Go to a supermarket and shout, “Mom.” You will see at least a dozen heads turn. But not every woman is your mother, right?
That’s what happens with traditional marketing. Your ads are delivered to every person, whether related to your business or not. And as Seth Godin, a renowned entrepreneur, wisely said, “Everyone is not your customer.”
That’s exactly what digital marketing has changed. Instead of shouting in a crowded room, it’s like walking up to the right person.
This precision is important for entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, your resources are often limited. Every dollar counts. With digital marketing, you can ensure that your efforts are well spent.
Digital marketing vs. traditional marketing
Traditional marketing takes the major part of your marketing budget but fails to deliver the results digital marketing provides with a smaller budget.
Traditional marketing involves billboards, TV ads, or radio commercials that are costly and are viewed by any random person. And you cannot measure actual business results with it, like reach, impressions, clicks, etc. Basically, you cross your fingers and hope your message is delivered to the right person.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, allows you to deliver ads directly to your target audience profile. You can measure results and improve your strategy. Moreover, you will have to pay for only what you require from your campaign. Like awareness, leads, engagement, or conversion.
That’s how digital marketing generates 50% more customer interactions than traditional marketing. And that is why it is so important for entrepreneurs for their startups.
Why is digital marketing so important for entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurship is about generating creative ideas and transforming them into business opportunities. Digital marketing makes it possible. It provides multiple platforms and tools to connect with the target audience and market the ideas.
Using digital marketing, entrepreneurs get the following benefits that allow them to make their ideas a reality.
1. It reaches audiences on social platforms where they are most active
Only 1% of users on a social media platform are unique to that platform. This means most people use multiple social media platforms.
But we use different platforms for different purposes. YouTube is preferred for watching videos, Google for reading articles, and LinkedIn for professional development networking. A few Social media management tools like Sprout Social, Statusbrew, and Hootsuite, help schedule, publish, create content calendars, and report and make Social media management easier.
With digital marketing, startups like Drops (eco-friendly laundry detergent) target only the right platform where their target audience is supposed to be. When they do content marketing, they follow a structured work order to streamline tasks like SEO optimization, improving their SERP ranking. And they put effort into TikTok when starting a trend.
This marketing strategy helps them utilize resources on the right platforms and save efforts on non-related ones.
2. It makes setting up a business easier than ever
Digital marketing has made starting a new business comparatively easier. Entrepreneurs do not have to operate outlets at every location they want to sell their products. Developing an e-commerce website and optimizing it for better Google performance is enough to sell products worldwide.
Other than that, entrepreneurs use generative AI tools to create ads, schedule posts, and measure success in real time. That is a lot easier than what traditional marketers had to do, like David Ogilvy. Making TV commercials, getting ads on billboards all over the city, and writing sales letters to each of their potential customers is too much work.
Because of this ease, more than 4.7 million new businesses start each year now.
3. Digital marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing
You do not even have to rent a warehouse anymore. You can keep the inventory at home. Receive orders online. Pack and deliver them yourself. No need to spend money on stock-keeping units and stock managers.
That’s exactly what Amazon sellers do in the FBM model (Fulfilled by Merchant). They take orders from Amazon. Pack and ship orders themselves to save money that they have to give to Amazon otherwise.
As for advertising, e-commerce marketing is way cheaper than conventional marketing. And entrepreneurs can also track each penny they spend on ads. You can apply multiple filters to narrow down their target audience to the people actually interested in their product.
Basically, you just have to pay for what works.
4. Competition among startups and big organizations
There was a time when big names in the market used to advertise their brands on big billboards in highly populated areas. While little startups had to use billboards in the urban areas.
There were very few chances for new startups to thrive. But now, digital marketing has leveled the ground for everybody. A new name in the market can advertise on every platform a big brand does. A fashion startup can target the same individual that Louis Vuitton targets.
Entrepreneurs do not even have to fight to get a piece of content in popular magazines now. They can directly compete with big organizations in content marketing on Google.
5. Spreads brand awareness and increases reach
Brands don’t just sell products now. They sell narratives. Businesses align their goals with a cause and sell that along with their products. This strategy works very well in digital marketing.
Entrepreneurs create brand stories and build a community around them. They market their goals. Which gives an emotional touch to their campaigns.
Like Warby Parker, who sells prescription glasses and donates them to needy people. These emotions build a connection with the audience, and they tend to interact with brands and brands mention them in their own content.
The brand mentions are used as user-generated content to further market a cause. This strategy spreads words like wildfire, increasing brand awareness and reach.
6. Idea to particularly targeting a specific audience
Ever saw an ad and thought, “How do they know I needed this?” That’s what digital marketing does. It targets the right individuals whose needs align with the product being sold.
Entrepreneurs define their audience based on detailed parameters like age, gender, location, interests, or even buying behavior. This means your ad money is not wasted on the wrong crowd.
Vuori Clothing, a fitness startup, for example, targets individuals searching for workout gear. Instead of someone who isn’t interested in fitness at all.
7. Campaigns are monitored and optimized for better results
One of the biggest benefits digital marketing provides is the metrics. Using these metrics, entrepreneurs monitor how their campaigns are working. They analyze each aspect of their campaigns.
If any aspect is not working properly, they can improve it before spending any more money on them.
Like, if you start a campaign on Facebook for a week. And after a day you see that your ad’s reach (how many new people have seen your ad) is good, but the click-through rate is close to none. It means either your ad creative is not attractive or you are targeting the wrong audience.
Similarly, if the click-through rate (how many people have clicked on your ad) is good, but the conversion rate (sales) is low. It indicates that your landing page content is not satisfying your customers.
That’s how entrepreneurs find out what’s wrong with their campaigns to ensure their digital marketing success.
8. The return on investments (ROI) is better
Each and every dollar matters when you start a business. You have to get the most out of each buck you spend. And digital marketing ensures that.
For every $1 spent on the Google Ads platform, brands make up to $2 on average. On Facebook ads, they make $4. And in email marketing, each dollar spent returns $44. Making email marketing the best digital marketing strategy in terms of ROI.
Do you know what aspect of traditional marketing has the best ROI? We cannot even calculate that! That is the whole point.
Digital marketing tells you where your money goes and what you earn from it.
9. Automation of processes involved is quick and simple
The biggest challenge entrepreneurs face is handling multiple tasks at once. Repurpose it for every platform they are working on. Allocate the budget to each social media marketing campaign. And then monitor every metric.
But believe me “Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time”—Gary Keller.
To avoid this, entrepreneurs try to automate as many processes as possible in their workflow. Artificial intelligence has made it much easier for them. They write content for their website and then use AI tools to convert it to many other formats like ppt to video, flyers, short videos, images, infographics, etc.
This way they save a lot of time to do things that require a human touch. Like SEO optimization on Google, video optimization on social media, and monitoring the performance of each campaign.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is not just another way to market your brand. It is the only way to do that. Remember I told you over 4.7 million startups open each year?
Now have this: almost 70% of them fail within two years of their launch. Not because their ideas aren’t good, but because they do not market them properly.
This is the importance of digital marketing development on entrepreneurship. You can have the most innovative product, but without the right marketing, it’s like shooting in the dark.
Even a weaker product can steal the show by utilizing digital marketing to its fullest. That is to reach the right audience, tell compelling stories, and measure every step to improve their results.
Digital marketing is the line that separates failed startups from successful ones. It’s not an option—it’s a necessity.
Do you want your startup to be among the 30% who thrive? Start learning digital marketing today!
