Digital marketing strategies for small businesses that work

You must agree that digital marketing is the most important tactic that small businesses can use to promote their products and services. Not only the budgets for advertising and content promotion on social networks and various online channels are incomparably lower than when it comes to traditional media, but also digital marketing is much more precise in targeting potential customers.

However, without properly designed strategic moves and knowledge of how to use digital marketing for the purpose of business growth and development, it is not possible to progress nowadays. That’s why we decided once again to write about strategies that have been proven to bring results to small businesses, knowing that many small business owners enjoy reading our blog. In the following lines, expect concrete and practical advice related to digital marketing.

Let’s see what’s proven to work when it comes to designing and implementing small business digital marketing strategies.

Tactic no. 1: Create content that will be interesting for sharing

Creating appropriate content that will attract the target group should be part of the digital marketing strategy each small business relies on. It is the content that can do wonders for your business. If it is bad and not relevant to potential customers, then it will hurt the brand, on the other hand, if it is of good quality, it will make your brand connect with customers and build a strong bond of trust.

However, if it is not shown to a well-targeted target group, even good content can do poorly, so the idea is to create content that:

1. helps your business achieve its marketing goals and grow.
2. helps your target audience get answers to the most important questions and encourages them to share the content.

But how do I do that – you must be wondering? How do you get them to share content?

1. create content that stirs emotions and emotional reactions, because in 70% of cases content is shared precisely because someone connected with it on an emotional level.
2. look for inspiration to create content on the pages of your competitors. Study what gets them shares and likes, then create something similar to that.
3. create content that is actionable, so your customers can easily understand its value and share it for its sake. Social network users share content that can be useful to them and others.
4. create content that tells stories and gets customers involved. They love being part of your story because they are already loyal fans of the brand. Take advantage of that fact.

Don’t talk about yourself, even though you may be the best in your niche and have the most awards, it still doesn’t interest your customers to the extent that they would listen, read and watch your bragging often. One question a customer always asks when visiting your website or social media: What’s in there for me?

On the way to making your brand more appreciated and valuable, you should strive every day to answer this question and thus make your content worth sharing.

Tactic no. 2: Focus on organic content on social networks

If we look at the statistics, we come to the fact that as many as 70% of customers like to look for information about the brand and products via social networks. Customer support on social networks is really a lot of work. Another data tells us that as many as 33% of customers choose social networks rather than the phone as a means of communication.

So if you’re a beauty salon owner – expect more appointment inquiries via Instagram DM (hopefully you have one, because if not – where do you live?) rather than over the phone. It’s the beginning of the 21st century, and we’re already in the second decade, so customer habits are also changing accordingly.

Every brand that cares about the relationship it has with customers has decided to have a constant presence on social networks. If potential customers can’t find you on social media, they perceive it as a bad sign, and they won’t make a decision to buy a product from you, but turn to your competition.

By creating content that drives organic reach, you establish a long-term relationship with your followers and bond them to the brand. If you consistently work to create content that drives organic engagement growth, it helps your brand in several ways:

1. slowly but permanently increases your organic reach. Later, when you see which channels are performing well, you can also invest in paid content.
2. a good organic reach will reduce the cost of advertising that you use to promote your brand.
3. prospective customers will trust you much more if you have real numbers, i.e. if your numbers of shares, likes, and other engagement are high. Strong ‘social proof’ is important both for the algorithm and for trust, as we have already emphasized.
4. new customers are within reach if you have more reach and if your followers’ friends see them liking or sharing your content. Keep that in mind.

Organic campaigns are very effective and can have great results, but what makes a campaign successful is constant presence and persistence. You need to create content every day and success is guaranteed.

Tactic no. 3: Build email lists with precise targeting              

If you ask any digital marketing expert how you should lay the foundation of your small business (especially when it comes to services) they will tell you that email lists are a very important tool to achieve your goal.

If you want to have a channel that will reliably bring results in the sales segment, but also a result in the field of constant connection with the target group, then you must work on email lists. One of the tools that can help you with this is Mailchimp, which we mentioned in a previous blog post. Be sure to read this post and find out which tools should be used, in order to facilitate the daily functioning of profiles on social networks and other channels of internal and external communication.

Let’s mention the research again (if the data is important, which illustrates the importance of a certain channel, we will always highlight it) and point out this fact to you – email lists bring leads even 40 times more effective than social networks do (here we mean Facebook and Twitter together).

When it comes to a small business, the point of doing business is not only in finding new customers but also in nurturing relationships with existing ones. Since it turns out to be much more expensive to invest in new customers, it should be much easier and simpler for you to invest in a relationship with old customers.

Finally, let’s see what are the reasons why you should include email marketing in your strategy:

1. creates credibility: Customers like information from credible sources, so a newsletter from your production is much more important than advertising on any other channel. Send them a precisely targeted offer and expect results.
2. maintains connections: No matter how big a business is, maintaining communication and connection with customers is important. The stronger the connection with customers, the stronger the brand. Throughout the year (especially when it comes to seasonal offers) your customers will monitor the messages in their inbox and will eagerly wait for a message from you.
3. generating more site traffic: Site visits are very important and if you want to increase their number, create a blog post, news about a new product or advertise a limited-time offer through an email campaign. This way you will bring back to your site the very leads you want to convince that your product is the best on the market.

It’s time to stand out from the competition

Although digital marketing can sometimes seem very complicated and not so easy to master, the truth is completely different if you invest enough time and money in education. However, if you still think that you cannot do it yourself, you can always contact us and ask us to create a strategy for your company’s presence in the online world.

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