5 Ways to Use Digital Marketing for Small Business

The question of whether digital marketing is necessary for small businesses online has been answered: having a digital footprint is essential if your small business is going to make it in this day and age. You may not know how to leverage digital marketing for small business, so how will you make the internet work for you, and how can you effectively reach your target audience?

We can help! Here are five ways to use digital marketing for your small business.

1. Educate Yourself First

As with any skill, you’ll need to learn the basics and practice them a lot before you become a master of digital marketing. Being tech-savvy will take some effort. After all, even though you know everything about your own business and your own industry, you might not know how to bring your message to the world.

A good place to start is with books. Professional technical books are available in a variety of formats. If you can’t find anything in your local bookstores, check out your local library. Do a little research before you go to make sure that the books you get are as up-to-date as you can get them. You might even be able to download these books as an ebook or audiobook so you can read them on the go whenever you have a few minutes.

Don’t say you don’t have time to read. Make a few minutes in your day to slow down and really take in a few pages or a new chapter. Your next great idea could be sparked during one of these sessions.

If you know that you don’t learn by reading books (everyone has different learning styles), there are lots of other ways. Watch how-to videos, read shorter articles, or follow a related tech media outlet for little doses of daily information.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is a good tool to start with because everyone needs it and so few really understand it. SEO is the practice of using keywords to get your webpage listed at the top of search engine results.

One tip for using SEO is to think of your keywords as your customers will use them. For instance, if you are thinking up keywords for your landscaping business and you work with masonry, make sure to mention in a blog article or some of your literature that you work with “brick” in your designs.

You don’t need to eliminate the word “masonry,” but adding in the word “brick” will help increase your chances that your audience will be able to find what they’re looking for in your article. Your visibility will be a little higher because you included a wider range of keywords.

3. Social Media

Choosing the best social media platform for your business will increase your chances of engaging your potential customers. Take the landscaping business as an example: if you advertise landscaping services on LinkedIn, you may not get a lot of hits because people on LinkedIn are looking for business connections or internships. They might be job searching, strengthening professional relationships, or doing their own market research. You may find people to help run your landscaping business, but you may not get a lot of new customers.

Videos also don’t have to go viral in order to boost your business. Aim to be as authentic to your brand as you can. This will help your business grow at a sustainable pace and will show your audience what you’re interested in. Drawing in potential customers this way is a tried-and-true method.

Before creating a new social media account, think about your goals, who your audience is, and where you might find them.

4. Polling and Reviews

It seems too simple, but what better way to receive feedback than to ask for it? Polling your audience on what kind of content they want to see is a great way to spark a list of future blog posts, videos, or even products that may already have buyers just waiting for them.

Ask if they have any questions for you, and build on their answers. Check out comment threads on Facebook and Twitter, and use the polling features on Instagram and TikTok to ask questions.

Check out your customer reviews as well. Schedule a weekly session to go through your Yelp and Google reviews. Respond to everything, no matter what it says. Thank customers for posting positive reviews, and make note of criticism you receive so you can perform customer service and fix those problems.

Don’t forget to say thank you to those reviewers too. You can’t plan for everything; sometimes you’ll only know about problems once they happen. Bringing these problems to your attention will smooth the way in the future.

5. Email Marketing

Consumers are checking their email on their smartphones now more and more, so email marketing has increased and can be a valuable digital marketing tool for a small business. When someone joins your newsletter, even if they don’t buy anything, you have a connection you can work with. They may become loyal customers later.

Whenever you can, add a personal note or include your customer’s name in the email. Your conversion rate will increase by 25 to 35 percent this way. Make sure your newsletter looks good in a mobile format since people are often looking at their emails on their phones. Don’t ramble on: keep your message short and to the point. You don’t want to make them hunt for it.

If you’re ready for this step, there are many email marketing apps available today that can help you not only send the email but interpret the data you receive from your email marketing campaign.

Your audience is out there, only waiting for you to reach them. Hopefully, these tools will generate some ideas to get you started. And as always, the creative and innovative teams at InnoVision are here for you. Contact us today to see how our digital marketing capabilities and ideas can help grow your small business for the future.