The Importance of Digital Marketing

Understand the significance, advantages, and disadvantages of Digital Marketing.

In the previous chapter, we introduced the term “Digital Marketing,” a buzzword in the 4.0 era, breaking it down into an easy-to-understand overview of its meaning and origins.

While traditional marketing methods like print media or billboards remain relevant, the world is moving at a fast pace. Digital media, which allows communication and interaction with people anywhere and anytime through electronic tools, offers unparalleled benefits.

These advantages make Digital Marketing an essential strategy for marketers to effectively communicate their products and services to target audiences. From messaging and email marketing to search engines like Google or social media ads on platforms like Facebook, LINE OA, and Instagram, Digital Marketing opens endless possibilities.

For businesses that haven’t yet adapted to or embraced Digital Marketing, this chapter will provide you with valuable insights into its benefits and significance, as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

After reading this, you may completely change your business strategy.

Why is Digital Marketing Important?

In today’s world, digital devices surround us—whether at home, in the car, or at work. The rapid growth of digital technology has multiplied the number of mobile users, internet users, and social media users over the years. This has significantly elevated the role of Digital Marketing.

In Thailand, for example, there were over 52 million internet users in 2020, along with a massive increase in social media users. Adopting and utilizing Digital Marketing has become the most suitable adaptation for businesses, agencies, bloggers, and vloggers alike.

That being said, let’s take a closer look at the advantages and benefits of Digital Marketing one by one.

Advantages and Benefits of Digital Marketing

1. Digital Marketing is Cost-effective

One of the most apparent benefits of Digital Marketing is that the costs are relatively low. Moreover, it provides a way to spend advertising money effectively, ensuring a good return on investment.

When it comes to brand marketing, comparing the cost of large billboards at prime intersections or major train stations makes it clear that such options are often too expensive for small businesses or startups to afford in the short term. However, the emergence of Digital Marketing has leveled the playing field by enabling businesses, whether big or small, to market their products or services while targeting specific audiences (Audience Targeting). This approach not only makes marketing more effective but also helps reduce unnecessary costs associated with advertising to the “wrong” audience.

2. Marketing without Guesswork: Conducting Business Based on Data (Data-Driven Marketing)

Traditional marketing makes it quite challenging to track traffic or determine whether our ads have actually reached our target audience. This has often been a tough problem for marketers, as it limits their ability to refine strategies and make them more tailored and effective.

However, with the disruption of technology, we can now easily collect and analyze customer data, making the process more convenient and reliable.

Data collection can be done directly through the platforms we use for marketing, such as Facebook or Instagram. Alternatively, relying on MarTech (Marketing Technology) tools to analyze and aggregate data is also a highly convenient option. The more specific and detailed our understanding of customer behavior and needs becomes, the more powerful and effective our communication with them will be.

3. Target Audiences and Customers Anytime, Anywhere

This is another advantage of Digital Marketing, highlighting a key difference between traditional and digital eras.

We can take advantage of the borderless digital world to communicate with our target audience or customers anytime, anywhere, through various online marketing platforms or channels. Additionally, we can precisely pinpoint the location of our target audience and analyze where the visitors to our platform are coming from, down to specific regions of the world.

This strength opens opportunities for both large and small companies to study and expand their customer base in desired countries.

4. Precise Audience Targeting

This benefit is something every marketer desires, as successfully targeting specific customer segments represents a significant achievement in marketing. While traditional marketing can communicate with customers, it doesn’t guarantee that those who see our ads are actually our target customers.

Using the right bait is definitely better than casting a wide net to catch the specific fish we want.

Digital Marketing aids marketers in targeting specific customer segments, allowing for precise filtering by gender, age, location, or even occupation. This ensures that the audience viewing our advertisements is genuinely the intended target group.

5. Gain Deeper Insights into Customers by Tracking the Customer Journey

Have you ever experienced seeing a product you never wanted before, but after seeing others use it and encountering frequent ads every day, you start to think about it and hesitate, ultimately deciding to purchase it?

