Importance of Digital Marketing for Small Businesses
The Digital Marketing industry is drastically expanding, with approximately 3 billion people being on some kind of social media. More than 82% of people use the internet before making a purchase offline. This makes 50% of the users being inclined towards a particular brand appearing significantly more on the search engines online. Digital Marketing is a brilliant tool for targeting a wider audience online for small businesses. It allows small businesses to benefit immensely from a digital marketing strategy being utilized by them. It doesn’t have any limitations or constraints that need to be perceived. We have compiled a list of ideas for the Digital Marketing of small businesses online. Learn how you can take advantage of the digital space with these digital marketing ideas for small businesses –
1. Build a Strong Social Media Presence
Social Media has evolved and has become an integral part of our everyday lives. Hence, it is a crucial element of digital marketing for small businesses. Creating a social media presence for your small business can be beneficial. Creating pages for the business on social media handles such as Facebook and Instagram can allow a business’s services or products to reach the users online. Tailoring the content and promoting your services online allows the user sitting miles away to make a purchase at your store online. 67% of buyers make use of social media for assistance, and 33% prefer using social media instead of the telephone. If users can’t find your business via social media, they will look at the competitors who are present on preferred social channels. Even high-level brands such as Gucci and Balenciaga have a massive social media presence online.
2. Google My Business
Google My Business is a free digital marketing tool that allows businesses to advertise themselves and see how they appear on the search engine. It also displays all the vital information of the small business such as the name, address, contact information, website link, and hours of operation. In fact, Google has reported that 46% of all searches have local intent and that business location is the main piece of information sought by local searchers. This is a critical SEO strategy that is sought out by most small business owners. It increases the business’s credibility and visibility online. It shares appropriate information with the searchers and potential customers online.
3. Google AdWords
Google Ad-words is widely regarded as the most meaningful aspect of digital marketing for optimization of SEO. It’s been widely used by small businesses for online marketing. It’s a competitive element hence, it is a paid service. And if you know what you’re doing, it can be an extremely beneficial idea for a small business. Despite being a paid channel, Ad-words’ goal is still to deliver relevant search results to users. Google assigns a quality score to your ad based on CTR (Click Through Rate), relevance, and the landing page to which your ad directs traffic. This quality score influences the bid rate required to have an ad displayed, with higher scores lowering the bid cost.
4. Email Marketing
Email Marketing is the foundation of digital marketing. Many of the customers that visit your site online won’t make a purchase immediately but capturing their contact information for additional information is a suggested way of marketing that is also known as “Lead Nurturing”. It retains itself as one of the most beneficial converting channels for converting leads into actual customers. Email marketing begins with a ‘lead magnet’ that is essentially a free service or a product that is provided in exchange for the visitor’s email. Possible examples include a free e-book, coupon, membership, etc.
5. Content Marketing
Content Marketing has a great commercial impact on a small business online. It is the process of generating and circulating valuable, relevant, and consistent content to draw and retain a clearly defined audience and drive lucrative and profitable customer action. Content Marketing is an essential part of digital marketing that drives long term results. The long-term and constant growth in visitors, leads, and customers can independently carry a business.
6. Video Marketing
There is a massive overflow of content online, which makes it easier for users to navigate through the various pages and neglect your business easily. Hence, your small business’s presence online needs to be optimized efficiently so that no customer leaves without understanding your content. This is possible with Video Marketing as most of the content that flows online is visual and in this manner videos are the new big thing. Static content can become monotonous for a visitor. So, videos capture a visitor’s gaze. According to HubSpot’s Statistics, 97% of marketers say video marketing has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. 76% say it helped them increase sales. 81% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. World-renowned brands make use of captivating videos which reach to audience worldwide. In a similar fashion, this is a digital marketing idea for small businesses that can allow them to grow exponentially.
7. On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO is an important aspect of Digital Marketing, which one must keep in mind while marketing their business online. On-Page SEO allows the building of fast, robust, and user-friendly websites that rank higher in search engines. This gives a beneficial opportunity to a small business wanting to appear in their potential customer’s search results. On-Page SEO is dependant on factors such as meta-descriptions, header tags, title, site URL, and also alt-text to name a few.
8. Facebook Advertising
Facebook has more than 3 billion users and more than 2 million businesses advertise themselves online for the same reason. Facebook ads allow a business to advertise its products or services to its target-specific audience. They provide advanced advertising where the factors range from city, age, sex, interests, and even, online practices of the potential customers. The Facebook Ads-Manager also makes it easy to run and test ad sets, allowing you to set your focus on a winning recipe and reach profitability without needing advanced technical expertise.
Conclusion
All these digital marketing ideas for small businesses are efficient ways that allow a business to reach a wider audience locally and globally. These techniques or marketing strategies allow businesses to interact with consumers online, making it easy for them to reach out to potential customers, resulting in a sale online. Advertising a small business online enables them to build credibility and trust of the local customers. The limitations of approach into the marketplace are minimized when compared to conventional forms of marketing. As a local or small business owner, taking advantage of digital marketing is key to success.
