At one point online marketing was just a new and different way to market. It opened up a new form of media on which to peddle goods and services. It’s become an integral part of what a business is to its customers. It’s no longer enough to have a website or run some un-focused AdWords campaign.

As the Internet becomes entwined with everything we do, the importance of digital marketing is becoming crystal clear.

In 2018, the average Internet user has at least 7 social media accounts. 97% of US adults under 65 are on social media at least once a month. The vast majority are on it every day. Social media is strongly preferred as a means of customer care. 30% of people on social media mention a specific brand when referring to milestones in their lives. Gen X is slightly more likely to interact with a brand on social media than millennials.

The trend right now is the average person spends over 2 hours a day on social media. Teenagers average 9 hours. Social media is integrated into everything they do from school, to work, to entertainment, to hanging out with friends.

One of the top 10 reasons people say they’re on social media is to buy products advertised to them. They spend around 37% of their social media time interacting with branded content. 57% of Millennials say that social media has made the ads they see more relevant to them. 48% of people say they made their last online purchase as the direct result of a Facebook ad.

Social media marketing and advertising are only a piece of digital marketing. But it’s a very important one. You’ve seen it happen before. A huge company like Walmart comes to town and wipes out 100’s of local specialty shops. Starbucks rolls in and mom and pop coffee and bagel shops close down.

That’s where the importance of digital marketing shines as a beacon of hope for small businesses. It’s the same for brick & mortar, ecommerce, and personal brands alike. Digital marketing actually allows smaller businesses the ability to hold a top ranking position, like a client we helped outrank Amazon and Lowe’s using our AdWords services.

Digital marketing allows small businesses to compete with a much smaller advertising budget. When managed effectively, it gives them laser-focused control over where and how they spend their money.

One of the gifts that digital marketing has given us is the ability to dissect huge demographics. Whittle them down into very targeted groups to get super-focused on a specific kind of person. When you do targeting at this level, you create an ad that’s highly relevant to your target market. Because it’s so relevant, it connects on a level that more general advertising can’t. This connection gives it the ability to influence decisions.

So, what kind of targeting is possible with digital marketing? You’ll probably be surprised.

Social media advertising similarly allows you to narrow your target audience Use the data they’ve collected about their users. Tell Facebook, for example, to only show your ad to people with a very specific recent behavior, interest, location or other identifier.

As with any marketing, there’s initial investment required to get traffic flowing. But the importance of digital marketing to small businesses becomes very clear when you see how easy it is to scale and adapt as your business grows. For example, with social media campaigns, display ads and search ads you can choose a daily budget. You know exactly how much that campaign will cost you.

Now you begin to see amazing results. You don’t have to go in and renegotiate an ad spot to keep the ad running. Your ad continues uninterrupted. As you continue to convert that traffic, you just increase your daily spend and revenues with it.

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing method…period. It can get a whopping 3800% return. That’s $38 in revenue for every $1 you spend. About 20% of companies are seeing an ROI of $70 to $1 spent.

Email marketing is a conversion machine. But you do need a way to build your email list with quality subscribers. Then deliver highly relevant content to a subscriber’s inbox. This is most often accomplished through a combination of social media marketing and content marketing. But these marketing methods have an impressive ROI of their own.

The importance of digital marketing is that it allows you to market to people in ways that show you respect them and value them as human beings. People are increasingly using their mobile phones as a kind of augmented reality layered over a business. They’re looking at reviews and product information while in your store.

It’s clear. Businesses in the modern economy need digital marketing to compete. Online is where the customers are. It’s where they prefer that you reach them. Online is where the modern buying process begins.

As a host, you are operating a business albeit small in some cases. However, you still want the ability to market your property in the most efficient way possible.

AirRentalz is a collaborative marketing platform for Airbnb’s, short term and holiday rentals. Our platform provides hosts the opportunity to market property for rent in unique ways. We have also established a platform for you to engage others to do the marketing for you. This service offers hosts a number of different options that include a flat fee or commission structure. Find out more here.