What are The Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes by providing access to the mass market at an affordable price. Unlike TV or print advertising, it allows for truly personalized marketing. Digital marketing also comes with many challenges that you should be aware of.

Advantages of Digital Marketing

The main advantage of digital marketing is that the target audience can be reached in a cost-effective and measurable manner. Other digital marketing benefits include increasing brand loyalty and increasing online sales.

Benefits of Digital Marketing include:

• Global reach - A website allows you to discover new markets and trade globally for just a small investment.
• Low Cost – A properly planned and well-targeted digital marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
• Trackable, Measurable Results - Measuring your online marketing with web analytics and other online metric tools makes it easy to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can get detailed information about how customers use your website or respond to your advertising.
• Personalization – If your customer database is linked to your website, you can welcome them with targeted offers whenever someone visits the site. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively.
• Openness – By engaging with social media and managing it carefully, you can build customer loyalty and a reputation for being easily connected.
• Social Currency - Digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using a content marketing strategy. This content (images, videos, articles) can gain social currency - being transmitted from user to user and going viral.
• Better Conversion Rates – If you have a website, your customers are only a few clicks away from making a purchase. Unlike other media that require people to get up and call, or go to a store, digital marketing can be spontaneous and immediate.

Together, all these aspects of digital marketing have the potential to add more sales.

Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

You should be aware of some of the pitfalls and challenges of digital marketing:

• Skills and Training – You will need to ensure that your employees have the right knowledge and expertise to do digital marketing with success. Tools, platforms and trends change rapidly and it is important that you stay up-to-date.
• Takes Time – Tasks such as optimizing online advertising campaigns and creating marketing materials can be time-consuming. It is important to measure your results to ensure return on investment.
• High Competition – While you can reach a global audience with digital marketing, you are also up against global competition. Standing out against competitors and gaining attention among the many messages online can be a challenge for consumers.
• Complaints and Feedback - Any negative feedback or criticism of your brand may be visible to your audience through social media marketing and review websites. Doing effective customer service online can be challenging. Negative comments or failure to respond effectively can damage your brand reputation.
• Security and Privacy Issues - There are many legal considerations regarding the collection and use of customer data for digital marketing purposes. Be sure to follow the rules regarding privacy and data protection.