How Can Digital Marketing Help Small Businesses?
Whether it’s a mom-and-pop shop or a boutique agency, every small business needs a robust online presence to thrive and grow. While traditional marketing can get a few customers through your door, digital marketing offers a more effective way to reach your target audience.
After all, 88% of customers searching for local businesses on their smartphones end up visiting them within a week. If you want to tap into this growing number of tech-savvy customers, you will need to come up with highly targeted online marketing strategies.
In this post, we will tell you how.
Let’s get started.
Benefits of Digital Marketing for Small Businesses
Before we move on to the “how,” let’s first understand the “why” behind using digital marketing for small businesses.
It’s Cost-Effective
This is arguably the biggest benefit of digital marketing for small businesses. Email marketing, one of the most popular online marketing strategies, drives an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, higher than any other channel. This makes digital marketing an ideal choice for small businesses, as they often have limited budgets.
It Boosts Online Visibility
What tips the scale in favor of digital marketing is its ability to boost your website’s online visibility quickly and effectively. It uses a host of techniques, such as local SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing, to help you reach your target audience. Engaging your potential customers online helps you drive more traffic to your website as well as your store.
It’s More Targeted
The secret behind the success of digital marketing is its ability to target specific demographics and audiences. Unlike traditional marketing, you can optimize your digital marketing channels to focus on customers who are more likely to buy your products or services. That’s one of the reasons why nearly four out of five local searches can convert into sales.
It Helps You Engage Customers
Digital marketing helps you interact with your customers through comments, messages, live chat, and reviews. According to Bright Local, 89% of consumers are ‘highly’ or ‘fairly’ likely to use a business that responds to all its online reviews. In other words, engaging with your customers can help you get more leads, maybe even sales.
X Key Components of a Robust Digital Marketing Plan
With no need for a generous budget and better engagement, digital marketing can help your small business strengthen its online roots. But this requires chalking out a plan that adapts to the evolving local market and keeps attracting more leads, which should include:
Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Local SEO is the connecting link between your website and the search engines. With a well-optimized website, your business can rank higher in local search results, making it easier for would-be customers to find your store.
At its core, local SEO includes:
Keyword optimization:
It involves researching and using relevant keywords in your content, meta tags, and descriptions to improve your search engine rankings. Google Keyword Planner is the most popular keyword research tool, but you can also use others like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz Keyword Explorer.
On-page SEO:
It refers to optimizing individual web pages to rank higher and drive more relevant traffic. On-page SEO focuses on optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and overall content quality.
Backlinks:
These links come from other high-authority websites to yours and act as a vote of confidence. They tell search engines that your website is credible, relevant, and highly useful whenever a user searches for your products or services. This helps you rank higher and drive more traffic to your website.
Google Business Profile:
It’s a free tool that helps you manage your business on Google Search and Maps. Google Business Profile is the lifeline that helps your prospects find your store. Keeping it optimized with accurate Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) details, photos, and customer reviews can improve your local search rankings.
Content Marketing
Content is at the heart of digital marketing for small businesses.
It often involves:
Blogging:
If your website has an onsite blog, adding fresh content to it can help drive more traffic. On the other hand, guest blogging can help you build credibility and establish yourself as a niche expert.
Visual Media:
Posting images, videos, and infographics on your website, social media, and local listings helps you connect with your target audience. Visual media conveys complex information in an easy-to-digest format. It is also more shareable, making it suitable to amplify your marketing message.
But when creating content, make sure it’s:
- Relevant
- Keyword optimized
- Insightful and actionable
- Fresh, high-quality, and shareable
Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms offer an excellent opportunity to reach and engage your potential customers. But you have to keep a few things in mind:
Choose the Right Platform: Focus on platforms where your customers are most active. For example, if you are a local baker, posting photos and videos on Instagram and Pinterest might help you attract more leads. On the other hand, a B2B business, like a consulting firm, can generate more leads on LinkedIn.
Create a Content Schedule: Create a schedule, or you may risk falling behind on your goals. Use tools like Buffer, Sendible, or Hootsuite to plan and automate your posts. Monitor and adjust your schedule to get the most out of your campaigns.
Engage: If you build trust, you can build a fan following on social media. But this means responding to all comments, messages and mentions promptly and with respect. Showing appreciation for your followers by reposting their content can also go a long way in building trust.
Email Marketing
Although email marketing is highly effective, running successful campaigns requires building an email list. Tools like MailChimp and Brevo can help you create your email list and automate your email campaigns. You can use email campaigns to share promotional content, discounts, newsletters, special offers, and announcements.
But when designing your campaigns, be sure to:
- Craft crisp, to-the-point, and compelling subject lines to boost open rates
- Personalize your emails to increase engagement
- Regularly clean your email list to remove inactive subscribers
- Share tips, insights, or industry news that the audience will find useful
- Keep the tone friendly and conversational
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising is a powerful tool because it allows you to reach the right people at the right time. PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising can run ads that appear to those actively searching for your product or services. That’s what makes it one of the most cost-effective online marketing strategies for small businesses.
