Introduction

The 21st century, the age of technological revolution, the internet, and the “digital era”. Merely, 25 years ago the internet was, made publicly available in India. Since, then the number of users availing the many benefits of the internet have been consistently increasing, standing at 68.76 crores or about 52% of the entire population and still growing. With, the internet came many different technological advancements such as ever-powerful desktop PCs that made the task of computation faster and better at your home while giving you the ability to access the internet seamlessly. Laptops that made this power portable and easy to access. Finally came smartphones, which put the raw power of the internet right into your palms.

Today, the internet is an integral part of our daily lives. From buying clothes, food, and other essentials, to booking an aeroplane ticket to another country everything can be, done online. Just a decade ago, online payments were, not even considered as an option by shopkeepers’ right around the corner of your house. Today, everything from buying a candy worth 1 rupee to paying bills worth thousands can be, done online with just a few taps.

The digital revolution has simply taken the world by a storm. Therefore, it is just logical to consider taking your business online to considering the amount of exposure to potential customers and markets previously untapped. Digital marketing might be the most used buzzword around today but you as a business owner would want to know how it could benefit you as a producer or a distributor. Hence, our fellow readers today we are going to learn about why going digital is important? Moreover, how you can get started with it.

The importance of digital media

As newer and powerful technologies are introduced every now and then, starting a business and selling your products and services is getting easier and flexible. Following are some reasons as to why going digital is important?

It simply saves your time and resources

If it were the early 2000’s and you were just setting up your business, you would have to spend a lot of time and resources just to get started. You probably would have to rent out a shop from where you could sell your products or provide any kind of services. In order to market you would have needed to spend a lot of money on ad agencies, pamphlets, fliers, etc. and even after going through all of that your customer base would have hardly increased and profits would not be as much.

However, thanks to the technological revolution, today all of these processes have become so much easier. In 2020, if you want to set up your business all you need is an idea, a laptop, an internet connection, a lot of dedication, and an effective business strategy. If you do not have enough money to set up a production plant, no worries, a quick search on Google and you would have a list of hundreds of production companies which can do the job for you. With the power of social media, you now the opportunity to target a wider audience which was previously not possible.

From designing your product to producing and then marketing every single aspect can be, automated by digital means and all of that can be, done from the comfort of your own room without spending a single dime on any additional resources that you do not need while saving your time and efforts too.

The importance of having an online presence

No matter what product you are selling or service you are providing, it is completely possible without a doubt that the customers will search for it on the internet first. Therefore, it is very important to have an online presence or else you might be losing a potential customer base.
It is also very important to note that just having a website might be beneficial but in order to keep the user in engagement with the company, it is very important to make the website as responsive as possible. Most of the users visiting the website will be using their smartphones, so make sure that your company website is mobile-friendly first. It is also a good practice to provide as much assistance to the user via the website such that most of the queries they might have would be, solved just by browsing through the different pages.

Another important criterion to keep in mind is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.

Anytime the user searches for something on the internet, the search engine, to provide relevant results uses some very specific keywords from the user query. These keywords are, matched with the content on the webpages, the search engine then ranks the different websites containing these terms along with several other factors in terms of relevancy.

Therefore, if you want your website to be in the top results, then it is important that your website contain descriptive content that has titles, keywords, relevant images that can help the customers easily locate the product or service they are searching for on the internet.

In addition, you should also consider adding E-Commerce facilities that would let your customers have the flexibility of buying the product or service directly from your website instead of having to visit any retail store. You should also make sure that you are providing security to your users when doing any kind of online transactions too.

In short, having a website is equivalent to having a retail store, but with the additional benefits that your products and services can now go online and presented to a larger amount of people, while you can tend to every one of their needs without any discrepancies easily and quickly.

Pure flexibility to the customer

One of the most important factors to consider forgoing digital is customer flexibility. Many times, we would have experienced going to a store to buy something and not getting what we want just because the store was too crowded. With the help of digital means, this problem is almost non-existent. Each user can log on to the website, search for their preferred products and just place an order. All of which can be done without any crowd, or hassle. Customers may get what they want, whenever they want, wherever they want.

