Five Reasons Why #Entrepreneurs and #SmallBusinesses Can’t Survive Without Digital Media

There are several reasons why entrepreneurs and small businesses should make their digital presence a top priority.

Digital isn’t just cool, or the ‘way of the future’, it’s essential for small business and new startups to embrace. In the past many entrepreneurs have fallen prey to engaging in social or creating apps or venturing into mobile marketing because they were told they had to do it, or out of vanity, and rushed ahead without really getting it. However, there is now more data available than ever to support small business in getting the most out of their digital advertising strategies. So why can’t you ignore digital today, and how can you incorporate what you are doing now with the new digital age?

Here are five reasons why entrepreneurs and small businesses can’t live without digital marketing:

1. Return on Investment

If for no other reason digital marketing must be embraced for its ability to deliver the highest ROI. Even if your startup is the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands in seed funding it won’t last long enough, unless you constantly demand the maximum possible ROI on every penny.

2. Speed

Done right digital marketing produces far faster results than the majority of offline marketing methods, and in turn sharply reduces the cash flow cycle, propelling businesses with compound returns.

3. Growth

Digital means increasing speed of growth and top end growth potential through global reach. Any business aspiring to sell, be acquired, develop into a substantial brand or attract more investment dollars must be able to show consistent monthly growth, and being online definitely helps.

4. Brand Presence

Consumers are now so immune to offline advertising today and marketers have such a hard job getting noticed in the real world it’s become difficult to stay in the mind. It’s difficult even for the friends people are dining with to gain attention or interact with everyone looking at their phones and tablets. So that’s where you need to be, or you essentially don’t even exist anymore.

5. Longevity

Investing in a digital presence is crucial for business continuity, and the ability to survive and thrive. Small businesses must remain competitive in order to stick around, and with many forms of digital marketing from blogs to social to video and business listings, once it is up it’s there forever, constantly helping to bring down future marketing expenses, and improve conversions.

Of course many small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs still desire a local physical presence. It’s part of their dream. There is nothing wrong with that, and it can still work providing it is combined with online marketing and branding.

So how can you achieve that cross over, or digitize your current advertising efforts?

Many small business owners, as well as established brands are reporting QR codes, Pinterest, and Facebook’s promoted posts are all performing well.

However, none of this means neglecting the telephone either. Combine the two. Instead of driving prospects to your call center agents from direct mail or billboards use extensions with Google Adwords for click-to-call to generate hot inbound leads affordably and predictably.

Or use domain extensions and include your toll free number in your domain name to build confidence, trust and improve click volume for maximizing marketing ROI.