There are lots of different methods for small businesses to get their brand message out there and draw in new customers. However, there is only one method that is guaranteed to get your brand exposure in a cost-efficient and effective way: digital marketing.
Incorporating a wide variety of techniques including SEO, email campaigns, social media, blogs, digital marketing is the best way to make an impact online. The internet has opened up a vast marketplace and it would be a real shame to miss out on such a great opportunity.
Whatever your preconceptions of digital marketing are, drop them now and read more about what you can really expect from this very modern marketing technique.
Why Are You Avoiding Digital Marketing?
Many start-up businesses labour under the false impression that they cannot afford digital marketing or that they simply don’t have the time to make the most of it. While the stresses and strains of opening a new business are certainly enough to put anyone off doing something new, digital marketing is actually one of the easiest ways to bring customers in and start achieving conversions.
Digital marketing might not be free but if you outsource this role, you will quickly see value for your money without having to spend a lot of time on the project yourself. Though your input is important in the initial stages of the process in terms of communicating your brand, once you have agreed a timeline and a plan, you won’t need to spend much more time than you would like to.
While it might be tempting to think that your business will develop over time, regardless of what you do, the reality is that many startups fail because they underestimate how much effort they will need to put into gaining new customers. Don’t make that mistake; start your digital marketing journey now!
Your Customers Are Online
When you need to find a new product or service, what is the first thing you do? Chances are that you won’t go into town and walk up and down the high street to see what is there, will you? No, of course not. You will pick up your phone or go to your laptop and look online.
Your customers are doing exactly the same thing and if your business isn’t online and visible on the search results page, they simply won’t know that your business exists to solve that problem. In fact, the only option for your potential customers in this situation is to choose your competitor instead.
Digital marketing is the best way to rise up the search results so that your customers are able and more likely to visit your site. The more you can do to encourage people to enter your website, the more chances you will have to convert them into paying customers. But digital marketing doesn’t stop there: your website content should also be targeted and optimised to ensure that once people are on your website, they are guided towards choosing your product or service.
But online searches aren’t the only way to help your customers find you. If you think about the number of ads you see on social media, or the number of business pages you might follow, this is clearly another area where you can boost your online presence. Add to that the amount of time that you spend on social media and this is evidently a brilliant opportunity to reach people – and a business page on social media is free.
Understand Who Your Customers Are
One of the best things about digital marketing is that you can get constant feedback which should inform you about who your customers are, what they want from your business and where you could improve. As well as being able to conduct direct surveys to find out more about your customers, many platforms for advertising including Google Ads and social media ads will also give you a lot of feedback to help you optimise your campaign.
The more you can do to understand your customers, the more you can refine your campaigns to attract more similar people but you can also tailor your services and products to make them even more appealing. No business is ever done and if you are scrabbling around for new ideas, your customers are the best people to ask.
When you are clear about who your audience is and what they are after, you can do a lot more to refine your campaigns so that you are sending the right messages. You may also choose to split a large audience into smaller groups. This way you can deliver different messages to different audiences to keep everyone’s attention and interest – a perfect tool for businesses with a wide-ranging appeal.
Be Accessible; Be Easy to Find
Digital marketing is also a brilliant way to start interacting with your customers on a more personal level. Chatting on social media might not sound like it could improve trust in your business, but you would be surprised by how many people turn to platforms like Facebook and Twitter to ask companies for guidance or to make a complaint. The more accessible you can be, the more trustworthy you will appear to be.
With this in mind, you should also be using digital marketing to make your business and your services easy to find. Rather than burying the useful information, you should be using regular blogs to continue to interact with your customers and explain or comment on relevant topics. Updating your content regularly is also a good way to boost your SERPs ranking and give your SEO a boost, making you easier to find on search engines too.
Your Competitors Are Already Here
If you have not yet been persuaded then this argument should be the clincher: your competitors are already here. In fact, if you are a new business, it is very likely that your competitors aren’t just online already, but they have an advantage of several years over you. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t compete, it just means that you will need to be more skillful in your approach.
One of the great advantages of digital marketing is that you can see what is giving your competitors the edge over you. This is ideal because it means that you can see what is already successful and so your own attempts to compete are more likely to succeed. Even when you reach the top of the results, keeping an eye on the competition will be a good way to stay there.
It’s Time to Get a Digital Marketing Agency Involved
Digital marketing might be new to you from a business perspective but it is almost impossible to live in the UK today and not have experienced digital marketing from the perspective of the customer. The best thing about digital marketing is that this experience is just about enough to start guessing and experimenting with a campaign, using all the tools available to you to refine and boost your ads.
Getting a digital marketing agency on board is definitely a good idea for a beginner in digital marketing as they will be able to guide you through the processes and dedicate some real time to each campaign. Agencies are also ideal as they usually offer a team of specialists who are all already good at what they do, giving you the peace of mind you need to get on with other important activities in your business.
