Today Businesses have a great opportunity to grow and reach more customers through online marketing. With people spending so much time online, digital marketing services can help you reach the right audience and increase your sales. In this blog, we’ll talk about why digital marketing is important for businesses and when it’s the right time to start using these services.

Why Digital Marketing Is Important for Your Business

Did you know that around 90% of people spend more than two hours a day on their phones looking for information, products, or services? In fact, most people no longer rely on traditional methods like word of mouth, newspapers or billboards. Only 10% of people find products offline, while 90% discover them online. This makes digital marketing a key part of business growth today.

With digital marketing, you can:

• Increase your brand awareness
• Drive traffic to your website
• Generate leads and boost sales

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to promoting your business, products, or services online. It’s like having a tool that act as a mediator for online demand and supply. It helps you connect directly with your potential customers. 

Digital marketing includes

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Improving your website to rank higher in search results.
• Social Media Marketing: Using platforms like Instagram and Facebook to engage with your audience.
• Online Advertising: Paying for ads on platforms like Google or Facebook to reach more people.
• Content Marketing: Creating helpful content like blogs or videos to attract customers.
• Email Marketing: Sending targeted emails to your customers to promote products.

These online tools allow you to target the right audience, build a connection with them, and increase your chances of making sales.

Where Are People Looking for Products and Services?

Understanding where people are searching for products and services is crucial for planning your marketing strategy. Nowadays, most people use search engines and social media platforms to find what they need. Here’s a breakdown:

• Search Engines: Google dominates the market, with a huge 91.62% share. People trust Google to find accurate and reliable information. Bing comes next with 3.31%, while others like Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Baidu have a much smaller market share.
• Social Media: Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook are becoming key places where younger generations, especially Gen Z, search for products. For example, 64% of Gen Z users prefer TikTok for discovering information, while 46% still use Google.

With this in mind, businesses need to focus on both search engines and social media to maximize their reach and visibility.

Online Market Insights

Let’s look at some important data that highlight the growing role of digital marketing:

• 90% of internet users see a Google ad during their online experience.
• 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search results, making SEO critical for visibility.
• The average person spends over two hours daily on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, giving businesses a great chance to engage with potential customers.

These insights confirm that people are increasingly turning to the internet for product discovery, which makes having a strong online presence essential for business success.

Key Statistics About Revenue from Mobile Purchases

As more people use mobile phones to shop online, businesses are seeing a huge rise in revenue from mobile purchases. Here are some important facts:

• Revenue from Mobile Data Market in India: By 2024, India is expected to generate $7.9 billion from mobile data services.
• Growth Rate: The mobile data market in India is growing fast, with an expected annual growth rate of 5.56% between 2024 and 2028. By 2028, it could reach $9.8 billion.
• Global Comparison: India’s mobile data revenue is much smaller compared to the United States, which is expected to generate $142 billion in 2024.
• Key Players: Major mobile network providers and the introduction of 5G will play a big role in boosting future growth in this market.
• Mobile Purchases: As mobile networks improve, more people are using their phones to buy products, driving business growth through mobile shopping.

These stats highlight the growing importance of mobile in the online shopping world.

Structure of Digital Marketing

Here’s a breakdown of the structure of a typical digital marketing strategy, and why each element falls in the following order:

1. General Marketing (GM)

General marketing is the foundation of your digital efforts. It involves defining your brand, identifying your target audience, analyzing competitors, and setting clear marketing objectives. Before moving into digital-specific strategies, you must understand what your business aims to achieve and ensure there is demand for your niche.

• Why it comes first: You need clear marketing goals and a strong brand identity that aligns with digital platforms. Without this, your digital strategy won’t have a solid direction.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Once your general marketing strategy is set, SEO is the next crucial step. SEO helps make your business visible on search engines by optimizing your website content, keywords, and structure. SEO is the process of meeting online demand with online supply by ensuring your business appears when people search for relevant products or services.

• Why it comes second: SEO attracts organic traffic by ensuring your site is discoverable. A Google My Business (GMB) profile is often the first step, followed by optimizing your website or social media presence based on your niche. Without SEO, potential customers won’t find your business online.

3. Social Media Marketing

After establishing SEO, social media marketing becomes essential for engaging with your audience and promoting your content, thus increasing brand awareness. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn allow you to build brand awareness and foster a community around your products or services.

• Why it comes third: Social media expands your reach and complements SEO by allowing you to interact with your audience directly. Engaged followers on social media can be guided to your website, increasing traffic and leads.

4. Ads (Pay-Per-Click – PPC)

Paid ads, such as Google Ads and social media ads, come into play after you have increased your brand awareness and traffic. PPC ads give your business quick leads by targeting specific audiences and driving immediate results to your business. While SEO builds long-term organic traffic, PPC generates immediate results.

