Small businesses are the backbone of any economy but running a small business can be a difficult task. As a small business owner, you must wear multiple hats and manage various aspects of the business, such as strategy development, managing the inventory and website, customer service and sales at the same time. You need to juggle the countless number of tasks to stay ahead of the competition.

In the initial stages, small businesses often focus on getting the first clients or customers and usually rely on traditional forms of advertising like print ads, brochures and outdoor marketing. 

While a traditional marketing strategy may be beneficial gradually, there is an easier way to grow the business consistently. Small businesses should ideally focus on tapping the diverse online marketplace and reap the benefits of digital marketing for small businesses in combination with traditional advertising to achieve holistic growth.    

More than 70% of people look to search the brand online before deciding to visit the store and around 40% of them are more likely to visit after realizing the brand’s strong digital presence.  

Every small business, no matter what industry they belong to and how well-established they are, should look at digital marketing channels as a way to increase brand awareness, generate leads and convert them into customers.   

Getting Started With Digital Marketing

The total number of potential customers you will find on online platforms is much larger than you will attract locally. By implementing the right digital marketing strategies, you can reach your target audience at a larger scale in a cost-effective and measurable way.   

Key Benefits Of Digital Marketing

• Reach your target audience and know what exactly they are looking for, to better understand your customers.
• Reach out to people irrespective of the timezone and location as there is no geographical restriction with digital marketing
• Be at the right place at the right time with personalized digital marketing campaigns
• Engage with your customers at every stage of the purchasing process
• Reach more people at less cost
• Know your audience and implement changes to refine your strategy
• Track and gain valuable insights to optimize your campaigns
• Enhance customer service by using relevant social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook

Why Digital Marketing Is Important for Small Businesses

With limitless opportunities, the world of digital marketing may seem overwhelming especially if you are new to it. There is a wide range of digital platforms and all have different dynamics which may make it look like a more complex project than it is in reality.   

Let’s have a closer look at the simple yet effective digital marketing strategies that you can choose to implement to build and enhance your brand’s online presence.

In-depth Competitor Research

To make a business successful in any industry, the key lies in monitoring what your competition is doing, learning from them and identifying any gaps that you can use better. In today’s digital world, it is easier than before to know about various activities of your competition and know what is working and what is not. 

Conduct an in-depth competitor research and do your research based on the following points:

• Type of content your competitor brands use, i.e. blogs, landing pages, user-generated content, videos, or an integrated approach. 
• How do they present themselves as a brand and what aspects make them unique in the market?
• How do they engage with their target audience and existing customers?
• What platforms are they most active in?
• Do they have collaborated with any influencers or have a brand ambassador?

There are many great tools available that you can adopt in your research as it will help you save time

• Semrush- Ideal for keyword research, competitor analysis and analytics
• Moz- Gain valuable insights about your website through in-depth SEO audits
• Ahrefs- Beneficial for backlink analysis, audits, and content research

You can find many tools to ease the process of digital marketing and these are some of the industry-standard tools. Use these tools to gain valuable data and insights to make well-informed decisions. 

SEO To Gain Visibility

While looking for any product or service, most people prefer to search for it on Google. If your competitor brands are easier to find than yours, you might end up losing on your potential customers.   

Along with developing a well-optimized website, it is crucial to have a solid understanding of SEO fundamentals to beat your competition. 

Keywords are the building blocks of a strong SEO strategy so ensure that you identify the most relevant and high-performing keywords for your business. Choose the keywords that have good search volume and avoid low-performing keywords and create content to bridge the gap between your brand and target audience.   

Here, Local SEO plays a vital role for small businesses. With digital marketing, you can engage with people all over the world, while Local SEO strategies will make your brand visible on Google search results based on the particular locations. It becomes necessary to optimize your Google Business Profile which is a great way to show your business information to local searches. 

Other than this, focus on common questions your customers have for which they want quick answers, you can add FAQs or simply write a blog to target long-tail keywords. For instance, if you run a restaurant and specialize in Chinese cuisine, you can publish an article covering the must-try Chinese dishes, including important information like where you can enjoy those dishes, i.e. your restaurant. 

Being Proactive on Social Media

Social media is one of the most popular digital marketing platforms for businesses of all sizes. With more than 5 billion people using different social media channels, it’s a great place to market your brand and engage with your potential customers.   

The biggest challenge in social media marketing is choosing the most suitable platform for your business as there are many channels to choose from and each platform has a different audience and content types.  

