To call the business landscape tough right now is an understatement. We are experiencing a perfect storm of hectic loadshedding, record fuel prices, the highest inflation rate in about forty years, supply chain problems, civil unrest, massive unemployment and political uncertainty.
The last time things were so dire was the financial crisis of ‘08/09. Then the first instinct was to cut the marketing budget, the quickest and easiest way to stem cash flow. A lot of businesses are doing so again, but 2022 is a very different business space compared to 2008.
Back then marketing meant expensive advertising on TV, double-page spreads in magazines or newspapers, costly point of sale in stores, mass mailing campaigns and the like.
Now TV is increasingly marginalised by streaming entertainment, physical newspapers and magazines are dead or online, and customers make buying decisions online before effecting the transaction online or in-store.
The size of the business pie has shrunk over the past few years, but the ways in which you tell people about the slice of that pie that you are selling have changed in both channel and cost.
You know when you are looking for something, most likely your first move would be to search online, probably on your phone. That will be one of the 84 000 google searches that happen every second of every day.
You also know that you will seldom go to a second search page and never to a third. The only way to get on that first page is through search engine optimisation or SEO. SEO is the bedrock of digital marketing, the most cost-effective way to intersect with clients looking for you when they are looking.
There are loads of statistics about the ROI and efficacy of digital marketing vs traditional, but here are a few points to ponder before you have an in-depth discussion with a digital marketing specialist.
SEO has a 15% conversion rate compared to the 1.7% for traditional methods such as cold-calling or direct mail. This is why about 65% of marketers actively invest in SEO.
There are also other tools in the digital marketing drawer – emailers paid advertising and more. All these methods are significantly cheaper than the traditional ways and will give you a ROI unheard of in ’08.
Digital marketing is geared to reaching your market at a lower cost than ever before. But it is a highly specialised field and each business’s needs and customer bases are different. So speak to us. This is what we do. You won’t have to take our advice, but if you do, you may just end up with an unfair advantage in these difficult times.
To get more assistance and guidance on how to grow your business in the digital landscape, get in touch with Digi-Guru.