The Importance of Digital Marketing for Sales Optimization and Product Promotion

Digital marketing is one of the information technology advancements that can help boost business in every sector. As reported by Katadata, there are currently 204,7 million internet users in January 2022 in Indonesia, that number reaches the penetration rate of 73,7% of the total population in Indonesia. It is no wonder that digitalization is considered important for businesses where most of their target customers live in a digitalized world and are one click away from getting what they want. 

According to Harvard Business Review, digital marketing can help build brand awareness, profile customers, and simply sell online. It means that businesses in different sectors can interact with customers in a new way that allows them an insight into what their customers want. Business sees this as an opportunity to reach new customers and retain current ones. Implementing digital marketing includes using search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search advertising that offers well-established benefits for long-term business performance. 

The implementation of digital marketing, especially in sectors like the agriculture sector, where the business typically went from one business to another before finally reaching the customer can further increase the visibility and increase sales. Using digital marketing means that the customer that spends most of their days online can easily find what they need through digital channels. Not to mention, the digitalization of sales in the agriculture sector can offer insights to farmers. These insights can mean helping farmers understand what product the consumer wants along with when they want it and plan their planting accordingly. That way, there’s no mismatch between what the customer wants and the available product in the market. 

Digital marketing workshop

PT. Pupuk Kalimantan Timur (Kaltim), a state-owned business that is part of the agriculture business, realizes the importance of digital marketing for its stakeholders. In collaboration with its fostered marketplace, Borneos.co, they held a workshop titled ‘Bisnis Laris Manis Modal Eksis di Google Bisnis untuk pelaku UMK Bontan’. The workshop was held to provide Bontang midsize enterprise (MSE) players with techniques for optimizing sales and promoting digital products to increase the business potential of the creative economy sectors. 

Vice president of social and environmental responsibility of PT Pupuk Kaltim, Anggono Wijaya, states that the digital ecosystem as a means of promotion and sales is utilized so that the competitiveness of the products of fostered partners and local MSEs, will be increasingly recognized by the public. Through these efforts, Bontang MSEs were able to significantly increase their sales potential and take advantage of the digital feature to reach a wider market. 

The Borneos.co Marketplace is a form of PT. Pupuk Kaltims’ contribution to support the vision and mission of the Bontang City Government in realizing strong MSEs in the fields of economy, marketing, and human resources. The web-based application was first launched back in February 2022 as a means of buying, selling, and promoting Bontang MSEs. This marketplace is a development of the Online Bazaar program that was originally initiated to accommodate local MSEs to remain productive and earn an income during the pandemic due to the activity restriction.

“Digitalization of local products, facilitated through Borneos.co, is part of PT. Pupuk Kaltim’s commitment to growing resilient MSEs after the pandemic, by optimizing opportunities for product promotion and marketing through online media,” said Anggona as reported by Detik. 

In addition to accommodating hundreds of small businesses in Bontang to sell, Borneos.co also increases the capacity of business actors in the region by providing various coaching and assistance from digital marketing skills to promotion and finance management. Founder of Borneos.co, Kahar Mizakkir, attended the workshop as a speaker and explained that the training was aimed at increasing the knowledge of MSEs in utilizing available digital features to maximize product promotions so that they are better known to the public. This is due to the fact that there are still businesses that find it difficult to promote and sell products digitally, and they require deeper introduction and assistance. 

“Especially with the business features on the Google platform, it can be the main means so that MSEs’ products are better known. This opportunity can be maximized because the tendency of people who want to know about a product will refer to the search engine results,” said Kahar. (Demfarm/Safaanah)