The ultimate secret to becoming successful in the world of social media is to choose the right platform/s to focus on. To make the right choice, you need to understand the dynamics of all platforms, which channel is popular among which age group and the type of content popular on all mediums. For this, you need to have an in-depth understanding of your target audience, age group, demographics, etc and then choose a social media platform that best allows you to connect with your potential customers. 

Keep in mind that social media is not just about continuously publishing content and promoting your brand. You should also focus on sharing informative yet engaging content that people will find useful.

The best way is to promote user-generated content as it will help you to share reviews and endorsements. Don’t forget to engage with your customers and resolve their concerns, it will reflect your commitment and credibility of your brand.   

Targeting Existing Customers

It may not seem a very big thing but it’s a great idea to have an email marketing list as it is important not to forget your existing customers in the process of attracting more. Just keep in mind that you have to be aware of laws and legislation related to data protection to ensure that you protect the data of your customers.

Before the email database becomes difficult to manage, it’s good to keep a structure and properly organize it. It will help you to target your customers with personalized and relevant content. It can be based on:

• Age-group
• Download or Purchase
• Gender
• Demographics
• History of Purchase
• Interests

It is also crucial to look for ways to gradually grow the list. The bigger your email list is, the more opportunities you have to increase your audience and conversions. 

Collaborating With Influencers

Influencer marketing is another popular way to spread the word about your brand and connect the brand with potential customers. You can collaborate with the right influencers that align with the products and services that you are offering.      

In today’s modern marketing world, influencer marketing strategy has emerged as one of the most effective strategies allowing you to achieve the desired results quickly and efficiently. The ultimate key to successful influencer marketing is choosing the right one. Particularly for small businesses, a follower count may not be an important factor to consider, the more important thing is to choose someone that perfectly aligns with your brand values.  

5 Benefits Of Digital Marketing For Small Businesses

Cost-Effective

First of all, the most sensitive aspect for any small business is budget. Unlike expensive traditional forms of marketing like print ads, TV ads and billboards, by implementing the right digital marketing strategies, you can reach your target audience at a large scale even with a limited budget. Various digital channels such as social media marketing, and SEO are great alternatives to building your brand efficiently without having the luxury of a high budget.  

Even paid digital marketing methods like Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads and Google Ads, are highly cost-effective comparatively, allowing you to refine your digital marketing campaigns in real-time based on their performance.

Measurable Results

By choosing digital marketing, you can measure the performance of your campaigns accurately. Each digital marketing tool has built-in analytics and with tools like Google Analytics, you can dig deeper into analytics. Among the major benefits of digital marketing for small businesses is that you can easily track your campaign to know what’s working or what aspects need your immediate attention. 

You can efficiently track your digital marketing campaigns based on key parameters like click-through rate, conversions and total return on investment. With these metrics, you will have a clear overview of your campaign’s performance allowing you to make data-driven decisions to grow your business.

Increase Visibility

A crucial aspect of enhancing the credibility of your brand is to invest in a strong online presence. For this, SEO is your secret weapon to climb to the top rankings in search engine result pages. The higher position you have, the more organic traffic you will drive to your website as it makes it easier for your target audience to find your brand while searching for the relevant products or services. 

Various social media platforms like Instagram, Linkedin and Facebook will also enhance your visibility. A holistic presence on social media is your gateway to engage with your existing customers and gradually increase your customer base. The more visible you are, the more people are likely to discover your brand.  

Customer Engagement

While looking at the benefits of digital marketing for small businesses, the most powerful aspect is customer engagement. Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing is not about having one-way communication. Digital platforms are the most powerful tools to build a connection with your audience as you don’t have to wait for a long time to get feedback from the customers. 

Social media platforms allow you to engage directly with people and quickly resolve their concerns. Two-way communication not only helps you build stronger relationships but also provides many valuable insights. By focusing on the feedback of your customers, you can further enhance your products or services. 

High ROI

Unlike the traditional marketing approach, digital marketing makes hyper-targeting easy and saves you money which is among the most important benefits of digital marketing for small businesses. 

Moreover, it’s also cost-effective with various options like SEO and social media. You can easily track and monitor the results and implement the required changes in your strategy to get the best return on your investment. 

Transforming The Marketing Approach!

Looking to create a website to generate leads or set up a social media marketing campaign to achieve the desired results? The first step is to understand the fundamental principles of digital marketing and how they impact your business. In a nutshell, digital marketing helps you connect with potential customers, increase your audience base with a limited budget, track what’s working, implement the changes to outperform your competition and flourish in an ever-competitive digital world.