Here is a popular belief, “if it's working, don’t touch it.” Unfortunately, a lot of small businesses believe they are doing just fine by relying on traditional outbound marketing strategies. However, most of these businesses are simply surviving as opposed to growing. If your small business seeks to succeed and more importantly GROW in today’s digital world, you need to invest in setting the right marketing strategy to strengthen your online presence. Your company’s digital presence and online marketing plan could be the tipping point for your business’ success.
A strong digital presence provides information with respect to who, what, and why of your business, and also creates a favourable first impression, builds visibility, and establishes you as an authority within your industry (who doesn’t want that?). Having a website is a given, but what else can small businesses do to build and capitalise on the growing digital medium?
Here are some easy to do small business marketing strategies you can implement to uplift your online marketing efforts.
1. Set Smart Goals - Know What You Seek
You can’t build a strong digital presence just because it is the “next thing to do” on your checklist. Digital marketing works when it is driven by smart goals. Ask yourself, “Why do I want a strong digital presence?” “What outcomes am I seeking?” "Do I need more brand awareness or more leads?", etc. And set specific content marketing goals accordingly. The inbound marketing strategy and KPIs will be slightly different depending on your goals, so always know what you seek!
2. Produce High-Quality Content, Consistently
Consumers prefer to engage with relevant and high-quality content. A powerful inbound marketing tool is to build a library of diverse content that is tailored to your customer profile. Dig into your customers’ wants and pain points. Your content marketing campaign, when planned and executed well, is a way of forming engaging and long-lasting relationships with customers. Helpful and resourceful content aid in moving customers down the sales funnel.
Insider Tip-Prioritise video and visual content as often as possible because they are popular across all demographics and age groups.
3. Make Social Media & Email Marketing Work Together
Social media marketing and email marketing are both important types of inbound marketing channels that deliver solid returns when leveraged well. Capitalise on the bottom of the funnel activities, drive increased traffic to the website, up-sell better, and deliver personalised messaging by making email marketing and social media work together. Use one channel to build the other and cross-promote.
Insider Tip: Include all your social media links in your email campaigns. Build your email subscribers the same way you build followers.
4. Be Active Beyond the Website
How do you feel when you Google a new business that you recently encountered during a fair or farmer’s market and find zilch or outdated website? Doubt creeps in and you end up opting for something that comes from a brand that has a stronger, more active online presence. That's what usually happens. Without a strong web presence, there is no or limited opportunity to convert a customer.
According to Emarsys 2019 report, there are 3.2 billion social media users - that equates to 42% of the population (wow)!
It is simply not enough to be present online via a website; digital marketing has to expand beyond that. Be active on your social media accounts, because nobody wants to engage with a business that has not been active since 2016! Inactive social media presence just signals that the business is non-existent (yikes).
However, there is a fine balance between going overboard with social media, so be sure to pick platforms that align with your overall marketing strategy. Once you have established social media platforms, ensure that you post relevant information there consistently. It doesn’t always have to be product-specific, feel free to share some industry tips, customer stories, or “meet the team” posts.
Insider tip – Use Hootsuite to manage (and schedule future posts for) upto 3 social profiles in one place.
5. Optimise for SEO and Local Search
Do you know that 89% of mobile users search for a local business at least once a week?
Want to order in for something as you watch the big cricket game? Thanks to Google’s AI, our search bar is automatically populated with “restaurants near me.” Today’s customers seek anything and everything that is nearby and immediate. So, how do you optimise your small business for local search? To begin with, get yourself into the online directories like Yelp, Google Business, JustDial, and YellowPages. Psst...doing this will also create backlinks for your website, and isn’t that a double win?!
The size of a business does not matter when it comes to investing in search engine optimisation (SEO). A small investment in SEO regularly definitely goes a long way. Highlighting keywords across all content (especially in the headings) and geotagging videos will help search algorithms tie your business to customer needs.
Insider Tip - Venture into SEO by reading through Google's Guide to SEO
6. Network & Establish Yourself as an Expert
“68% of adults in the U.S. say that trust in a brand has “a great deal” or “a lot” of influence on their decision when making a big purchase.”
The digital era has fundamentally changed how trust is formed between customers and businesses. It harder to build trust via digital marketing, but it is possible. One way to establish trust is by networking and making yourself an expert. You have already created high-quality content, then why not use it as a medium to network and form new connections? Build relationships and trust by linking your blogs, white papers, e-books on LinkedIn Groups and industry-specific forums, and partner with influencers. Answer questions on Quora and participate in group discussions with the purpose of adding value and credibility.
7. Improve with Analytics
How do you know if something is working? You get back to data, right? No marketing strategy or plan is effective if it is not supported by metrics. Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, keyword reports, Twitter analytics, etc are all relatively simple to use and can easily be implemented in a small business set-up. Marketing automation software come with their own set of comprehensive metrics for online and email marketing such as email open rates, subject line analysis, and CTRs. Studying the metrics will help you identify where your efforts are paying off and capitalise on big win opportunities in the digital space.
A well-thought-out online marketing strategy can help you acquire a dominant digital presence to fuel your business growth. Use our tips to design a digital marketing plan that delivers visibility, customers, and positive ROI.
Are you ready to strengthen your digital presence? Transfunnel Consulting is the leading HubSpot Diamond partner agency that can help you create the perfect online marketing strategy for your small business.
