As a business owner or marketing manager, you want to be sure that the investment you’re making in your own business is paying off. You want to be sure that your money is making you more money and that dollars aren’t just flying out of the window. But with marketing, it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint the exact return on investment you’re getting - and this is doubly so when it comes to digital marketing.

The world of digital marketing is a fairly new one, and even if marketing teams are on board with how crucial it is, owners and senior execs often need a little convincing. Basically, digital marketing refers to websites, social media and content creation, and marketers can sometimes have a hard time legitimizing these efforts and convincing the rest of the company that it’s an effective, and necessary, strategy. That’s why we’re here to provide you with some solid reasons and examples of the real value of digital marketing and the tools you need to prove it.

Moving Your KPIs

Digital marketing has the power to move your KPIs. But first, you need to define what they are. You’ll need to work with your marketing team and execs to figure out exactly what your KPIs are - there is no better way to prove that digital marketing is effective than tangibly proving that you are meeting your goals. It’s a good idea to combine traditional metrics like lead generation with your digital goals, like website conversion rate, in order to come up with a broad strategy that hits all the marks.

Work together with your team to figure out super specific performance indicators. For example, these could be turning landing page visitors into leads or tracking the reach of your social branding efforts.

Consumers Are More Receptive To It

When digital marketing first came of age five years ago, some companies were weary of it because consumers weren’t responding to it. That’s all changing - this year especially. 2017 is the year that millennials become the largest presence in the North American workforce. These consumers have the most money and a willingness to spend it, and they are fully on board with digital marketing. In fact, it’s the way they expect brands to engage and interact with them.

Mobile Is Everything

Mobile Internet usage continues to rise and is set to surpass PC Internet usage this year. That means that consumers are shopping on their mobile devices and are eager to be engaged in the digital space. It’s smart to engage them on their phones because it’s super easy for them to click and purchase right in the middle of, or immediately after, a digital marketing experience. Think about how Nike has sponsored video posts on Instagram - if a consumer sees a pair of sneakers they love they can simply flip over to the web and purchase them online. It’s a huge market to tap into. Videos are a fantastic way to engage consumers on the go by standing out from the sea of stimuli they are seeing.

Real-Time Personalization

Digital marketing allows you to cater to customers in ways that weren’t possible before. You can deliver real-time personalized content to customers so that they get to see ads for products they want or information about things they are interested in right in the moment. Capitalizing on that ability by using video and online tools can have a huge payoff.

Viral Content

Thanks to social media, digital marketing content has the ability to go viral and gain a reach you could never have achieved with traditional marketing channels. Companies like Plated are using their YouTube channel to create cooking videos that customers love - and in turn, they share them with their friends and help the content go viral. Airbnb features creative six-second videos and stitches them together into ads like “Hollywood and Vines,” which get wide exposure and are even shared by celebs like Ashton Kutcher.

Brand Remembrance

Digital content, like videos, is a huge boon for brand remembrance. Videos are lively and visual and help to stimulate our memories more than text. Marketing videos offer an aesthetic representation of your brand and help viewers relate to your business. They also allow for more exposure time to your business than scrolling past an ad. 80 percent of customers say they remember a video they have seen in the last month!

Versatility

Digital marketing is extremely versatile. You can share videos and other digital content on virtually every platform, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. TV used to be a powerful form of advertising, but these days, digital video that can be shared over and over again on different platforms is taking over. Apple definitely recognized the power of this medium with videos like #Taylorvstreadmill, which features Taylor Swift having a hard time on the treadmill when she’s distracted by her Apple playlist.

Numbers don’t lie! Digital marketing has legitimate value and is the way forward for companies that are looking to boost their sales numbers. Dr. James McQuivey estimates that one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words, what a fantastic way to put your advertising dollars to good use!