Businesses of all sizes are grappling with how to better engage with their customers.  Technology is changing so rapidly that many businesses have been unable to keep up or lack the expertise to stay on top of it all because technology is not their core competency.  And, to be fair even if these businesses are in the technology space, Digital Marketing is relatively new and is fueled at a frenetic pace by many Silicon Valley start-ups.

So, business owners/decision makers wait and watch and hope that they’ll be alright by sitting on the sidelines for a little longer. Who was it that said “Hope is not a strategy.”

Solution providers have not made it easy either. There are so many disparate solutions out there each focused on a different way of getting content in front of customers.  And, there are literally thousands of providers of these different solutions.  It’s confusing to navigate through it all.

If you own your own business or lead a Fortune 1000 company, what path do you choose to ensure that you are connecting with your customers, engaging them, building loyalty and increasing sales?

Why is it essential that businesses embrace digital marketing and ensure that their content reaches their customers anytime and anywhere?

Top 3 Reasons Businesses Should Embrace Digital Marketing

1) Digital Marketing is how your customers are consuming content.  If you want your product, service, message to reach your audience, you must get your content in front of them in the way that is most comfortable for them which is via their mobile devices (tablets, smartphones and PCs.)

Many companies these days have websites, but of the millions of websites that exist, very few are optimized to provide engaging content and reach the plethora of mobile devices and operating systems that power the devices.

Would you open a store and have empty shelves?  Would the door be locked with a sign that says “closed”?  That is the message you are sending when your website is not optimized to reach your customers on their terms.

2) Social Media levels the playing field.  It makes the Mom n Pop corner store just as relevant as some of the large Fortune 500 companies with $M in marketing budgets.  Businesses can compete and win if they embrace social media and actively participate and engage with their customers.

Social Media is here to stay and so if you want your business to participate in the conversation and drive the dialogue, then your business must be an active participate in the conversation.  At a minimum, your business should have a presence on the major Social Media networks (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn) and your website should have Social Media icon links so that consumers can easily follow/like/pin and engage with your company/business.

It is important that your business think about your customers and know that each and every interaction with your customers, suppliers, partners will at some point result in a social media interaction.  You want to not only track what is being said about your business and products but you want to use this forum as a marketing channel for your products and services.

3) eCommerce is essential for most businesses.  Make sure that your website can process transactions.  The statistics speak for themselves:

• Global eCommerce to reach $1T by 2016 (Morgan Stanley 2013)
• Social e-commerce sales will bring in about $35B in 2016, up 250% from $10 billion in 2012 (Siemer & Associates 2013)
• Number of Social Media users expected to rise from 1.6B users in ‘12, to 2.3B in 2016 (Radicati Group 2013)
  
• Next frontier of eCom is in “last mile” of local where 75% of all retail spend occurs (Ken Hao, Fortune, 2013)

WIth the rapid adoption of mobile technologies and reliance upon the internet to shop, more and more people are using mobile to find what they need and they expect companies/brands/businesses to be there.  “There” means online/mobile.

What this means to your business is that you can now be a global business and reach customers all over the world.  The internet expands your reach and influence.  Embrace, use, share.  Your customers will thank you and your business will have the ability to not only survive but thrive in the years ahead.