20 Best Digital Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses
Having a small business platform does not necessarily means you cannot challenge the big guns in your industry.
Before you can sincerely get meaningful and noticeable growth through digital marketing, it is important to have solid strategies.
Marketing, most times, is what makes the most noticeable difference between a failed business and the ones that excel.
This is due to the fact that understanding the rudiment, process, and goals of your marketing strategy would go a very long way to determine how many prospects you can reach out to and how many of them you were able to turn to customers in the short or long run.
It’s no longer news that digital marketing is taking charge of the business environment and dictating the winners and losers of the market share.
As a small business owner, this should be one of the strategic goals for your business.
There are so many strategies encompassed by digital marketing, and it is very important to have a solid understanding of most of them.
With them, you will be able to make rational decisions on what is attainable and logical for your business type and your industry at large.
These strategies when followed intently are guaranteed to move your business rapidly, improve your exposure and financial capability.
Digital marketing is the right way to go about marketing and announcing your small business to the world, hence the need for this article.
20 BEST DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES
1) Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the most viable marketing strategies used in reaching out to potential customers.
One of the first points of contact a prospective client would have with your business in the digital space is your contents. Remember you won’t have the second chance to make that great first impression.
Though some individuals believe that content marketing is just a way to announce your business dealings to the prospects through the use of contents.
Meanwhile, it goes a pretty long way to provide such customers with relevant information including product details and general business notifications.
Truly, potential customers might be aware of the products/services you sell or offer, but they still need prior information that should persuade them to give your business a try.
Hence, content marketing has become one of the most reliable mediums to optimize your business marketing goals.
Content is always needed for most of the other strategies that would be mentioned in the course of this article, hence, it is vital that you etch it in mind that content is king.
2) Blogging
There are already billions of users that engage with millions of blogs on WordPress, this means there are lot of opportunities lurking in blogging.
If you are not naïve to the digital world, you will definitely agree with me that blogs are already in the limelight of digital marketing. This strategy has a lot to do with contents – though not limited to contents alone.
Small business owners that are not consistently interested in making life easier for their prospective clients and loyal customers by creating blog posts that educate or inform customers on different problems that might arise, either from the use of products and services or other relevant occurrences in the industry, are on the verge of going into extinction.
This is because blogs are regarded as one of the top 5 ways to engage with customers and get massive lead generation which is a great tool for your sales department.
Having a blog is not just enough, knowing what to do with the blog is where the results come from.
For optimization of a blog to take place, you need to understand the following:
- Understand your readers’ needs and problems at that point in time
- Make research and develop a quality post on that will solve the problem practically
- Use of infographics for analysis that has to do with problem-solving
- Making the articles interactive and not robotic.
All these are guaranteed ways to boost the vitality of the blog which in turn practically improve your small business profitability.
3) Local Search Marketing
It’s pretty clear that many websites strive to integrate their chances in search results, hence, local search marketing has become one of the best digital marketing strategies for small businesses.
The core factor that supports this digital marketing strategy is the fact that most of us are more interested in doing business with a business platform that has an online presence and is adequately listed on popular sites that do business listing.
Address, mapping and other details about what your business does are needed for potential customers to locate your business and that’s obviously why local search marketing –particularly with Google –tends to bring interested customers closer to you.
Though there are quite a handful of websites that do business listings; Manta, Yellowpages, etc. are generally trusted by most customers that are within the coverage of your business local search.
This marketing strategy gives you an edge over your competition, especially those within your locality.
4) Search Engine Optimization
From the literary understanding of the words that make up this strategy, you will fathom that it is a way to optimize the rate at which your small business perform in search engine results. This is just the fundamental understanding of this strategy.
SEO, as it is generally called, involves all the behind the scene activities that help you rate higher in search results. This is to say that your business website or blog tends to come top when there is a search for any of the services you render.
This strategy is one of the very broad digital marketing concepts, it is assumed to be one of the best ways to announce your business to the world especially when your business has a website or blog to it.
The whole website can be optimized using the right keyword in the right quantity.
