For modern businesses to reach their monthly targets and annual goals, they relatively spend more on digital marketing than traditional forms of advertising. Digital marketing has proven to be a reliable technique for expanding any business’s outreach and its influence in the marketplace.
It is also a strategic marketing tool and can be used by any business to increase brand awareness or enhance personalization needs.
However, digital marketing is an ever-evolving sphere due to several factors such as technological advancements, consumer insights, and trends. What surely worked for businesses and brands a few decades ago can’t be the sole winner for a range of business targets more so, to stay ahead of the competition.
Today there is an array of digital marketing strategies for all sizes of businesses and brands out there. Some of these include email marketing, influencer marketing, podcasting, affiliate marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).
However, many small businesses may feel unfit or financially incapable of leveraging some of these digital marketing strategies. Many business owners believe that digital marketing, especially certain tactics like SEO is expensive.
The fact is digital marketing is cost-effective when done right and more so when the right digital marketing mix is followed. At this juncture, we would like to look at some of the best digital marketing strategies for small businesses out there.
These marketing tactics are highly affordable, and reliable, and can help push any business, whether B2B or B2C forward. These include;
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing is considered a major pillar in digital marketing. Whether it’s to increase conversions, brand awareness, or business ROI, everything is impacted by the content. In fact, every digital marketing effort is pushed by content.
Content marketing refers to the process of creating and distributing relevant content to a target audience. That mostly happens with a content strategy.
The goal of a content strategy is to tailor the content to the defined audience in order to optimize results. Here, a digital marketer can intentionally evaluate the needs, preferences, and expectations of a target audience using reflection models. It offers reliable insights.
By understanding the audience and its needs, the digital marketer then creates content to fetch the intended results. The primary content marketing forms that small businesses can best rely on include videos, blogging, and infographics.
Many digital marketers today prioritize visual content with 56% of them asserting that infographics are the most effective content format- according to HubSpot.
When it comes to content marketing, it’s essential for marketers to consider content optimization. Optimizing content with keywords, CTAs, and visuals and for voice search can increase its outreach on search engines and social platforms.
2. Local SEO
Quite often small businesses are left intimidated by the term SEO. SEO or search engine optimization is a complex digital marketing strategy that commonly attracts medium and enterprise-level businesses compared to small businesses or startups.
One of the major facts about SEO is that it is a long-term tactic. No business can invest in SEO and expect results immediately. However, when done right, SEO offers a wide range of benefits that can support your business throughout the seasons.
The different facets of SEO include on-page SEO, off-page SEO, local SEO, and technical SEO. These elements of SEO work together to improve the quality and visibility of a website on search engines. If small businesses consider an effortless and far more cost-effective form of SEO then local SEO is the answer.
Local SEO is a more targeted form of SEO that focuses on a specific geographical location and customers. With the increase in “near me” searches, small businesses can optimize their websites and Google My Business page (Google My Business Listing) to appear in local searches.
In this way, they can fetch more leads, increase conversion rate, and boost sales. Investing in local SEO is one of the best approaches for small businesses to grow their customer base. Focusing on building a brand locally and then region and nationwide can save small businesses from a range of poor marketing tactics.
3. Social Media Marketing
If there is a marketing trend that no business can’t ignore today, it’s social media marketing. The latest insights indicate that 4.74 billion people are on social media globally with Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram taking the top spot.
Social media is an integral part of modern living and it’s influencing business operations as well. Precisely, in a world where business owners want to stay in touch with their customers, how can they ignore social media?
Today people (customers) use social media for a range of reasons. Besides communication and entertainment purposes, people believe that any reputable brand or business must have an online presence. One of the most immediate pathways to an online presence is social media.
Social platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok are a go-to for small businesses that want to connect with their audiences and gain a competitive advantage. Social media marketing falls under the category of mobile marketing and is quite easy to conduct.
