No matter the size of your business, a digital marketing strategy is essential for growing your business. Even small, local companies should invest in digital marketing to achieve their goals for success and maximize sales.
Your marketing goals should always tie back to the fundamental goals of your business, and it’s important to evaluate your existing digital marketing channels and assets. You have owned media, which are digital assets your company owns — such as your website, social media profiles, emails and blogs — and has complete control over.
Business also has earned media (which is mostly PR work and press mentions) and paid media (which includes advertising, paid social media posts and other mediums where you pay in exchange for visibility). But let’s start with owned media, which is often called content marketing.
Most small companies start digital marketing in one of three ways: they build a website, create a social media profile or start sending out emails. All three are fairly simple to begin (although most businesses chose to pay a third party to build a good, highly-functioning, unique website), and often, things like social media are adopted with no actual strategy in mind.
Assuming your company already has two or even all three of these tools in place, it’s time to think about how you can use these channels to actually build your business. Everyone is trying to sell something, but those who best understand and educate their customers, and execute the best campaigns by delivering the best content, are more likely to get higher sales.
Improve Your Website
Your website should serve as a repository of educational content and materials, as well as promote your company and your products or service. Look at others in your industry (aka your competitors) to make sure your website includes all the right things, and maybe look at other industry website to see if there are interesting ideas and categories you can borrow. A blog is a great way to promote your brand and create a lot of great content in a more personal, interesting way.
Use your web content to tell the story of your business and showcase your products. Share what makes your company unique. Show off everything important to your brand. And be an easy-to-navigate portal for your customers, especially if your website is also an eCommerce site where you sell your products/services. Also, don’t neglect search engine optimization and local search marketing. You want to make sure people can find your website and online information easily.
Amp Up Your Social Media Marketing
Marketing on social media can be tricky, as it is tricky to integrate some platforms with your business. Ultimately, you want to use social media to strengthen your customer base and achieve repeat sales. For some companies, like restaurants or retail stores, this means letting customers know about your sales, specials, menus, new merchandise, and events. Some companies use social media for sharing news, while others are merely humorous. And for B2B companies, social media takes a bit more thought, but it can become an essential part of your strategy.
Maintain Steady Connections with Email Marketing
Print newsletters may have (mostly) faded away, but email newsletters — and a regular cadence of email marketing — is vital and growing. Once you have a list of customers and prospects, regular emails can be crucial for a small business to offer updates, provide education, give advice, share promotions, and perhaps even recap what happened on social media, the blog, and/or the website.
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