1. Be present when customers are doing research
The internet has become Norwegians’ preferred tool, whether we need tips on what to wear to a party, what to buy our mother for Christmas, how the new kitchen should look, or which car to purchase. We have never done as much research before a purchase as we do now, but the difference is that most of this research takes place online. Googling has even become a verb in its own right!
On average, we Norwegians spend less time in physical stores than we used to, but we put more in the shopping basket! The reason is that now, much more than before, we know what we are going to buy even before we visit the store, precisely because we have googled in advance. For example, ten years ago Norwegians visited an average of five different car dealerships before buying a car, whereas today people visit an average of two dealerships! And we actually do more research before buying a car than we did before, but the research is done online.
Due to this constant research, one of the easiest ways to increase sales has become being visible in search engines such as Google and Bing. Remember that when 81% of all purchase decisions are driven by online research, it is crucial that your company is among the first to appear in the search results when your customers and potential customers are doing their research, so that they come to you and not to your competitor simply because the latter ranks higher in the search results!
2. Reach customers where they are!
Did you know that we Norwegians check our phones on average every 6 minutes? Or that we check the news feed on Facebook 14 times a day? Through digital marketing, you have a unique opportunity to be visible wherever your customers and potential customers are, at any time. The mobile phone is often the first thing we check when we wake up, and the last thing we check before going to bed. To use a slightly tabloid expression: as an advertiser, you have the opportunity to go to bed with, and wake up with, your existing and potential customers every single day! This is not possible with any other form of marketing. And the best part is that digital marketing is often cheaper than other forms of marketing. In other words, you can reach more people at a lower cost. This is one of the reasons why Norwegian companies are shifting more and more of their marketing budgets from traditional to digital marketing.
3. Reach your potential customer with the right message
Through digital marketing, you have a unique opportunity to tailor and segment ads for different target audiences. As a private individual, you leave behind a range of digital footprints online, and these can be used by advertisers to build a profile and categorize people into different groups. This makes it possible to show different ads to different segments, which makes advertising more cost-effective and delivers better results!
Instead of buying as many impressions as possible (for example through an ad in a print newspaper), you can focus on reaching the people who are most likely to buy. If, for instance, you know that 95% of your customers are women aged 40–60 who live outside the city center and are interested in knitting, you can specifically target ads to this group.
While traditional mass communication is often perceived as annoying and irrelevant noise, digital marketing allows you to sharpen both the message and the target audience so precisely that the ad is experienced as relevant and engaging. And it goes without saying: the more relevant and interesting the ad is perceived to be, the higher the likelihood that the people exposed to it will take the action you want them to take.
