Doing your marketing online is no longer optional.
Rather, it ought to be an essential aspect of any business’s marketing strategy. Moreover, online marketing is diversifying, with new concepts such as influencer marketing coming to the fore. Recent studies indicate that over 80% of professionals working in the field of marketing and digital communications expect to use an influencer to launch a campaign within the next year, for instance. What’s more, around 67% of consumers are thought to be influenced in their purchasing decisions by reading reviews online and on social media. As such, no matter if you run a huge multinational or a quirky SME, it is important to create a strong, effective, up to date digital marketing plan. Here are three reasons why online marketing is meaningful for any business, in London and beyond.
1. The online presence of your business really counts
The average person now spends more time reading media and marketing content online than they do engaging with all other key types of media combined (i.e. newspapers, TV, radio and magazines). It is thus crucial for your company to have a compelling digital presence. Moreover, this digital presence should ideally be a positive one across all types of devices, especially smartphones (it is estimated that within 2020 around 72% of all purchases will be conducted using mobile devices rather than traditional desktop computers). Plenty of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) platforms such as WordPress will help you to get started.
2. Online marketing needs to take social media into account
Most people are active across a wide variety of social media platforms, whether in London or in Cape Town, and yet it was recently found that on average a business will take 8 hours or more to respond to a customer’s enquiry via social media. This needs to change, with more courteous, helpful and customer focused conversations taking place in real time across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as on the comments of a WordPress sites. The infrastructure is there, so why not use it? Social media is certainly on board with being used as a marketing tool: experts estimate that in 2016 social media platforms earned around £8.5 billion by hosting paid ads.
3. SEO is still king
SEO remains an invaluable aspect of any marketing strategy, and Google should be your key focus. There are around 40, 000 
searches on Google every second which adds up to around 10 billion searches a month. Google handles around 85% of all online searches which means that businesses whose online content is optimised for Google search engines will be able to attract more customers.
Kick start (or re-boot) your online marketing plan today
Get your marketing strategy into shape by checking your SEO, paying more attention to social media and ensuring that your online presence is engaging and impactful. Not sure where to get started or looking for professional help to increase your companies digital marketing strategy? We can help.
Let us know what’s been working (and what’s not) for you in the comments below 👋