There are few things to take note of when mapping out your search engine optimization strategy, these few vital things would definitely help you create, manage, analyze, and check your progress.
These include:
- Quality content creation on the site
- A natural input of important keywords
- Link building with influential websites and blogs in the industry
- Posts with a minimum of 2000 word count tend to rate higher than posts with lesser word count.
5) Email Marketing
Some small business owners don’t know how to reach the potential customers and this is why their sales and marketing goals are seldom met in the long run.
Having a great means to communicate with your potential clients, first-time clients, and loyal customers will go a long way in imprinting the quality of your business dealings in their mind.
One sure way to go about this is through email marketing.
Email marketing is a very vital strategy through which you can foster a long-term relationship with both established and potential customers.
With email marketing, you can simply create a list comprising your customers and through this, such customers receive product updates and other relevant business notifications which could make them your long-time customers.
You can decide to send this periodic email by yourself or try automation. There are lots of platforms (Aweber, MailChimp, etc.) that give you the opportunity to automate your email marketing campaigns.
6) Utilize Facebook Groups
The marketing results that comes from Facebook cannot be overemphasized. This is known by almost all your competition, you would be doing yourself a lot of wrongs if you are yet to explore its possibilities to the brim.
One such possibility is the use of Facebook groups.
One of the ways to go about this is to create a Facebook group whose primary focus is to interact with your prospects on Facebook and give them enough values.
This will undoubtedly make you establish yourself as an influencer with an enormous wealth of knowledge in your industry.
People tend to trust you more and pass that same level of trust in your products and services. You can improve your audience base by giving out incentives at regular intervals.
Another way to go about it is to join an established Facebook group. There are tons of groups that are aligned with your industry, this will invariably connect you with a lot of people that will be in need of your products and services.
The effectiveness of this strategy is overlooked by the big guns in most industries.
This is why it is practically easier for you to break in and explore it to the fullest. You don’t need to break the bank before you meet your set goals.
7) Google AdWords
The keyword is a very important concept in the digital marketing world. If you want to be truly phenomenal with your digital marketing strategy as a small business owner, you must intently pay close attention to keywords.
Google is a great platform that makes it very simple and easy for business owners to target a particular keyword and become visible when prospects google search such keywords in google.
Though old-fashioned and somewhat costly, Google AdWords is really an effective digital marketing strategy that guarantees reasonable traffic through beneficial search results.
Especially when integrated with other marketing strategies, Google AdWords offers efficient results.
Moreover, it fetches your business site enormous ad traffic plus other features including the Click Through Rate. You can bank on the massive exposure that comes with Google AdWords to further boost your business digital marketing goals and objective.
The results you will get from this is pulsating.
8) YouTube
If you are in the business world and you are naïve about the possibility that can be tapped with the right usage of YouTube, it seems you are just getting started with your online presence and dominance strategy.
The basis and fundamental thing to put in place to make this happen is a quality YouTube channel. This quality channel must be stuck up with quality videos – engaging, informative, and educative, on a regular and consistent basis.
The more you create videos that can help solve the problems that are persistently giving your prospects trouble in your industry, the more you increase your engagement level and imperatively improve your digital marketing goals.
Nothing beats quality video that is aptly developed with a certain keyword in mind. This will make users see your videos more and engage with your business enormously.
9) Advertisement in Print Media
Print media is one of the traditional ways of marketing which has refused to stay off-course even with the advent of the digital world.
If you are paying great attention to this space, you will notice that most of the print media platforms have gone digital with their business.
As a small business owner who is trying to maximize the potential of these great platforms, you need to understand that there are millions of individuals who still read magazines and other periodicals.
Online print media outlet to still invest so much in this techniques to reach out to their numerous clients.
Product and service ads tend to attract tons of customers especially when you make them available in print media channels ranging from magazines to newspapers.
Meanwhile, you wouldn’t really doubt this because a popular newspaper is capable of conveying information to millions of people in no time.
By giving this marketing strategy a try, anyone who stumbles on a newspaper and picks it to read is likely to skim through your product ads.
