I have a lot of conversations with businesses who don’t know where to start online.  When I talk to them about tradigital marketing, many don’t know what it is or how to start to implement across channels. Don’t overcomplicate it, it can be as simple as leveraging traditional and digital marketing channels to get better results and more bang for their buck. Every business should be online. In today’s tech savvy world having a website is the starting with the basics and every business is at a different level of starting their digital journey. So here are a few reasons to bring your offline marketing, online ie: merging your traditional with your digital. Why you need to be using digital:

1) Compared to traditional offline marketing, digital is affordable and measureable

Most methods of digital marketing will cost you considerably less than traditional channels with a similar audience reach. But when you consider that many marketing tools online are totally free but by leveraging your marketing you’ll get more bang for your buck. This can be as simple as having the same message on your print ad as what is showing on your home page. So many businesses get this basic step wrong and it causes confusion with customers and means your marketing campaigns are less effective.

2) Digital gives you global market.

Perhaps you’ve spent a lot of time and energy on market research to define your target audience. And now that you know who these people are, figuring out the most effective and efficient way to reach them comes next. And while, for many locally focussed businesses, marketing on television, radio, and print media allows them to reach a limited  local audience in their area. But for any business to take their marketing online, the audience drastically increases, and, with just a few tweaks, in many cases, it’s possible to extend products or services well beyond a local area.

3) You can see the results of your marketing efforts in real-time and immediately.

The process for creating traditional campaigns is longer due to production lead times and distribution methods however with digital you can be online and measuring results in minutes. You can see exactly what is working, where your leads and sales are coming from and you have totally control over where your campaigns are being seen. If a campaign isn’t working, it can be stopped and reworked in real-time. And better yet, it’s possible to watch the analytics of traffic and conversions in real-time as well.

If you are a business owner who is reading this article and you do not already have a strong online presence, you need to seriously consider why not, and start learning more about how combining digital with your traditional marketing can make a difference to your bottom line. If your competitors are already online (and you can bet they are) you need to be as well, or you are missing out on a considerable piece of the proverbial pie.