What's The Value of Digital Marketing?

I recently watched a video where a designer explained why he charges what he does for creating a logo. He used two examples, one a logo for a micro business and the other for Nike. His point was, the value of the logo to the micro business was probably only a few hundred pounds, whereas the value of Nike's logo ran into the millions. Incidentally the designer who created their logo, Carolyn Davidson, was only paid a $35.

He illustrated his point by suggesting that the simple act of adding the Nike logo to a cotton t-shirt increased its value from perhaps £3 to £30.

This got me thinking about our digital marketing agency and the conversations we have with our potential clients. I referenced some of these conversations in a recent post about the cost of developing a website that generates leads.

The Definition of a Fantastic Website

Depending on who you talk to this will be different. For some it's all about the look and feel or design, for others it's the technical capabilities or the stuff it does. For most of our clients it's about the impact the work we do has on their bottom line, the business it generates.

By combining fantastic web design, a technically solid solution and a content strategy that speaks to your ideal customers your website will;

1. Get found in Google by the people you want to speak to
2. Encourage those people to engage with you
3. Increase your bottom line

This means if you get your digital strategy right, it's a profit centre not a cost centre. But so many businesses still don't get this. They still see the creation of their digital footprint, their website, social media engagements, online ads and so on, as a cost, it isn't, or at least it shouldn't be. As one of our clients rightly observed recently "If we convert just one enquiry from the work we're doing, this project pays for itself".

Find Your Tribe

In very simple terms, digital marketing consists of a set of tools or practices that helps businesses like yours find their tribe. Your tribe are your ideal customers, the people who love what you do, the people who willingly help you improve what you do and importantly, enthusiastically tell others what you do.

A Simple Example

Alertise are a strategy execution software startup based in Western Australia. Their Software as a Service, or SaaS product is helping to solve the age old problem of strategy deployment, the effective rolling out of strategic initiatives across an organisation.

For most organisations strategy looks like this.

1. Gather your key people in a nice hotel or resort
2. Decide what the organisation needs to do over the coming 12 months
3. Document the agreed actions
4. File the document somewhere
5. Refer to it 12 months later at the next strategic planning gathering

Now, clearly I'm being mischievous with the above description, but the statistics suggest it's not far from the truth. Alertise are helping businesses solve this problem with their SaaS platform. The problem is, most businesses still haven't recognised they have a problem, people don't know what they don't know. Worse still, many of those who know they have a problem are not motivated to fix it, preferring to concentrate on the day to day stuff and not the bigger picture.

This means Alertise's tribe is a globally dispersed group of forward thinkers actively looking for a solution to the way their businesses implement their strategic plan.

Before digital marketing, finding their tribe would have been all but impossible, how on earth could they get their message in front of the right people?

In 2019 it's whole lot easier. Their tribe uses Google, LinkedIn and Twitter when looking for solutions and so long as Alertise understand the problems their tribe are trying to solve, they can create the content required to attract them, and they are.

Digital Marketing For Business Growth

Digital marketing is the most powerful business growth tool organisations have ever had at their disposal. This is because it's not, for the most part, an interruption technique, it's demand led.

Interruption techniques rely on telling a million people something in the hope that your message will resonate with some of them, and I'm sure it still works if you've got a big enough budget. Demand led marketing, such as Google search, helps you find the people who are ready to listen to what you've got to say because they are trying to solve a problem.

So There You Have It

So in answer to the original question, the value of digital marketing correlates to the value of a converted lead. If you have a potential tribe, a well executed digital campaign will find them. Furthermore, if you deliver exceptional to your tribe they'll become advocates and play a key role in your business growth.

If you need some help figuring out how to use the web effectively, if you want it to help your business grow and thrive, give us a call.