Having your business ads on top print media platforms, you have a high probability rate that quite a handful of readers would want to do business with you because they trust these media outlets.
10) Forums
Digital marketing can be very daunting and tasking if you are not deliberately working toward achieving your set goals and objectives.
It becomes more difficult when you have competitors that do understand the digital space and are both ready to pursue their digital marketing goals and have a handful of resources to spare for such purpose.
Joining forums that have over the years continuously rack in tons of people to their space.
In a typical forum, people tend to ask diverse questions from different industries and need accurate answers from influencers in that industry.
Positioning yourself as a source of genuine information and help for those individuals that are not clear about certain things will invariably establish your knowledge, skills, and expertise in your field or choice of niche.
There are lots of platforms that help you achieve this credibility from your prospective customers, these include Quora, Tumblr, Reddit, Nairaland, and lots more.
The more you give accurate answers and ask logical and eye-opening questions on these platforms, the more exposure you give yourself and your business.
11) Social Media Marketing
I am opined that no one needs to tell that social media is a fertile platform for effective digital marketing, should in case you are unaware of this fact, I am using this medium to put it to you that social media marketing is the vital cog for your business.
There are tons of sales made on a daily in diverse social media platforms owing to the huge population of users on these platforms. This is irrespective of the industry – service or product.
Social media marketing is a key digital marketing strategy that widens your customer base and ensures you make progressive sales through a vibrant presence on social networks.
Speaking frankly, social media marketing does influence your customers to patronize you especially by making them realize your recently added products.
If, for instance, you manage an eatery, social media marketing is a feasible opportunity for you to inform your customers about the items or delicacies recently included in your menu.
12) Guest Post
For every business, there is always the starting point. This is the point where you work diligently to drive people to your business platforms.
The first thing to take note of while generating an audience for your business is the fact that there are blogs and website in your niche who are already influencers already.
Your ability to understand the concept behind this digital marketing strategy marks the commencement of establishing your potentials of becoming an influencer in your industry.
Creating quality blog posts that are educative, informative, and engaging is the surest way to take your share of the market.
This implies that you can direct an audience from blogs where you guest post to your original business website, blog, products, or services.
The primary point in doing this is to leverage on an existing platform to promote your expertise about the industry and inevitable market your business.
13) Facebook Advertising
Aside from being one of the easiest ads to set up, it is very cheap when compared to other digital marketing ads platforms.
The simplicity of this strategy means any small or medium-scale business owner can conveniently and comfortably run and manage it effectively and efficiently.
It is pretty easy for a small business to tap into Facebook ads and utilize it effectively in reaching out to audience randomly.
Not only does Facebook advertising come as an easy-to-use feature, it’s also a verified and interesting avenue for any small business to capture a specified host of customers probably on the basis of age, sex, activity, and location.
You can diligently plan, execute, review, and follow up your Facebook ads without any hassle. This has been made easy due to certain features that have been embedded in the Facebook ads settings.
From demography to call-to-action, you can trust this digital marketing strategy to pull the stunt.
14) Freelancing Platforms
The fact that going digital with one’s business is the best way to do business in this century and age coupled with the high percentage of small business offering services, rather than being product-oriented, is one of the reasons why freelancing is gradually taking a giant stride in the digital world.
From writers to safety officers, from data analyst to management professionals, freelancing is the order of the day. It is a great way to test your core competence in the international stage.
You will have the platform to market what you can do effectively.
Let’s assume you have a small business that deals with accounting and auditing, and your company expertise and experience is more on the auditing aspect of your business, you can sell this service online through different freelancing platforms that are available.
Upwork, Fiverr, and lots more are quality freelancing platforms where you can start gaining a lot of long-term and high-paying clients who are satisfied with your services.
One thing to keep in mind when joining these platforms is the fact that you must be really capable of delivering on your prowess with any form of excuse.
15) Search Engine Marketing
For any small business to compete fairly on the web, proper SEO strategies need to be adopted and that’s why search engine marketing is a critical aspect of digital marketing.
By ranking better in the search results of popular search engines (such as Google), a business succeeds in generating a huge customer base relating to its niche.
