The growth of the internet has been phenomenal. A total of 5.07 billion people use it today, which roughly translates to 63.5% of the global population. Its ever-expanding reach has brought a momentous shift in how we perceive the world around us- with its immense influencing capacity to mold opinions, deliver information or entertainment, alter lives, and, most importantly the way businesses are conducted.
What’s Changing?
Current trends do not show any signs of slowing down, and robust growth estimates suggest that by the end of 2023, two-thirds of the globe will be “online”. Businesses big or small businesses have been attentive to the turning tide and embraced transformation.
The central idea is to stay afloat, ace the competition by harnessing the raw power of the internet and ramp up profit margins by building brand value. Sleek, catchy online advertisements are quickly replacing or edging out billboards, paper advertisements, or other legacy modes of marketing.
You are more likely to quickly search for a new phone online and go through its ratings or reviews than walk all the way to the store. You aren’t the only one. The number of people reading online reviews before making a purchase is a staggering 93%!
With six users being added to the social media user’s gigantic pool every second, it’s not surprising that over 91% of businesses use social media. The influencer you just browsed past recommending you a shampoo of brand X might be a carefully chosen digital marketing strategy!
Businesses are trying to tap into the 2 hours, 22 minutes an individual
spends on social media. The perfect handshake between the prospective buyer and seller
is now happening in the digital landscape, exactly where the audience is. Marketing has
gone digital and compliments offline marketing to drive sales today.
Let’s dig deeper. So, what exactly is digital marketing? And what are the advantages of
digital marketing?
Defining Digital Marketing
These tools and techniques of modern online marketing- be it search engine optimization (SEO) social media marketing (SMM) pay per click advertisement, content marketing, websites, or e-mails, etc., as diverse and segmented as they may sound, are all integrated into the umbrella term called digital marketing with the unified aim of targeting, acquiring and retaining customers.
Simply put, it’s the total of all marketing efforts on the internet and digital tools that make it a reality. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are the new go-to places complimenting and competing with giants like Amazon. These creative platforms offer a range of possibilities to experiment, ideate and swing consumer perception, cementing a brand’s value.
And surprisingly, these avenues are open to everyone. The article will discuss further on, how digital marketing helps small businesses in particular.
The way consumer behavior has changed over the years has led businesses to create digital footprints. Between 2020 and 2021, digital-marketing budget spending saw an impressive growth rate of 14% across businesses.
The benefits of digital marketing are
immense. In economies the world over, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises)
have been the backbone. In post COVID era, the advantages of digital marketing for
small businesses are widely gaining acceptance.
So, Why Digital Marketing For Small Businesses?
1. Barrier Breaker
The potential of a borderless internet and social media riding on it has opened pathways to reach, attract and engage people like never before. With effective digital marketing strategy, brands are making profits from virtual spaces, doing away with the notion of physicality.
Where traditional ways of advertisement- TV, magazine, billboards fail, digital advertisement excels! Further granular insights like demographics and conversion rates, easily available (ex-Google Analytics, the most heavily used SEO tool right now), allow brand marketers to narrow down their target audience and go for personalization.
When we talk of transcending boundaries, it also means the internet per se, being a great leveler – it’s a pretty democratic space out there! Traditionally, SMEs had a tough time scaling these high walls that limited their visibility.
Small businesses ideally stand nowhere when it comes to huge spending big brands commit to their campaigns. Surprisingly, with intelligent digital marketing techniques, a small business can rise up in the search results because the search engine sees it differently and has nothing to do with a brand’s size!
2. Brand Building Through Better Customer Experience
Digital ads have been found to increase brand awareness by 80%, while 46% of all Google searches are for local products or services. With both users and businesses flocking to social media, brands have pushed the limits of creativity to build their image.
A nicely designed webpage, a video message neatly packed with happy customer reviews, delivers just the right impression. Further personalization of services tailored to individual shoppers connects with customers emotionally.
Forrester asserts that emotional resonance is vital for branding, with 50 percent of branding coming from its ability to resonate with users.
Take the case of Instagram- there are 200 million business accounts on the platform, and 90% of the users follow at least one business account. The daily dose of viral videos, with subtle marketing embedded within.
A digital marketing strategy for small businesses should listen and act upon this.
3. Cost-Effectiveness With Impressive ROI
It is the most essential reason brands adopt intelligent digital marketing when outbound methods may turn out to be non-performing. With insights available on non-performing channels, the resource can be diverted to create a flexible digital marketing campaign of value with minimal investment.