To make the most of your PPC campaigns:
- Geo-target your ads
- Target the specific demographic
- Create highly specific, keyword-optimized adds
- Keep your CTAs front and center
4 Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
When it comes to digital marketing for small businesses, every element, be it email campaigns, social media marketing, or SEO, needs to work in sync.
This means you need to:
Set Clear Goals
First things first: you must know what you aim to achieve with your marketing plan. This will help you create highly targeted online marketing strategies, getting the best bang for every buck you spend.
Here is a list of common goals to help you get started:
Increasing Website Traffic:
Driving more visitors to your website helps you grow your online presence and create more opportunities for conversions.
Generating Leads:
Generating and nurturing qualified leads helps you build a base of loyal customers and find ways to upsell or cross-sell to your customers.
Grow Brand Awareness:
Building a strong brand presence builds trust, helping you drive more traffic from different channels.
Boosting Sales:
Ultimately, it all comes down to increasing your sales and creating a steady flow of revenue.
Know Your Audience
Knowing your potential customers helps you target them at the right time and place. When doing this, you will need to research your audience based on:
Demographics:
Segment your target audience based on age, gender, income level, education, and occupation. Creating marketing campaigns for specific, smaller sets of target audiences is more effective than shooting in the dark.
Shopping Preferences:
Find out how a particular segment prefers to shop. Do they like ordering online or in-store? What are their preferred payment methods and delivery options? Do they buy during the sale? Knowing this helps you provide customers with a better user experience and increases the chances of conversions.
Online Behavior:
See how your customers behave once they land on your website. Google Analytics can provide valuable insights in this regard. Small business owners can use its free versions to get these insights without incurring additional costs.
Start Small and Scale Up
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Besides, starting small can help you:
- Manage your budget and resources without stretching them thin
- Minimize the risk of wasting your resources
- Identify what works best for your business
- Gather valuable data and insights on your marketing plan
We recommend focusing on one or two online marketing strategies initially. This helps you learn and refine your approach before scaling up.
Measure and Adjust
You’ll be wasting your money and time if you are clueless about how your digital marketing is holding up. Monitoring your marketing campaigns helps you understand what’s working and what needs adjustments. Some metrics you need to calculate across the board include conversion rates, click-through rates, and cost per click.
There are two ways to calculate these metrics:
Google Analytics:
Small businesses can use the free version of Google Analytics to get comprehensive insights into user behavior. You can use it to see how many people have visited your website and which channel drives the most traffic. It can also help you analyze how many visitors converted into paying customers and gauge your campaign’s success.
Social Media Insights:
Almost every platform has built-in analytics that can track engagement metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and follower growth. Monitoring these insights helps you know if your campaign is working.
Digital marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. It requires continuous monitoring and adjustment. Whether you are tracking social media, email, or website traffic, keep monitoring it to ensure a steady flow of qualified leads and conversions.
Get Your Digital Marketing Going
Digital marketing offers unmatched benefits for small businesses.
It’s cost-effective and measurable, increases online visibility, and leads to better customer engagement. However, it depends on how you develop and execute different online marketing strategies. If you want to benefit from it, we recommend building personalized strategies you can adjust and scale according to your requirements.
Need help growing your online presence? Wahha Design specializes in digital marketing for small businesses. We can help you create a custom plan from scratch and scale up as your business grows. To know how we can help, contact us today!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What Is Digital Marketing and How Can It Benefit My Small Business?
Digital marketing uses SEO, social media marketing, PPC, email marketing, and content marketing to grow your online presence. It can help drive more traffic to your website and store, increase engagement, and boost conversions.
2. How Does SEO Help Small Businesses Grow Online?
SEO improves your website’s visibility in search engine results through keyword and content optimization and backlinks. It also helps potential customers find your store easily on Google Maps.
3. What Are the Most Cost-Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every business can use different strategies based on its budget, marketing goals, and target audience.
4. How Can Social Media Marketing Increase My Small Business’s Visibility?
Visibility can increase when you share relevant content and engage your target audience on social media. But you need to be consistent to build trust and brand awareness.
5. What Content Should Small Businesses Create to Engage Customers?
Content is often platform- and audience-specific. If your customers are on Instagram, videos and images are a great way to engage them. However, for B2B industry clients, onsite and guest blogging are often more effective.
6. How Can Email Marketing Drive Sales for Small Businesses?
Email is the most effective marketing channel. You can use it to send personalized messages, promotions, and updates. Regular email communication helps you build relationships, drive sales, and retain customers.
7. What Is PPC Advertising and How Can It Help My Small Business?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click advertisements. It involves paying for ads that appear at the top of search results. Google Ads currently leads the market, and it can help you drive more traffic to your website.
8. How Do I Measure My Digital Marketing Efforts?
You can use tools like Google Analytics and social media insights to track critical metrics like conversions, cost per click, and click-through rates.
9. How Should a Small Business Start to Implement Digital Marketing Strategies?
Start by setting clear goals, understanding their audience, and choosing a few key strategies to implement. As you see positive results, you can gradually scale up.
10. What Are Some Common Digital Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Should Avoid?
Not setting clear goals, spreading your sources too thin, ignoring the target audience, and failing to measure and adjust are a few common mistakes you should avoid.