Search engine marketing is a way of leveraging the billions of users that are actively using this platform every second. Bringing your products or services to them as at when there are in search or in need of such service is the focus of this strategy.
Understanding SEO will definitely play a great role in helping you achieve your set goals and objectives for this digital marketing strategy.
I am sure you would not want to miss out on this great platform as the Click “Through” Rate is awesome and encouraging for small business.
16) Keyword Research
In every aspect of a business, it is important to have a target and understand the trends. This is so because being flexible goes a long way in determining the success rate of any marketing campaign.
There are so many digital marketing strategies that need you to fully and truly understand the nitty-gritty of keyword research.
One thing to put in mind when doing your keyword research is to be empathic enough in understanding what your prospects are consistently searching for in the digital space.
UberSuggest, SEMRush, smallseotools, and lots more platforms would help you analyze what keyword is trending in your industry, how to effectively use them, and the possible engagements you would have when you use them rightly.
You need to step up your digital marketing game by optimizing the use of keywords for your small business.
17) Google My Business
The most fascinating aspect of Google My Business is that it makes your business content pop up at the top half of a relevant search page and this, of course, generates robust traffic for your products/services.
Not only does Google My Business place your business in top listings, it also integrates Google Maps, Google Insights and several other Google marketing tools for effective marketing purposes.
The big deal about Google My Business is the way it gives prospects all the vital information they need to contact your business and start doing business with you earnestly. It is no doubt a great toll to maximize its productivity in the digital space.
Least I forget, it is absolutely free. The only thing you need is a Gmail account and a business.
18) Facebook Live
Facebook recently acknowledged that 25% of all the video contents on the platform are a function of Facebook live. This simply means a lot of people have been making use of this feature to create awareness of all sort.
I have used this platform a couple of times to drive traffic to my website, and my business as well. And the result is great for me.
These are some of the things I have been using this platform to do:
- Seminars
- Training
- Product launch
- Problem-solving
These are just a few of the numerous things you can use the platform to achieve.
Video contents are really taking over gradually because we tend to believe what we see more than what we are told.
The right time to utilize this strategy is now owing to the fact that lots of prospects are waiting for you to show them what they do not understand about your industry.
19) Promotion on Coupon Deal Sites
Effective use of coupon deal sites (most especially Groupon) is a verified way of marketing any small business.
However, it shouldn’t be seen as an avenue to maximize sales or make a profit but practically a step towards creating massive awareness for your growing business.
Regular creation of freebies and coupons that will lead prospects to your business is a great way to show them that you are not keen or desperate about selling to them but catering for their needs as at the time they need it.
This really creates a form of subconscious trust and art of relationship between your business and your prospect.
The truth remains that customers want to do business with companies that really care about them and meet their needs at the right time.
This, verily, would magnify your business traffic through massive product awareness since coupon deal sites are often flooded with dozens of target customers.
Why not have a go at it and see the opportunities lurking around this digital marketing strategy for any small business.
20) Automation
Life has become so easy in the digital marketing space if you are well equipped with the latest trends and developments.
This is why you can run most of your digital marketing campaigns with relative ease.
The main reason why this is the last on the list of best digital marketing strategies for small businesses is that you need to know about other digital marketing tools before automating them to achieve your set goals and objectives.
Combining your business activities and all the digital marketing campaign for optimal results can be really daunting for small businesses, hence the need for an automation platform.
These platforms relieve you of the stress of following up your digital marketing campaigns.
Hootsuite, Mailchimp, Aweber, and lots more are great examples of automation platform. They help you manage your social media campaign, email marketing, blog posts, and lots more effectively.
Conclusion
One of the ways to become relevant in any industry is to keep abreast of the trends that are making waves in the digital space.
Hence, it is advisable to tap into any of these strategies and give your small business a major upgrade in a minimal time frame.
All these strategies have a great ROI rate, which means you don’t need to worry about how much you spend to achieve them.
Drop your questions, observations, and recommendations in the comment section and I would be glad to attend to them as soon as possible.