• Why it comes fourth: Ads are a short-term strategy designed to provide an instant boost in traffic and leads. They work best after your SEO and social media are optimized, as the traffic driven by ads needs to lead to a well-prepared, high-converting platform.

5. Personalized Marketing (Email and WhatsApp Marketing)

Personalized marketing, such as email and WhatsApp campaigns, helps build long-term relationships with your customers. By sending targeted messages based on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history, you can nurture leads and increase customer loyalty.

• Why it comes fifth: Personalized marketing comes last because it requires data collected from your SEO, social media, and ads. It focuses on retaining and nurturing existing leads rather than generating new ones, making it an essential part of maintaining customer relationships over time.

5 Different Stages of Business 

Before planning to increase your business sales & reach wider audience it’s important to understand the stages where you can go for this type of services.

Launch Stage (Stage 1)

• Sales: Low and slowly increasing.
• Profit: Negative due to startup costs.
• Cash Flow: Negative, dipping lower than profit due to initial costs.
• Average Customers: Less than 50-100 customers daily.
• Digital Marketing Recommendation: At this stage, businesses should begin experimenting with basic digital marketing by themselves (e.g., social media to create awareness and reach a wider audience. It helps to drive sales or products/ services based on how much time you are investing to send messages to groups, post on social media, solving queries online).

Growth Stage (Stage 2)

• Sales: Rapidly increasing.
• Profit: Begins to grow after the break-even point.
• Cash Flow: Turns positive.
• Average Customers: Around 100-500+ customers daily.
• Digital Marketing Recommendation: This is the best stage to scale digital marketing efforts, including Google My Business optimization, Search Engine Optimization, and Social Media Marketing to capitalize on the growing demand. A well-developed digital strategy helps to maintain momentum.

Shake-out Stage (Stage 3)

• Sales: Continue increasing but at a slower pace.
• Profit: Starts to decline as costs rise.
• Cash Flow: Stronger than profit due to reduced expenses.
• Average Customers: 500-1,000+ customers daily.
• Digital Marketing Recommendation: Continue focusing on retention strategies and expanding into new markets using digital platforms. It’s essential to optimize customer acquisition and focus on maintaining market share.

Maturity Stage (Stage 4)

• Sales: Plateau or decline slightly.
• Profit: Margins thin but remain stable.
• Cash Flow: Stays relatively constant.
• Average Customers: Over 1,000+ customers daily.
• Digital Marketing Recommendation: Reinvent digital marketing strategies by exploring new trends (e.g., influencer marketing, AI, or personalised marketing) to keep the brand relevant and delay the decline phase.

Decline Stage (Stage 5)

• Sales: Decline rapidly.
• Profit: Shrinks alongside sales.
• Cash Flow: Declines along with sales and profit.
• Average Customers: Under 1,000 customers, progressively shrinking.
• Digital Marketing Recommendation: Use digital marketing to diversify offerings, target niche markets, or pivot into new industries to delay the decline.

Why You Should Start Digital Marketing Now

If your business isn’t online yet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. With 90% of people finding products and services online, having a digital presence is crucial to growing your customer base and increasing sales. Businesses that rely only on offline methods, such as word of mouth or newspapers, are limited to just 10% of potential customers.

By using digital marketing services like SEO, social media marketing, and online advertising, you can target the right people at the right time. Whether you’re a small business or an established company, investing in digital marketing will help you reach more customers, increase engagement, and drive sales.

Key Takeaways

• 90% of people use their phones for an average of 2 hours daily to find information, products, or services.
• Only 10% of people find products or services offline (through word of mouth, newspapers, or billboards).
• 90% of people find products or services online (through search engines, social media, or websites).
• Digital marketing is essential for business growth and boosting sales by reaching more people online.

• Google: Dominates the market with 91.62% share.
• Bing: Holds 3.31% of the market.
• Yahoo and others: Less than 1% (e.g., DuckDuckGo).
• Gen Z users prefer platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit for product searches.
• 46% of Gen Z users still rely on Google, but 64% prefer TikTok for things like fashion, recipes, and DIY.

• Instagram: 2 billion monthly active users, with users spending 29.7 minutes daily.
• Facebook: Largest platform with 3.065 billion monthly users, averaging 30.9 minutes daily.
• TikTok: 1 billion monthly active users, Highly engaging, with users spending 95 minutes daily on average.

Content Ladder’s Digital Marketing Services:

Ready to grow your business and dominate the digital space? At Content Ladder, we specialize in comprehensive digital marketing services designed to boost your online presence and drive real results. From SEO optimization to targeted ad campaigns and social media management, we’re here to help you reach the right audience and skyrocket your growth.

Our team of experts will tailor strategies specifically for your business—whether you need high-traffic websites, engaging social media content, or data-driven ads that convert.

Don’t wait—start growing today! Contact us now to unlock the full potential of your brand through expert digital marketing.