Statistics show that the offline mediums (print, TV, radio) spend has dropped from 91% in 2006 to 65% in 2016. Digital Agencies in the US have reported revenue for 2015 of $14bn with an annual growth rate of 12.2% with Australian statistics similar.
However, one-third of spending is not the same thing as one-third of the marketing we are subjected to or one-third of the profits. Although 35% of current global advertising spend is used for digital marketing, at least half of the marketing messages we receive are transmitted over the Internet. And more than one-third of profits are due to digital marketing.
The explanation is simple: digital marketing is so much more cost-effective; marketers may spend 35% of their budgets on online promotion, but the high return on investment has made this type of promotional activities much more prominent than traditional marketing. Not to mention digital marketing is simple to measure, and unlike traditional marketing, you can see in real time what is or isn’t working for your business and you can adapt any changes very quickly to improve your results.
But let’s see some of the factors that have contributed to the rapid growth of Digital Marketing:
Facebook’s developing capabilities
Facebook has continued to expand with 1.79 billion users and 60 million business pages in 2016. In the pasts few years, Facebook has been updated with mobile-enabled, strong social and video functionality capabilities. Although some social media experts were sceptical the first time when Facebook introduced videos, time has proved that video remains a major trend in digital marketing and that functionalities of this type represent Facebook’s biggest draw cards for advertisers and businesses. The human mind is naturally and instinctively drawn by moving images and this fact will never change. And when social networks provide you with the possibility to post videos free of charge, unlike traditional marketing, your brand can make a big step ahead and stay competitive within your industry.
Mobile advertising growth
Remember when mobile advertisements were annoying and disrupting the natural flow of a web page on your smartphone screen? This is a thing of the past since marketers have refined their mobile advertising techniques and have developed ways to insert ads into mobile web pages into a more natural manner. Combined with personalisation and re-marketing (or the possibility to display information that recipients have already expressed their interest for), mobile advertising has taken an upward trend, growing by 50% year on year, and made a significant contribution to the rise of digital marketing as we know it today.
Online shopping
Online shopping in Australia is generating revenue of $18bn with an annual growth rate of 16.2%. Digital marketing and online shopping go together hand in hand and have changed in the past few years the way companies sell products and services to consumers via e-commerce websites. Customers are pleased to save money and time by placing orders from their computers or mobile devices, while retailers reduce costs because they no longer have to hold brick-and-mortar stores where they need to pay employees. This is definitely a win-win deal, and digital marketing is the one ingredient ensuring the success of this marketing recipe.
Content marketing
Along with SEO and social media marketing, content marketing is focused on netting long-term returns; these techniques are known to deliver a higher ROI than offline mediums. While traditional marketing pushed aggressive messages at audiences, without knowing for sure it was targeting their ideal customers, content marketing and other methods in the digital marketing mix focus on cultivating long-term relationships with their target market and get prospects through the marketing funnel in a more careful and effective manner.
Instead of bothering people with marketing messages they are not prepared for, digital marketing tools first ensure engagement and a strong relationship and only targets the most qualified prospects for selling purposes. This way, the chances to get a loyal customer are higher and costs are significantly reduced, with superior results.
Although traditional marketing is not dead yet – and it will probably never be – digital marketing is taking a bigger slice in the pie year by year and makes it possible for every company, from small businesses to large enterprises, to address its customers more precisely and to spend marketing budgets more effectively. Now it’s time to wait for the New Year to show us what digital marketing has prepared for both marketers and consumers in 2017.
If you would like to know what digital marketing strategies can propel your business in 2017, contact Visual Marketing Australia where all your digital marketing needs are met with precision.
