Digital Marketing For Small Business – The Ultimate Guide

As an owner of a small business, you must be loaded with responsibilities in each area – be it sales, accounting or operations. This leaves you with very little time to focus on marketing activities. Considering less time, you need to choose a marketing channel which has a high impact. The digital space is the talk of the town as it allows even a small business to compete with big companies.

So, today I am going to share with you the secrets of digital marketing and you will get an exact idea for why it is the best way to grow your small business.

The digital world is in a full swing and to mark your presence and earn a reputation online would be exhilarating. Obviously, the initial steps would make you quite skeptical, but don’t you want to grab the revolutionary opportunity?

If yes, then let’s get down to business:

What is digital marketing?

I’m sure that you might be doing some sort of marketing activities to promote your business. When all your marketing efforts are executed through electronic devices and the internet, then it is known as digital marketing. You can say that digital marketing is any form of marketing that involves electronic devices.

The businesses leverage social media, digital platforms, search engines, and websites to connect with their existing and potential customers. There are largely 7 methods for digital marketing:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Content Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing

Now, here’s the interesting part:

• Over 51percent of the smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while conducting a search on their smartphones. (Google, 2018) This gives you an idea of how effective is mobile marketing.
• Local searches lead 50percent of the mobile users to visit the stores within one day. (Google, 2018). This is how small and local businesses boost their sales with the support of digital marketing.
• As of June 2018, Facebook had47 billion daily active users and 2.23 billion monthly active users. (Facebook, 2018).
• Instagram makes up 2 percent of Facebook’s mobile ad revenue. (source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/instagram-1-billion-users). It is the fastest growing social network.
• Video content is 50times more likely to drive organic search results than plain text. (source: https://www.omnicoreagency.com/youtube-statistics).
• Search engines bring around 93% of all website traffic. (source: https://www.maxeffectmarketing.com/why-digital-marketing-for-small-business)

Aren’t the above-mentioned facts bragging the power of digital marketing?

Digital Marketing gives some of the most amazing opportunities. Being a small business owner, it is important for you to understand that with digital marketing, you can compete with big companies. Digital marketing gives a uniform platform to every type of business. Hence, digital marketing is extremely important for the new age entrepreneurs because of 6 simple reasons:-

1. Give a great exposure to your brand– Digital marketing provides the same opportunities for small, large and medium-scaled businesses. You get an opportunity to compete with the large-scale and global companies whilst you also improve your brand awareness by building a global audience.

So, here’s the secret – The key to amplify your reach is that you create interesting and engaging content. A compelling content will differentiate you from your competitors.

2. Plan direct goals – Being a small business, you have to manage the business operations and other business activities by yourself. Hence, digital marketing saves your time by helping to plan clear goals and to provide enough resources to reach your customers.
3. Optmimize cost-effective strategy– Digital marketing is the most cost-effective channel for marketing. Here’s what is important – the results of digital marketing channels are measurable so you can study the performance and pull your expenses from low-performing areas.
4. Achieve high ROI– Digital marketing is inexpensive. You get more returns on investing relatively less amount. Further, ROI is not all about the monetary returns. The more the reach of your brand on digital media, more is the brand exposure and the more leads are generated. With a clear digital marketing strategy, you will be able to measure your ROI and devise digital techniques like Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click management.
5. Increase customer engagement – When 80 percent of people are using the internet through smartphones, mobile marketing allows you to reach maximum users.
6. Deliver personalized attention – The awesome thing with digital marketing is that you can segment the customer database and target accordingly. You can track customer behavior and give a personalized touch to their demands.

A big question that now may come to your mind would be how do I, being a small business owner, make use of digital marketing for my business.

Let me lift the veil for you.

Say, you have an event promotion company and you want to double your client base. How will you proceed?

The key to successful digital marketing is how you strategize it.

So, here are top digital marketing techniques that will help you in growing your small business through digital marketing:-

• Live video streaming – Live streaming works great for event promotion companies and fields where interaction is involved. If you are not using a live streaming option, make it a priority now. Get your hands on features such as Facebook lives, Instagram lives and live tweets on Twitter. It is the most direct way to interact with your audience. Your audience will love it and will feel the connection with your brand.
• Consumer personalization – In marketing, it is all about how you connect with your customers. Increase your customer engagement by asking them to create their profile on your website or to download the company’s mobile application. The trick is – once you have their profiles, you can establish a pattern in their preferences and personalize their experience by studying their previous purchases.
• Effective content marketing – Creating interesting content is what will make you stand out. Moreover, before you publish your content, make sure you have a clearly defined audience. Create a content calendar for clarity and consistency.
• Email Marketing – Email marketing is the oldest and most effective way to reach your targeted audience. You can share new deals and offers with your existing customers and keep them updated through emails. Keep your emails short and engaging. Never forget to include a Call-to-Action (CTA) in your emails in order to hook your clients.

And, that’s not all:-

Here’s what will happen next!

• Increased brand awareness – When your brand is online, people actually see your brand. Measuring customer attributions also becomes easy online. By being consistent in digital marketing, you will earn more brand awareness and brand reputation.

• High revenue – Every company aims profit generation. A successfully implemented digital marketing gives higher conversion rates and higher revenue. Moreover, digital marketing is cost-effective. It does not involve a huge cost to burden your marketing budget. Hence, you are able to get new customers and save a lot of money at the same time.
• Right audience – Besides connecting you with your customers online, digital marketing ensures that the right person is viewing your content. By implementing techniques like social media marketing, you can target the audience that is most likely to purchase your product or service.
• Real-time customer service – You might be aware that real-time customer service has a big impact on your business. Digital marketing follows a real-time mechanism. Your business can solve customer queries and issues on a real-time basis, which results in better leads and better conversion rates.
• Customer trust – Digital marketing gives you a space for direct interaction with customers. When your customers keep receiving the desired service from you, they develop a trust in your brand which is the most important factor for a business to sustain in the market

Conclusion

Digital Marketing is incredibly effective and a lot of companies are using it. Plus, there are many free digital tools that can help you to collaborate globally and give you an edge over your competitors. Utilize them and see your business growing!