Why South African Business should Prioritise Digital Marketing

There has been some interesting research into what trends those in digital marketing need to keep an eye on in 2019. For example, there is still a lot of room to improve mobile marketing. This is because:

• 85% of mobile advertisers feel that they are giving their customers value for money, however
• Only 47% of users agree.

In South Africa, digital marketing is a significant differentiator in the marketplace. According to statistics online marketing is increasing at a rate of 35% with most major retailers using e-commerce in conjunction with their bricks-and-mortar stores to drive turnover and profit.

In fact, reports released at the end of 2018 state that online shopping is now worth R14 billion. This represents a 25% increase over 2017 figures. This means that with so many people browsing and shopping online, South Africa business needs to prioritise digital marketing so that they can reach the customers that they want.

Prioritising Digital Marketing

The first port of call is social media

South Africans spend a great deal of their days browsing social media. This is especially true of Facebook. It is predicted that users of social media will reach the 40 million mark soon. Thus, if you are digital marketer the best way to get your brand out there and to attract new customers is to reel them in using social media.

In terms of which social media platform(s) is/are best to target, the answer lies in:

• If you are a business-to-consumer (B2C) or a business-to-business (B2B) company, and’
• The make-up of your target audience.

Facebook for branding

If you are a B2B or a B2C company, Facebook is a great way of getting your message out there and branding your company.  With 2.27 billion active users – as of the third quarter of 2018 – it provides potential advertisers with minute demographic details about who that they want to target.

Facebook also offers ads based on what outcome you want from your particular ad. For example you can take out a:

• Lead generation ad,
• A post-engagement ad, or
• A traffic ad.

For more information on how Facebook advertising can work for you, click here.

LinkedIn: The B2B goldmine

LinkedIn is a platform where B2B companies can showcase their thought-leadership capabilities and draw the attention of other businesses who will use their services. With over 52 million users, it provides vital information for marketers in the B2B space, for example companies who people work for, their job titles and experience.

This B2B social platform offers a number of advertising options:

• Dynamic Ads,
• Sponsored Content,
• Sponsored InMails,
• Dynamic Job Ads for Talent Media,
• Text Ads, and
• LinkedIn Display Ads.

LinkedIn provides companies the opportunity for users to publish articles on the platform. This is a powerful way of getting noticed by decision makers as 40 million LinkedIn users are hold the position of decision makers in the business.

Once you have published an article, the platform provides you with stats about who has viewed your content. Namely, you can see the following information about the viewers:

• Where they are located in the world,
• What company they work for, and
• What their job title is.

And when you consider that LinkedIn provides this information free of charge, once a unique article has been published, it is no wonder that more and more businesses are turning to publishing articles on this channel.

Twitter and CRM

Many businesses use Twitter as a point of contact for their customers to reach out to them and to ask questions to which they will get real-time answers. City Power does this very effectively as it posts up-to-the-minute updates on their Twitter feed regarding electricity interruptions. Customers are able to ask questions to which they get answers. In fact, the majority of City Power customers turn to Twitter as their first port of call as the information is more up to date that the electricity utility’s website.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Every single South African company needs to be harnessing the power of digital marketing, particularly social media. They should be sending at least of their staff members of a social media course so that they can learn how to use these channels correctly for their companies. The Digital School of Marketing’s Social Media Marketing Course is the perfect social media certificate to help you achieve this. Read more here.