Cost-effective digital marketing is the key to an effective digital marketing strategy. Most tools are free (* Facebook back-end analytics). No matter how small the business size, you can make a dent in the digital universe with three simple approaches – social media, blogging, and SEO.
This is ideally suited for small enterprises. Over time, this lends a 360-degree view of marketing efforts. At times, a digital marketing company for small businesses does the hand-holding.
4. Ease Of Assimilation And Modification
With various options available to digital marketers, they can quickly integrate into the information stream and position the product or service.
Cautious readings of consumer behavior (analytics) through piles of data available- the number of people visiting the website, the sources of traffic, the performance of an ad, or the ranking of the website, and even the reviews they leave, are essential touch points to chalk out digital marketing strategy.
A plethora of digital marketing tools! With a finger on the digital pulse, it’s easier to rewire one’s strategy if a specific plan doesn’t work.
Think about a food chain that samples data on its website and responses on a reported food item. It can swiftly bring about customer-centric changes and retain brand loyalty through quality improvements in its offering.
Online presence erases and eases business impediments, shortening the time to respond. These trends and patterns determine a buyer’s trajectory and filter prospective clients or buyers to the top marketing funnel.
The SME And Digital Marketing Nexus
The digital marketing industry, which was a $350 billion market in 2020, will balloon to $786.2 billion by 2026.
72% of the small businesses have a website, and 28% of “nearby” or “near me” searches end in a purchase. With smartphones becoming ubiquitous, 92.3% of owners use their phones to search online. This speaks volumes about the importance of small businesses having some online presence. It’s more a necessity of our times rather than a choice.
Sometimes, businesses and enterprises display a certain hesitation in adopting digital options, and the digital marketing cost for small businesses is a hotly debated topic. Reasons abound. It stems from a perception that digital marketing comes at the high cost of maintaining infrastructure, and the ROI wouldn’t match up.
Other times, it is based on inadequate information or reluctance to adopt new technologies. What is often lost in the conversation is that SMEs that recognize the importance and benefits of digital marketing in business have a clear edge over their competitors which would undoubtedly produce both short-term and long-term gains.
An optimized website, with quality content and complimenting social media posts, can work wonders for a small business. The website is “on” 24* makes it easy to post updates, events, and announcements to the customer base.
It builds a sense of trust and credibility and these are virtues that generate leads and increase sales. A video message showing their brand's service or explaining it has a higher chance of hitting the right chord with customers. Digital marketing agencies for small businesses also lend their expertise to make it happen.
Dubai Digitalization And Impact On SMEs
It is interesting to note that the countries with the highest internet penetration rate worldwide are UAE, Denmark, and Ireland.
94% of the enterprises and institutions operating in UAE are SMEs (approx. >350,000) and contribute more than 50% to the GDP of the small nation rapidly advancing in the digital space. Start-ups and small-and-medium enterprises are a mix of the wholesale and retail sectors, services sectors, and industry and form an essential part of UAE’s ambitious plan to build a competitive economy.
Dubai has been prompt in embracing digitalization. Becoming the first country to appoint a minister of AI in 2016, and with most of its services going online, it achieved the impressive status of becoming a 100% paperless government in 2021.
It further aims to become the leading digital economy hub in the world and have a digital economy that would bring in $100 billion annually by 2031. The SMEs have also gained focus because UAE eagerly seeks to boost its non-oil GDP contribution from SMEs by 8% from 52%.
The rapid pace of digitalization signals that soon businesses of all kinds have to respond likewise, which invariably brings digital marketing into the discourse.
Though the digital landscape in Dubai is a mature one, the adoption of digital capabilities by small businesses is still a work in progress. With digital payment picking up and the eagerness to connect to world markets, the time is just ripe for small businesses to incorporate digital marketing in a big way. A casual search with the key “digital marketing company Dubai” would take you to pages that offer customized digital marketing.
In any case, the future of digital marketing in Dubai is promising.
Final Word!
Reluctance to incorporate a digital marketing strategy means missing out on its ability to send the right message to the right audience at the right time!
Over time, it can also jeopardize the sustainability of small businesses itself. Those who have warmed up to the idea and taken up digital marketing in the time of great disruption brought by COVID-19 have never looked back.
All it took was a small step into the digital world. They are working on the internet and making it work for them smartly.
If you are a business or MSE thinking about entering the digital space or prioritizing
your digital marketing capabilities, or growing online sales- we can build it up from
scratch. We have delivered digital marketing services for small businesses across the
globe and helped them get a firm foothold in the digital space. We will see to it what
works best for you and maximize your company’s growth.
