a solid online presence and reputation.
Keep reading our blog for more business and marketing tips.
