Digital Marketing Survey Results, Part 2

In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the basic trends found in a recent Clutch survey of over 500 digital marketing pros across the country. This survey found numerous interesting results for those in the online marketing world, including the revelation that under half of all businesses utilize SEO itself in the proper ways.

At SEO Werkz, we can help you with SEO services as well as all other relevant digital marketing areas, from web design to social media and more. Today, let’s look at what this recent survey said about how businesses of different sizes use digital marketing to their advantage, plus how digital marketing ties directly to your business’s revenue stream.

Primary Goals of Digital Marketing

To the surprise of few, the primary goal of digital marketing across all businesses in the US is to increase revenue. Here are the top listed goals of digital marketing as reported by professionals across the country, with the percentage of responders who answered this way listed as well:

• Increase sales or revenue (28 percent of responders)
• Improve brand awareness (19 percent)
• Convert business leads (15 percent)
• Differentiate from competition (13 percent)
• Improve web traffic (11 percent)

Every business is different, of course, and your digital marketing efforts should center around how you believe you can influence your prospective customers’ purchasing decisions. Regardless of which channel you’re looking at, the theme you should always come back to is figuring out how to convert leads into actual purchases through a combination of efforts.

Goals and Business Size

Clutch’s data also revealed that the goals for digital marketing can vary greatly for a business depending on its size. The basic line here was whether or not a business has 5,000 employees, with these trends noted:

• Above: Businesses with above 5,000 employees are considered large businesses, which are more likely to use digital marketing to differentiate themselves from competitors.
• Below: Businesses with under 5,000 employees tend to use digital marketing more for improving general awareness of their brand.

This makes inherent sense when you think about it. Larger businesses already have solid brand awareness in most cases – they don’t need as many new eyes on their products and services, but rather need ways to convert the leads they already have into purchases.

Smaller businesses, though, are still often looking for those leads to begin with. They’re regularly trying to carve a footprint in a competitive market, and that means getting their name out there and raising awareness about products, services and overall branding. Becoming more visible is the first step to growing the business to where you want it to go.

Digital Marketing and Revenue

Clutch’s study also found that a robust 83 percent of responders believed their businesses were doing an effective job at digital marketing to reach their stated goals. Businesses are far more confident overall in online marketing services than they are in traditional forms of advertising, and this theme figures to only grow as more and more people live online in their daily lives. It’s increasingly clear that a digital presence is an absolute must for any successful business, and a use of diverse channels and smart implementation is a huge factor in conversion and growth.

To learn more about important trends in 2018 in internet marketing, or for information on any of our SEO services, speak to the staff at SEO Werkz today.