Optimize your website for mobile.
Create a Google My Business listing.
Understand your customers and your target audience for digital marketing.
Invest in local marketing.
Start a blog and incorporate content marketing into your SEO strategy.
Find the social media channel that’s best suited for your business.
Encourage customers to leave online reviews.
Create a reliable email list and leverage email marketing.
Use digital advertising to market to your target audience.
Don’t forget about customer service—respond to online feedback quickly.
Whether you run an ecommerce business or traditional brick-and-mortar store, digital marketing has become essential for any and all businesses. With the constant growth and popularity of different technologies, social media platforms, and online-based communication, it’s more important than ever that business owners invest in the right digital marketing strategies to promote their brands and remain competitive in the marketplace.
As a busy entrepreneur, however, you may be wondering where to start with this form of small business marketing. Luckily, we’re here to help. We’ve compiled 10 of the best digital marketing tips—with advice from professionals experienced in the industry.
Trying to craft a digital marketing strategy can be difficult—after all, digital marketing encompasses so many different facets of the online world. It’s important to remember, however, that your business doesn’t need to try to cover all of the areas of digital marketing. On the other hand, it’s very likely you’ll be more successful focusing on a few strategies (especially when you’re just starting out) and seeing how they work for your business.
With this in mind, whether you’re a startup, established business, or simply a digital marketing beginner, you can refer to the following digital marketing tips to help promote your business online.
1. Optimize your website for mobile.
There’s no doubt about it, mobile marketing has become more relevant than ever—with more and more consumers browsing and making purchases using their smartphones or tablets. Although investing in mobile-specific marketing can require a significant investment, especially if you’re just starting out in digital marketing, you can take the first step by ensuring that your business’s website is optimized for mobile.
2. Create a Google My Business listing.
One of the simplest (and free) digital marketing tips we can share is to create a “Google My Business” listing. This listing, called a Google My Business listing, is an extremely useful way to provide potential or current customers with essential information about your business. To edit the listing, all you have to do is claim your listing (if one already exists) or create one for your business.
Once you’ve completed your listing, you have a lasting digital marketing strategy at work through Google—don’t forget, though, if any of this information about your business changes, you’ll want to update your listing to reflect those changes.
3. Understand your customers and your target audience for digital marketing.
As you likely know, a key to marketing, in general, is understanding your customers: Who are they? What are their likes, dislikes, preferences? What do they respond to?
This same principle applies to digital marketing. In order to have a successful digital marketing strategy, you not only need to understand your customers, but also who your customers are online. To this point, your target audience for digital marketing might be a little different than your target audience for word of mouth or direct mail marketing.
Of course, your audiences might overlap, depending on your individual business, but it’s important to remember that different customers are more active on different platforms as well—the audience you’re trying to reach on Instagram might not necessarily be the same one you’re marketing to through email—so you’ll want to research and implement your tactics accordingly.
4. Invest in local marketing.
Jumping off our last tip, if your business operates in a local market, you’ll want to take advantage of the digital marketing strategies that specifically appeal and relate to that audience.
In addition to creating a Google My Business listing, you can also claim and edit your business listing on other local search directories, like Yelp or Bing places for business. Similarly, you can consider other local marketing strategies, such as:
Creating Google or social media ads targeting your geographic area.
Implementing a direct mail campaign in your local area.
Hosting or participating in a community event.
5. Start a blog and incorporate content marketing into your SEO strategy.
Content marketing is just one facet of digital marketing as a whole—but if done right, it can make a huge impact on your ability to attract customers and drive sales. This being said, one of the simplest ways to get involved in content marketing is to create a blog on your business’s website.
On your blog, you can write about topics related to your business, showing your expertise and providing helpful information—both of which will drive people to your website, as well as help your search rankings.
6. Find the social media channel that’s best suited for your business.
Just like content marketing, social media marketing is another offshoot of the larger realm of digital marketing—and an important one at that. After all, small business marketing statistics show that 74% of consumers rely on social media to guide purchasing decisions.