Apart from that, customization can be also be provided as an option to everyone. A consumer always has a wish to own a product that is unique to their tastes and style. Providing customizations in products is not feasible in traditional business methods. However, a business that has an online presence can provide any amount of customization to any amount of customers.

In addition, providing E-Commerce facilities makes the buying and selling processes very flexible too. The customer can choose from an array of options for completing payments online and they can choose when they want their product to be, delivered too.

Without a doubt, online websites are completely customer-centric and they provide a huge amount of flexibility to them irrespective of the time and location along with various other factors that can be almost impossible to resolve in traditional business techniques.

Innovation and competition

Innovation is an extremely important quality to have when it comes to staying in the competition. The world around us is constantly changing, with new products launching every other day. To make sure that the products that your company sells, stay relevant even after years it is important to be innovative.

To go digital does not only mean to have an online presence it also means to be able to adapt to newer and better technologies. Identifying and following trends. Incorporating buzzword technologies such as Machine Learning, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence into the products. It is very important to stay up-to-date in a competitive world.

In this changing world, it is important to be agile. The quicker you are able to adapt to changes, the more profits your business can yield. No matter if, your business is at a small scale or if you are at the top, innovation and agility are the only ways through which your business can survive in the current and future digital environments.

Digitalization at the workplace

As your business will start to grow, it will become evident that apart from just taking your business to the digital level, it is also important to have digitization at your workplace too. As much as your customers are necessary for the business to thrive, the employees working for the business are important too.

It is important to consider the fact that about 60% of working professionals do not feel that they can equip to the sudden change in their everyday working habits. Hence, it is essential to develop a working environment that provides an immersive experience for all the employees and helps them adapt to the digital environment.

Constantly providing opportunities to your workforce, helping them to, easily transform into the digital revolution, and developing new skills to add to their skillset can be very beneficial. It is always important to remember that a business can not be, built just by earning profits; in fact, the real assets to the company are its customers and employees. A strong, skilled and digitized workforce can always bring the company back up even in dire times.

Networking

One of the many great benefits that going digital can bring you is the power of Networking. Networking does not mean social media interactions, in this context the term networking is, related to the entire architecture of your business too. Surely, social networking can be beneficial for the business as discussed earlier. However, it is not the only possibility. Networking can also bring your workforce together helping the employees from different areas of work and geolocations come together to work in a collective effort for the benefits of the company.

Networking can help you automate many different business processes, including production operations. Digitization in the areas of many difficult and time-consuming processes can surely decrease the stress on you as a business owner and help you focus on the more important business-related processes that need a more human touch than a digital one.

Conclusion

Now, summarizing the entire article we can conclude that if you are not online it is as if you do not exist. To thrive in today’s rapidly evolving environment, going digital is the only way to survive and keep yourself and your business in the competition. The future is in becoming, digitally transformed and no one is an exception. To ignore the pressing need to implement digitization in your lifestyle and business is simply naïve.
However, to go digital does not only mean to implement the newest technologies without proper planning. As much as it is important to adapt to the ever-changing technologies and using them innovatively it is also extremely important to do it with a proper strategy. This is where we at Kolkata School Of Digital Marketing can help you.

We are an advanced digital marketing training institute situated in Kolkata. We aim at developing proficient digital marketers for this digitally-driven era. Our Digital Marketing Course is, designed in the best way possible to suit the industry’s needs and prepare you accordingly. After 5 years of successfully satisfying our clients with all our passion, we would like to share with you what we have learned while serving our clients, through this Digital Marketing Training Institute.

Our trainees use a comprehensive and integrated approach of teaching, to help cover the 360 degrees of Digital Marketing, from SEOs, SEMs to Mobile Marketing. Apart from customizing the courses, our trainees believe in teaching the students through relevant case studies and live examples, while letting them implement it practically.

Our aim is to make you love the subject as much as we love Digital Marketing ourselves and to help you learn all the new Digital Marketing Strategies.

With these final notes, we would like to conclude with the article and hope that you have an amazing digital experience in the upcoming years.