Digital Marketing can create and track the Customer Journey through various websites by monitoring keywords that customers are interested in or frequently search for online. With this data in hand, we can connect with our customers through Search Engine Optimization and produce content that matches their needs. This essentially delivers personalized information to customers.

6. Enhance Results and Seize Opportunities (Increase Conversion Rate)

Another advantage Digital Marketing has over traditional marketing is the ability to convert leads into customers. While not every website visitor will purchase from us, we can use Sales Funnel strategies to attract and guide leads into becoming our customers. Additionally, we can use retargeting to bring back existing customers for repeat purchases. This is a major strength that offline marketing cannot replicate—once people lose interest in offline channels, they often drop out of the brand’s orbit entirely.

Image Source: learn.g2.com

7. Marketing Driven by Customer Needs (Customer Insight).

What gives Digital Marketing an edge over Traditional Marketing is our ability to market based directly on customer needs. This is possible because we have access to insights from various sources: Social Media (e.g., Facebook Insights), Search Engines (e.g., Google Trends), and Keyword Research showing search volume data.

These insights help businesses understand what people are currently interested in, allowing us to use this information to better influence customer decisions. This approach is more effective than the external stimulation methods used in Traditional Marketing.

The advantages of shifting to Digital Marketing on various platforms are numerous and varied. Regardless of whether someone has a large or small budget, anyone can engage in Digital Marketing. I encourage you to give it a try; I believe you’ll discover many opportunities and benefits that Digital Marketing can offer.

However, Digital Marketing is not without its drawbacks. On the contrary, there are challenges and disadvantages to consider. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

1. Digital Marketing Requires Digital Skills

The first limitation every company faces when attempting to transform itself for the digital age is the need for digital skills. This entails learning how websites and various social media platforms function, as well as figuring out how these tools can be incorporated into marketing strategies. For example, understanding the primetime for posting, crafting the right communication style, maintaining and optimizing websites, and much more. These skills are essential for adapting effectively to Digital Marketing.

2. High Competition

With many opportunities available, competition naturally increases!

Digital marketing allows anyone to become a marketer and sell their own content, regardless of their budget size, and reach their target audience. However, the downside of this accessibility is the high level of competition – both from newcomers and experienced marketers who have already established themselves in the field.

3. Customers Can Provide Open Feedback

Everyone has access to the digital world, including customers. This aspect can be both a benefit and drawback of Digital Marketing. If our website is good, content is high-quality, and we maintain strong customer connections, the feedback will be positive. However, if customers are dissatisfied with our products or services, that negative feedback can appear everywhere – on Facebook timelines, Twitter hashtags, or Pantip forums.

Addressing this issue can be challenging because everyone has different personal preferences. However, personalizing content using the customer data we have can help filter and tailor what each customer receives. Despite preventative measures, brands should always have a Crisis Management plan in place to effectively handle negative feedback or backlash when it arises.

Digital Transformation: A New Era for Your Business Journey

Whether it’s advantages, disadvantages, or the challenges of Digital Marketing, people’s behaviors have already been disrupted by technology over time. Therefore, transforming or adapting your business to better connect with customers is no longer optional—it is essential for survival in today’s market.

Digital Transformation can start by shifting certain transactions online, such as documentation, payment processes, and digital marketing. This is essential because consumers now spend up to 8 hours a day (or one-third of their day) on digital platforms. With such behavior, meeting them in the digital space has become crucial for businesses.

A great tip for getting started is to ask yourself, “Where are my customers or target audience located?” Are they on Facebook, LINE, Twitter, or do they prefer to search for what they need independently first? Understanding their preferred platforms can guide your Digital Marketing strategy effectively.

Once we know where our customers are, the business can begin its transformation by positioning itself alongside them, achieving an online presence that makes it easier to engage and connect with the target audience.

In the next section, we will discuss the various marketing channels and online presence strategies that businesses can implement.