This being said, however, social media is complicated, always changing, and can require much more effort than you might think. Therefore, instead of trying to excel on all social media platforms, you might try this low-cost digital marketing tip: Determine the social media channel that’s best for your business and focus your energy there.
7. Encourage customers to leave online reviews.
One of the best and completely free digital marketing tips? Encourage customers to leave online reviews and moderate your business’s profile on review sites.
Similar to claiming your business listing on Google or another local site, you can claim your business profile on review sites, including Yelp, TrustPilot, and others. You can use signage in your location and links on your website or in your emails to encourage your customers to write reviews of your business.
Then, you’ll want to monitor your reviews and quickly respond to any reviews that are negative. Ideally, you’ll want to try and maintain a rating of four stars or above.
All of this being said, ultimately, the wins you can gain from this tactic are twofold. First, you can continue to build a rapport and interact with existing customers, and second, you can use their reviews to attract and influence other potential customers to visiting or purchasing from your business.
8. Create a reliable email list and leverage email marketing.
Email is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics out there. Whether they’re consumers or business buyers, and no matter what their age, just about everyone checks their email.
Therefore, to take advantage of the possibilities of email, the first thing you’ll want to do is build a reliable email list. Email marketing is great, but isn’t worth nearly as much if you don’t have the right people to email. If you don’t currently have an email list, there are a variety of lead generation strategies that you can employ to start collecting information (including email addresses) about existing and potential customers.
After you have a solid email list, then you can start using it to your advantage. You might begin by creating a monthly email newsletter or sending out regular messages with special offers, news, and discounts.
Depending on the way you gather your email list and the platform you use to send emails, this is another extremely low-cost digital marketing tip—and one that will continue to be useful as you build on it.
9. Use digital advertising to market to your target audience.
Although some of the digital marketing tips we’ve reviewed thus far involve organic SEO and social media strategies, it’s important to remember that these tactics have limits. Most notably, the competition and influx of promotions and posts can make standing out in the digital sphere difficult, especially for startups or beginners.
Therefore, if you’re willing to spend a little money, it’s worth looking into digital advertising—whether on social media, on Google, or on other websites—to ensure that your business is getting in front of the right audience. With any of these digital advertising options, you’ll have the ability to choose the right keywords, target your specific audience, and hone in on those prospective customers who are most likely to want what you sell.
Along these lines, you can use digital advertising to target customers in your local area, in a specific age range, in a niche market, and more. As an example, if you decide to advertise on Facebook, you’ll be able to use the Facebook Ads platform—which allows you to get very granular about where you place your ads and who sees them.
Plus, after you get started advertising through different digital channels, you’ll then be able to take advantage of the retargeting tools offered by many of these platforms. With retargeting tools, you’ll be able to show your ads specifically to consumers who have already interacted with or purchased from your business—as well as increase the personalization that’s involved with your digital marketing and advertising strategies.
10. Don’t forget about customer service—respond to online feedback quickly.
When you’re operating in the digital world, it can be easy to feel disconnected from others and forget the customer service practices that you would adhere to if you were interacting with consumers in-person. Customer service, however, is a crucial part of digital marketing—and can be a determining factor in attracting (and perhaps more importantly) retaining customers.
So, if you’re looking to implement excellent customer service through your digital platforms, you might start by creating a contact page on your website where customers can find out how to contact you. Then, you’ll want to be sure to respond thoroughly and promptly to any requests, questions, or comments you receive from customers.
Additionally, you might decide to invest in a chatbot service, which can be a particularly useful customer service tool for ecommerce businesses, as well as larger established businesses.
Moreover, once you’ve determined how you’re going to implement customer service digitally, then you can include these offerings as part of your value proposition. When you market your company online, you can provide information about your customer service—making your business more approachable and desirable for potential customers.
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