This document discusses why digital marketing is important for businesses. It defines digital marketing as leveraging the internet for marketing efforts to provide information and engage with customers. Digital marketing allows businesses to reach customers in new ways not possible with traditional marketing. It provides advantages like engaging customers anywhere and anytime, interacting in real-time, and giving customers control over how they receive content. While it does not replace traditional marketing, digital marketing supplements it by expanding customer engagement channels.

1. Why Businesses Must Embrace Digital Marketing
Overview
As businesses large and small continue to migrate to a remote work environment, the
ability to connect and engage with their customers becomes even more critical. This
blog will explain why digital marketing is the perfect vehicle to use to increase the power
and reach of your business marketing.
Please note that this blog does not address digital marketing strategies and tactics, as
there are many other blogs on those topics.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a term that has been used more frequently over the last few years.
But what does it really mean?
If you perform an online search for the term, you’ll likely find numerous articles,
definitions and blogs on the topic, often with conflicting points of view. However, in
reality, the definition of digital marketing is actually very simple.
“Digital marketing is leveraging the power of the Internet for your marketing efforts, so
that you can provide information to and engage with your customers. In other words,
digital marketing is any form of marketing that you’re doing online.”
That’s it.

2. Now of course, how you go about doing your online marketing and using the Internet to
connect with your customers is where it gets much more interesting.
Why Digital Marketing and Why Now?
Due to the global pandemic, the world has changed. Along with that change, how
businesses connect and engage with their customers has changed. As a result,
regardless of the size of your business, how you interact with your customers on a daily
basis has likely changed as well. This is where the power of digital marketing can make
a significant difference for your business.
Why?
Because digital marketing allows your business to reach your customers in ways that
traditional marketing does not. It provides your business with additional channels
through which to drive awareness, provide information about your products and
services, and interact with your customers.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing provides your business with many advantages over traditional
marketing:
 It provides your business with new ways to engage with your customers that are
not dependent on your physical presence or availability
 It allows your business to interact and engage with your customers on a real-time
basis, regardless of geographic location
 It allows your business to have a 24/7/365 online presence that works for you
even when your office is closed
 It allows your customers to find information about your products and services at a
time and place of their choosing
 It puts your customers in control of how, where and when they interact with your
business
 It lets your customers choose the type and format of content they consume
What is important to remember is that digital marketing does not replace your traditional
marketing efforts, it actually supplements them. Working in tandem with your traditional
marketing, digital marketing actually expands the channels your business uses to
engage and interact with your customers.
This expansion of marketing channels not only gives your customers more control than
they have ever had in the past over the type of content they choose to consume, but
also puts them in full control of how, when and where they consume it. This is no longer
outbound marketing (aka “push marketing”) where the business controls the
engagement with customers. Instead, this is now inbound marketing, where the
customer has full control.

3. In other words, digital marketing expands your reach, increases your presence, and
provides your customers with the ultimate in flexibility.
Additional Benefits of Digital Marketing
In addition to the obvious advantages that digital marketing provides for your business,
there are also several intangible benefits:
 Depending on the type of digital marketing you use, there may be very low, or
even no, barriers to entry
 Digital marketing is often much more cost effective than traditional marketing
 Digital marketing often scales quicker and easier than traditional marketing
 Digital marketing allows you to try new and different strategies and approaches
on a more limited budget than with traditional marketing
 Digital marketing has a variety of tools that make it easier to track and
immediately measure the impact and ROI of your marketing
As you can see, digital marketing provides your business with greater flexibility in how,
when and where you’re able to connect and interact with your customers. It also
provides your business with more tools to accurately track, measure, analyze and report
on the results of your marketing.
Summary
In summary, there are really only four primary reasons your business needs to
understand to embrace digital marketing:
1. Availability – Always on, always there. While your business hours may be M-F 8-
5, your digital presence is available to your customers 24/7/365
2. Flexibility – Your customers can engage with your business when and where
they want to, on their schedule, not yours and in the format they prefer
3. Portability – Your customers can connect with your business from a desktop,
laptop, tablet or phone
4. Accountability – Your business can quickly and easily track how effective your
marketing efforts are
So with all these advantages and benefits, why wouldn’t your business want to embrace
digital marketing?
© 2020 – Richard Hatheway / Catalyst Strategic Marketing