Boosting Your Business Growth

There are various ways by which one can boost a business's growth – a direct way is to increase advertising. This is very effective especially for B2C companies. A recent report by Deloitte on behalf of the Advertising Association explains how small UK companies can grow with the potential of investing in good advertising, and that only a few percentage invest in promotional activities. On the other hand, those who invest experience a rise in sales and growth in their company.

There are several means to advertise a business being by using traditional or digital marketing methods. Large companies have already started to shift their budgets from traditional to digital, as this is achieving higher revenue and is much more cost effective. The decline occurring from every traditional channel being it TV, print, direct mail, radio and so on has been dipping from 2012. Companies’ traditional advertising budgets are shrinking and are instead shifting to digital platforms.

In Malta, we are seeing a lot of companies that are now embracing digital activities including social and online advertising. In fact, 2014 will probably be the year where we will really see a significant shift in Malta to advertise on digital platforms.

Exploring Digital Marketing

A lot of companies are weary or unknown of what digital channels may bring. They are at times afraid to embrace it, avoid it and maybe are not even aware of it. Sometimes businesses in Malta still encompass the idea of direct mail, TV, radio and print. While this is positive and will definitely bring good business, one should also opt to target some budgets towards digital marketing. Why? The benefits are endless. Digital advertising is much cheaper, can be modified as the campaigns are running (to improve performance), more targeted and easier to measure.

The best platforms to advertise on are those that have a lot of reach, or in other terms, traffic. This means that the adverts are seen by a large number of people. However, reach and mass advertising are characteristics that traditional advertising has. While reach is still important, an advantage of digital marketing is of being more targeted – something that traditional advertising lacks. A targeted campaign will focus on an audience that are more likely to become customers. Combine reach with targeted advertising and you have the right ingredients for a campaign to obtain an attractive return-on-investment.

Digital marketing also brings up opportunities to entertain your customers and audience instead of just selling your products or services. This can easily be done via social media where one can interact with the company itself or by posting interesting content. All this useful content is seeking to entertain and educate the customer. In return to all this engagement, the customers themselves will create further reach making customers come to you.

Studies have shown how mobile and social media are on the rise.  These in addition to search engine optimisation, pay-per-click, opt-in email campaigns and blogging. Maltese businesses should really seek advice to benefit from these opportunities and advertise using digital marketing activities.

Conrad Bugeja is a Search Optimisation Consultant and Pay-Per-Click Consultant at Alert eBusiness Internet Marketing Division - www.alertemarketing.com