Why Digital Marketing is Important for Small Business
When small businesses get started, they often focus on attracting their first customers through traditional advertising methods like brochures, print ads, or outdoor advertising. While this strategy might bring in some business, there’s a more effective and easier approach. Small businesses should consider the global online marketplace and utilize a combination of traditional and digital marketing to take advantage of every available opportunity.
After all, 76% of consumers search for a company online before visiting a store, and 45% are more likely to visit after finding a strong online presence on a local search page, according to research by Visual Objects.
Every small business, no matter how new or established, should consider digital channels as a means to generate leads and turn interest into customers.
In this blog, we’ll explore six ways you can use online channels to promote and grow your business, along with three inspiring examples from small brands.
- Conduct Competitor Research
- Leverage SEO
- Be Proactive and Reactive on Social Media
- Target Existing Customers
- Reach Out to Influencers
- Focus Your Marketing Budget
What are the benefits of digital marketing?
The potential customers you can find online make up a much larger group than you’ll ever be able to attract locally. By using digital marketing techniques, you can reach a massive audience in a way that’s cost-effective, scalable, and measurable.
Some of the key benefits of using digital channels include:
- Increase your interaction with prospects and learn exactly what they are looking for, i.e., get to know your customers better!
- Reach out to anyone in any location and at any time, as there are no geographical boundaries with digital marketing.
- Target the right audience at the right time through hyper-personalization.
- Communicate with your prospects and customers at every stage of the buying process.
- Save money and reach more people for less.
- Understand your audience and drive engagement to boost customer loyalty.
- Track and monitor campaigns in real-time so you can optimize or tweak content or targeting.
- Offer better customer service using social media platforms like Facebook.
Getting started on digital marketing for small businesses
With endless opportunities, digital marketing can seem intimidating if you’ve never used it before. There are a variety of platforms and strategies that may make it seem like a bigger project than it is.
However, the online marketplace is competitive, and while word-of-mouth marketing and customer recommendations can help drive traffic, customers will struggle to find your business unless you show up in the places they spend time.
This is because online shopping has exploded in recent years, with people flocking online to research and make purchases. This surge has led to the global ecommerce share of retail sales increasing from just 18% in 2021 to an estimated 23% in 2027.
This makes building a presence online crucial to any small business that wants to survive especially when 20% of businesses fail in the first year, 30% in the second year and 50% by year five according to Forbes Advisor.
So let’s look at some simple but effective digital marketing tactics you can use to build an online presence and get found by the people that have an interest in your product or service.
- Conduct Competitor Research
For your business to be successful, you need to pay attention to what your competitors are doing and learn from it. By observing your competitors online, you can gain insights into what works and what doesn’t.
Conduct a competitor analysis and keep these types of questions in mind:
- What type of content do they use (e.g., a company blog, videos or visuals, custom landing pages, original research, or user-generated content)?
- How do they communicate their brand, and what makes them unique?
- How well do they engage with the audience and how (e.g., social media channels)?
- What platforms do they use?
- Do they have any brand advocates or influencer partnerships?
- Do they have a loyalty program, and if so, what does it offer?
Luckily, there are some great tools that can help in your research so it doesn’t become a drain on your time, such as:
- Semrush: Great for keyword ranking and keyword traffic.
- Ahrefs: Useful for discovering competitors’ most linked content.
- Moz: Another platform for keyword ranking.
- BuzzSumo: Track popular content types and influencers.
- Google Alerts: A tool for tracking mentions of any competitor you choose to track.
- Ontolo: A great tool for backlinks and content marketing.
- Similarweb: Provides insights on digital channels used, website traffic, keywords, and social channels.
You should also take advantage of platforms for customer insights to feed into your persona development and content marketing, such as:
2) Leverage SEO
Whatever product or service a person looks for, they will most likely start their search with a search engine like Google. Even if you have an online presence, if your competitors rank higher in search results, you might not be found.
To address this, you need to create an optimized website and understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to outrank your competitors.
Keywords are crucial in making this happen, so make sure you research the best keywords (both long-tail and short-tail) for your business. This will help you identify and keep phrases with good search volume, disregard keywords with poor volume, and find content gaps that you can fill to build authority.
