What is digital marketing and what is it used for in your business?

Digital marketing: using digital channels to promote products and services. That is the shortest definition, but what does digital marketing really encompass? People want to be more informed than ever, and this has forced the entire world to constantly renew itself to achieve that.

The internet is a constantly evolving place, digital channels are increasing, and positioning on each of them is important. Why? Because of the most valuable resource of all: people's attention.

Attention is what you pay for when you launch an ad on social media. The average user spends about 6 hours and 43 minutes per day online in 2020. But that's not all; here are the most relevant data points you should know:

• More than half of the population uses the internet, approximately 4.5 billion people.
• There are 5 billion mobile phone users in the world.
• Each year, about 300 million people start using the internet.
• 3.8 billion users are connected on social media—half of the world's population!
• Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and TikTok are some of the most used social media platforms worldwide.

Digital marketing has changed the rules of the game. It has also come to assist traditional marketing in better understanding the consumer. Each of the digital efforts can be measured and analyzed to reach a final conclusion. It's incredible; the possibilities are almost endless!

People are online, and your company, venture, and/or project must be there too. Now that you know the context, let's talk about the advantages this important channel represents for your business.

More results, less budget

It's normal for digital marketing actions to be more economical than offline ones. That's how it is. You can also focus your efforts on the ideal people to buy from your business, which will allow you to invest only in what yields results and avoid unnecessary expenses.

Content marketing is another incredible tool for keeping costs low for each lead you obtain. There's more: relevant and valuable content for your audience will increase trust in your brand and also business opportunities.

You can measure everything

The ability to measure results is impressive in digital marketing. What you measure will succeed. Like everything in life, when you have a goal, you need to know the most relevant metrics and meet them to get where you want to go.

Every step within the digital strategy can be analyzed to draw conclusions. Are you working on an email campaign? Measure the open rate and the click-through percentage to the landing page.

Did you post content on social media? Measure the interaction and reach.

Are you working on a blog for your company? Discover the source of traffic, monthly visits, geographic location of your audience, and which pages on your website they prefer to spend more time on.

Data is your most powerful ally. With it, you can make decisions to improve results in your digital channels. Learn how each metric works, and optimize to grow.

Know your customer in depth

Why does it matter to know that person who is willing to buy from you? The information obtained from the audience allows for the creation of more successful digital marketing campaigns.

It's all a long-term process. Digital tools allow you to segment your target audience by gender, age, location, interests, marital status, education, and everything you can imagine. Such detailed segmentation allows you to experiment with different profiles and optimize marketing results every day. That's why we say it's a long-term process.

With this information, you'll know how to speak to your target audience, where to focus your efforts, and what business-level changes you can implement.

Long-term positioning

Although there are more direct strategies, such as SEM strategies, you can also work on brand positioning in the long term. Thus, when you work with digital efforts, your company begins to build a strong presence and authority in the digital world.

One way to achieve this is through SEO or organic positioning in search engines. When you create content that answers your potential customer's questions, Google rewards you by positioning that content in its top spots. What happens next? People will consume what you create. They will read your content, and little by little, you will be seen as an expert in your sector.

With long-term positioning, you won't need to rely solely on ads that increase in price during the most important times of the year. You will always be positioned in digital channels and also in the consumer's mind.

What are the relevant metrics for your business?

We've already seen that metrics and data are like superpowers for understanding your audience in digital channels. But which ones are worth analyzing? They can't all be, but there are three you should always consider:

ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend)

This is the general indicator on which you should base your entire strategy. With it, you will know the return on your advertising investment in digital channels.

The way to calculate it is: ROAS = REVENUE FROM SALES / EXPENSES. Let's take an example. Imagine that in a campaign for selling shoes, you have total sales revenue of $8,000 a month, and the advertising expense is about $2,500 a month. What is the ROAS? Let's do the calculation: ROAS = 8000/2500. For every dollar you invest, you get back $3.20.

CAC, How much does each customer cost?

How much did it cost your company to acquire each customer? CAC is a relevant metric for your business.

If you want to measure it correctly, it’s important to consider marketing and sales costs, and then compare them with the number of customers obtained over a period of time.

LTV, How much does each customer spend at the company?

This is the revenue value generated by a customer over the time they are purchasing your products or services.

It's easy to calculate: take the total value of each transaction made by a customer over a certain period (days, weeks, months); take the profit percentage and multiply it by the time or number of times that customer made a purchase.

Digital marketing is becoming increasingly important every day; you can't afford to overlook it. Competition is growing, and they will be present in those channels. What’s stopping you from starting to position your brand online? Yes, it may be more complicated than it seems; that's why at MINTEC, we can help you. Contact us and let’s start finding potential customers across all digital channels.