All that a business owner needs to do is create content whether video, infographics, or short-form content, and post it on social media. However, it’s essential to prioritize social platforms where there is a huge following. Besides that, on platforms that meet business needs like connecting, selling, and brand reinforcement.
4. Personalization
Personalization is a trend that many digital marketers and businesses swear by. As a small business, you may wonder how to start personalizing customer interactions without top-notch technologies, but there is surely a starting point.
Personalization in the marketing realm refers to the process of tailoring experiences to a specific audience or customer. Businesses can personalize a range of things to offer a superior experience to customers. That can stream from emails, SMS, and product or service recommendation.
Findings show that many marketers globally assert that personalization can improve customer relationships yet over 63% of customers expect tailored engagements based on previous interactions.
Personalized marketing generally requires a business owner to understand the buyer’s journey. You can’t personalize customer engagements without understanding their preferences and associated facets like shopping history and product affordability range.
If you’re a small business, you can start by personalizing customer emails or messages. That generally works when you request customer details like names, phone numbers, or email addresses.
Stay afloat with customer data and engagements to attain insights that can help you create awesome and personalized experiences.
5. Video Marketing
One of the best marketing techniques that is both captivating and effective is video marketing. The trend of video marketing isn’t expected to fade away any time soon because over 87% of video marketers believe that it can increase traffic to a website- according to Wyzowl.
The efficacy of video marketing streams from the fact that videos are entertaining and appealing. Both high-quality and short-form videos are engaging and can help a marketer convey any message.
There are many platforms today that support video content creation and distribution such as Instagram, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn among others. When professionally crafted, videos can impact many marketing KPIs that obviously indicate the performance of your marketing strategy.
Set aside time to understand the type of videos that perfectly represent your brand and those that may appeal to your target audience. You can explore with social media videos, reels, live videos, video ads, or sponsored videos. For a small business or startup, all you need is a quality camera to start.
How to Adopt a Suitable Digital Marketing Strategy
Whether you’re a startup or a small business, there are many digital marketing strategies you can consider. Whether you choose to leverage a single digital marketing strategy or a mix, you can attain the intended results effectively.
However, there are several key elements that must be considered when adopting a reliable digital marketing strategy, and some of these include;
Your Target Audience: Understand what your target audience is and take ample time to identify their needs. This helps to reduce marketing costs and time. You will also be best positioned to adopt the best digital marketing strategies.
Your Target Audience
Understand what your target audience is and take ample time to identify their needs. This helps to reduce marketing costs and time. You will also be best positioned to adopt the best digital marketing strategies.
Set Smart Goals
The term SMART is an acronym for “Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. Any digital marketing goal you set must have these traits. From that, you will have to formulate a marketing strategy.
Select the Right Channels
From websites, and social media platforms, to SEO, there is a plethora of digital marketing strategies available for all businesses and brands. However, keep in mind the marketing trends that can help you stay ahead of the competition.
Allocate Budgets
Surely, there is going to be a digital marketing trend that will prove more reliable than the others. That means that you must assign a bigger budget to it while improving your efforts on other marketing strategies. Ensure to leverage a marketing budget tracker and also review your marketing goals to avoid surprises.
Implement Changes
Review your marketing strategy or mix from time to time and implement the necessary changes. Reviewing your marketing plan will help you achieve targets seamlessly and eliminate money-draining marketing plans that are even incompetent.
Bottom Line
Apart from the ones detailed here, there are many other digital marketing strategies that modern businesses can leverage to attain their pre-set goals. These strategies can further include PPC (Pay-Per-Click), email marketing, influencer marketing, marketing automation, and affiliate marketing.
As a small business, it’s recommended to avoid paid advertising or marketing plans i.e paid search or social media because these can over-stretch your marketing budget. Also, choose to leverage platforms like Hubspot and Netcore Cloud because they are feature-rich and can effectively be utilized to grow a business.
Also, try to keep yourself updated with the best digital marketing practices to help you grow your business without incurring too much; whether in terms of money or time.