Local SEO is especially important for small businesses. While you can aim to inform and sell to people across the globe, local SEO can help your business be more visible in search results on Google based on searches aimed at specific locations.
You can also use Google Business Profile, a directory that allows you to display business information on local searches and Google Maps.
3) Be Proactive and Reactive on Social Media
Social media is one of the most powerful digital platforms for small businesses. With over 5 billion users representing 62% of the world’s population, according to Datareportal, it’s a great channel to get your brand seen and heard.
The big challenge may be deciding which social platform to use for your business, as there are many to choose from, each with a different audience and content type.
The secret to being successful on social media is to pick the right platform(s) for your business. This means understanding who is active on each platform and what type of content they consume.
- YouTube: Ideal for video content (including YouTube Shorts), popular among the 25-44 age group.
- Facebook: Supports text, image, and video content, and is most popular with 25-44 year-olds.
- Instagram: A platform made for image and video content and used by influencers, most popular among 18-34 year-olds.
- TikTok: A video-based platform (and fast becoming a search engine), most popular among 18-34 year-olds but also widely used by 12-17 year-olds.
- LinkedIn: Used for text, images, and video content, with 60% of users between the ages of 25-34.
- Pinterest: A visual discovery engine where images can be grouped into themes as ‘Boards,’ popular with women (76% of users) and among 18-34 year-olds.
Social media should not only be about posting content about your business (self-promotional content); it’s also about sharing content from others and providing information that your audience finds useful.
Encourage your audience to create user-generated content, which can help share reviews or endorsements of your brand without you having to do it yourself. Additionally, remember that social media should be used to respond to customer queries or complaints. This demonstrates your commitment to customers and provides quick and transparent responses to resolve issues promptly.
4) Target existing customers
Having an email marketing list, even if it’s not very large, is valuable. It’s important to nurture the people on it because they joined for a reason, whether due to a purchase or a discount offer.
Be mindful of data protection laws and email regulations, especially when sending emails via platforms like Google and Yahoo, to ensure you’re protecting your customer’s data.
Before your email database becomes unmanageable, it’s good to organize it. Segment your customers or prospects so you can target them with relevant and personalized content. These segments could include:
- Action (e.g., purchase or download)
- Gender
- Age group
- Location
- Abandoned cart
- Interests
- Purchase history
- Engagement
Growing your email list is also crucial. The more people you have on it, the more opportunities you have to engage and convert. Here are some simple ways to do that:
- Offer a subscriber discount
- Set up a referral program
- Promote a giveaway or contest
- Offer VIP discounts for ‘members’
- Create data capture content
- Set up a newsletter
5) Reach out to influencers
An influencer is a person with a social following who is seen as an expert in a certain area. The beauty of using one is that they are creative and have a knack for making content that their audience loves. This can make the right voice invaluable to your brand.
Influencer marketing has surged in recent years, and many marketers use it to connect with customers. It’s become so popular and effective that Statista reports 22% of marketers invest 10 to 20 percent of their marketing budget into influencer marketing, while another 26% invest more than 40%.
The key to effective influencer marketing is selecting the right influencer. For small businesses, the follower count may not be the most important factor. It’s more crucial to find someone who aligns with your brand and values.
You can find relevant influencers through social media or by searching using hashtags. Types of influencer activities include:
- Sponsored posts
- Partnerships or collaborations
- Giveaways
- Brand ambassadors
- Guest blogs
- Event hosting
- Unboxing videos
Once you find the right influencer, you can determine what you want from the partnership using our influencer marketing brief template.
Focus your marketing budget
w forms of advertising are as cost-effective as digital marketing. Small businesses and startups are always striving to achieve maximum impact with minimal budget.
Advertising online can stretch your budget further and allows you to refine your target audience. Social media, in particular, excels in this regard, enabling you to set a daily budget to reach a specific audience interested in your brand or values. Most importantly, it empowers your business to exclude individuals who are unlikely to convert, thereby saving you time and money.
The key to successful social media advertising lies in selecting the platform that aligns best with your brand. Avoid choosing TikTok simply because it’s trendy or advertising on LinkedIn if your goal isn’t to generate B2B interest.
Research social media platforms thoroughly, consult guides on social media demographics to find one that matches your objectives, and conduct simple tests to determine which messaging and content resonate best with your audience.
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