Whether you own a small business or are responsible for the marketing of one, you’re always looking for ways to work smarter, not harder. Digital marketing has evolved to the point where there are specific strategies you can follow and certain tactics you can perform that will help you market your small business smarter. The caveat is that digital marketing now offers so many targeting options and channels that it can be hard to determine which ones will meet your goals.
The first step is to create a list of what those goals are. Be very specific while looking at the whole picture. Do you want to:
- Get more leads?
- Build brand awareness?
- Increase blog/website traffic?
- Boost your social media engagement?
- Register X number of webinar/event attendees?
- Schedule X number of product/service demos?
- Increase sales by X percent by X date?
- Accomplish most or all of the above?
Sometimes it’s a matter of prioritizing, finding what matters most to you right now and what your digital marketing budget will allow. Once priorities are in order and a budget set, they can help guide your multi-channel digital marketing strategy.
If you have a strategy in place, use any available data to work for you rather than starting from scratch. Data gives insights into where adjustments are needed to fine-tune your strategy, such as allocating more budget to one or more channels because that is where you see the best results.
And, if you’re starting your strategy from scratch, be prepared to dive deep into the data to ensure your strategy is working as you intended. Digital marketing platforms include powerful analytics tools that show you all the numbers you need to know to determine what’s working over the short and long term. Once you start using that data to build your strategy, you’re on the right path to smarter digital marketing.
Here are four dos and don’ts to keep in mind along the way…
- DO be open to a multi-channel approach to your digital marketing.
Digital marketing works best when a smart mix of platforms are in play. Each touch point leads your prospect further along the sales journey and deeper into your sales funnel. Display advertisements, search results, promoted content, email, SEO and social media can all work together to hit the goal of engaging your audience.
Don’t count on one platform to do all the heavy sales lifting. There are too many opportunities to reach your target prospects—let analytics be a guiding force
- DO target your audience.
Your target audience are people who may or may not know they need or want what you’re offering. To get your small business on their radar, you must learn everything about them that you can—their age, interests, search habits and much more. Then, use these characteristics to narrow down your targeting to efficiently spend your marketing budget in places where you know they spend their time online.
Don’t cast a wide net. It’s tempting, but don’t. Again, with the knowledge you can learn about your target audience through analytics and data analysis, there’s no reason to spend budget trying to sell, say, cat supplies to hardcore dog people.
- DO keep expectations specific and realistic for your digital marketing campaigns.
For example, you choose to build brand awareness and register X number of participants for an upcoming webinar. If you are expecting an influx of registrations, your digital marketing budget will most likely need to be higher than if you are trying to achieve brand awareness because compelling people to act requires far more targeted tactics than putting your small business brand in front of your audiences’ eyes. This is where prioritizing matters most. When utilizing multi-channel marketing don’t try to do too much with too little, or your budget will spread too thin to accomplish either goal.
If your small business is in a highly competitive market, your competitors may be spending a lot of budget on certain keywords (what prospects are searching). For example, if your webinar is about understanding the mortgage approval process, you may find email marketing and social media are more effective than spending $15/click for “mortgage lenders” in a digital advertising campaign.
Don’t compare “brand awareness apples” to “X webinar signup oranges.” Your digital marketing tactics should work towards the same goal, but each tactic will have its’ own specified goals. Evaluating two different campaigns and expecting the same outcome will not provide a clear picture of overall performance.
- DO rely on experts to help refine and focus your digital marketing strategy and campaigns.
If you’re not sure where to start, seek out experts in digital marketing for small businesses to help guide the way. EAG’s digital marketing team can start with any existing analytics to collect your target audience’s interests and behaviors. This data can be used to strategize campaigns and then refined as data compounds for smarter digital marketing.
Let’s talk about digital marketing strategy and campaigns for your small business. Contact us.