The way we purchase goods and services has changed. Content marketing is the new key to driving revenue.
Over the last remarkable decade, digital marketing has infiltrated just about every business sector around the world. As a digital content marketer, the ability to track and attribute every sale has never been easier. Digital marketing finally allows for full transparency around your marketing efforts. It provides businesses with the ability to scale with minimal risk. Of course, you still need a great product or service, but scaling is now achieved by listening to the data we all have at our disposal.
The digital landscape has taken business owners out of the dark to enable the right decisions to be made with reduced risk and increase profitability. Until recent years, this was difficult to achieve with traditional marketing without a team of analysts and advisors at hand.
Worldwide spending on CRM software grew 15.6% to reach $48.2 billion in 2019.
As reported by Gartner, worldwide spending on CRM software grew 15.6% to reach $48.2 billion in 2019. And with good reason, the ability to understand your customers not only keeps you in business, it gives you an advantage over your competitors.
I recall reading an article in the year 2000 that predicted online shopping would overtake traditional bricks and mortar spend in the not too distant future….. Yeah right, that will never happen…. or so I thought back then.
Fast forward 20 years and it’s clear to see that the futurists were spot on. As we commence 2020, traditional retail is on its knees, and digital disruption continues to impact all types of businesses. Mobile devices and search engines now provide endless solutions and social media marketing is the new media powerhouse.
In 2019, digital media spend overtook traditional media for the first time in history!
To underscore the shift that has taken place, 2019 marked a significant milestone in marketing history. In the Grand Daddy of advertising markets (in terms of budgets) the total U.S. digital media spend was higher than traditional media for the very first time. And by 2023 digital will account for two-thirds of the entire spend.
So how does great content create value?
The way we all purchase goods and services has fundamentally changed, and to survive and thrive, you need to understand how this is affecting your customer acquisition. Every business requires a digital marketing strategy and marketing automation to attract more prospects and convert them into sales.
Your prospects and customers now expect to consume content in their own time. They will educate themselves about your product or service and your business when it suits them. All this happens well before they are ready to reach out and purchase. Their sales journey can start on a mobile phone as a google search or a casual social media scan then quickly jump to a website blog post, video content, a podcast, a customer review or a case study.
If your business lacks the type of content that will educate and allow the prospect to conduct their digital media research, you’ll miss an opportunity to connect. Simple email marketing just won’t cut it. Your sales team are no longer the gatekeepers of information. They need to answer questions and help solve problems. They should be sharing customer stories via online marketing channels that resonate with your target market. Sales teams need to be helpful, answer questions and provide content that educates, entertains and informs. This is the way you need to sell in 2020.
You need to ask yourself, can my prospect learn all they need to know about my product or service when and where they want, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? Does my content demonstrate how it has solved the problem for others? Is my content available on the digital platforms my target market is using?
Business owners tend to feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.
When helping clients with their digital transformation, we’ve seen that business owners tend to feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. With so many digital channels available, knowing which one to focus on can be challenging. Successful digital marketing is driven by identifying your perfect buyer persona. This should be the first and most crucial step in the digital transformation process. The persona will inform the all important messaging and strategy in your campaign.
