When a small business first starts, digital marketing likely will not be their focus. Instead, it is often on how to generate sales and get their brand out there. For this, they may rely on more traditional forms of marketing and advertising such as outdoor advertising, word of mouth, posters, and leaflets through letter boxes.
While this is a totally valid strategy, it has major limitations. No small business no matter how new or if they are a one-man-band, should overlook digital marketing. It is a modern and much broader way to generate leads, create brand awareness and in turn, gain a larger profit. Let’s discuss why you, as a small business, should consider digital marketing to support your company.
You spend less money
If you have been utilising traditional methods of marketing, you probably have noticed it can get costly. This can range from printing posters to buying advertisement space in newsagents. If you utilise what free tools digital marketing has to offer, you can find yourself generating more leads on a broader scale and save money at the same time!
Social media is very good for this, as you can set up your own business profile on LinkedIn, Instagram and even your own business page on Facebook – all of which are completely free! There are even free tools out there to help you create the content you want to talk about. We recommend Canva, as it is the most user-friendly and has free-to-use templates you can edit to fit your business. Although, they are not the only social media options. There is TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter and even Tumblr to name a few more! Although we highly recommend not trying to use lots of social media channels. Try to stick to only two or three channels, whilst at the same time thinking about what type of social media your target audience use.
To back up your social media profiles, it is vital to have a website! Without a website, people may question your legitimacy as a business. Having a website also allows you to make a great first impression and have a list of clear and laid out products/services in one place. It can be a great hub for people wanting to know more and should always be a place you point people towards. There are many different platforms to use such as Wix (free) through to WordPress, which works well from an SEO perspective.
You become accessible in a modern world.
Google searching anything has been the norm for several years now as we can get an answer right at the end of our fingertips. Make your business the answer to an individual’s problem. Whether it is a product or a service, a person will start by performing a google search. For example, ‘Marketing agency in Oxfordshire’. If you have no online presence, your website and social media will not show up. You won’t be found and therefore, you cannot compete.
You should also consider alongside this, how Google will display your business. For example, when you set up a Google My Business account, ensure you have filled out as much key information on it as possible. This includes adding where your business is located, your opening hours, images of your products/services, prices, and any other special offers. There is plenty of vital information to fill out on your Google My Business account and this will allow Google to index your business as a trusted company, therefore you rank higher and appeal more trustworthy to potential clients and customers.
See the results and grow from the data
Once you have a website and social media, you can use insights and analytics to understand who is looking at your business.
Google Analytics is fantastic for measuring the types of people that come to your website, including their age and location. It also measures how long they spend on your site, how often they visit, your best-performing pages and least-performing pages. This way, you can begin to see trends in the type of people who are visiting and tailor the pages that are not performing so well. It is vital to know your target audience, and this is something you can do for free with digital marketing. If you just had a poster in a community centre, there would be absolutely no way of tracking and measuring who saw it and at what time.
With social media, you can use the insights tool to see the reach of your posts. This falls under organic if you are not paying for advertisements. With insights, you can also see what content performed the best, generated the most clicks, which content didn’t perform well and again, tailor your content to suit the audience you are trying to target.
How we can help
To a small business, especially if you are new, we understand that marketing can sometimes be a daunting experience. Therefore, we have expert services which can aid you in everything mentioned in our blog and more, such as PR and email marketing.
To discuss a potential digital marketing plan with us for your small business, please call us for a 30-minute no-obligation call on 07957 483435 or send us an email at hello@avarosemarketing.co.uk – we would be more than happy to talk to you!
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