When it comes to digital marketing strategies – it can seem quite intimidating for small businesses. They might think that they’ll require all these complex solutions, however, you can start small and expand from there. With the rise of digital marketing, it is best to understand some key strategies that can help boost your awareness online and outperform your competition.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Many people fall into the trap of thinking that once they create a website, they’ll magically get tons of traffic, messages, and sales. But in reality, creating a website is just the beginning of the journey. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google, Bing, etc. By optimising your website, you can increase the chances that potential customers will find your business when searching for products or services like yours.
- Keyword Research – identifying the keywords and phrases that people are using to find products or services like yours is critical to effective SEO. This process involves researching relevant keywords, analysing search volumes and competition, and determining which keywords to target. You can use free tools like Google Trends to search for terms that you think people would google to find your products.
- On-page Optimisation – after identifying your target keywords, it’s important to optimise your website’s pages to rank for them. This can include optimising your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and content to include your target keywords. You can use a site like SEOptimer to help you highlight some issues.
- Off-page Optimisation – off-page optimisation involves building backlinks to your website from other sites. Backlinks signal to search engines that other sites consider your content to be valuable and authoritative. Building quality backlinks from reputable websites is important for improving your website’s search engine rankings.
Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be a powerful tool for small business owners looking to connect with customers and promote their products or services. Below are a few ways that small business owners can leverage social media.
- Building a strong social media presence – by creating a business page on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, you can establish a presence on these platforms and engage with customers. This is dependent on where your audience spends time. Create content, running promotions, and responding to customer comments or messages.
- Paid social media advertising – with the ability to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, social media advertising can be a cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to create ads that can be displayed in users’ newsfeeds, stories, or even within specific groups.
- Influencer marketing – identifying and partnering with social media influencers in your industry can be an effective way to promote your products or services to a wider audience. Influencers are individuals with a larger following on social media and can help you reach your target audience more effectively.
Email Marketing
Email marketing can be a great way to keep customers informed about your business, keep you top of mind and encourage repeat purchases. Here are a few key components of effective email marketing:
- Building an email list – the first step to effective email marketing is building a list of subscribers. You can do this by creating a sign-up form on your website, offering an incentive for signing up, and promoting your list through social media and other channels.
- Crafting effective email campaigns – once you have a list of subscribers, you can start creating and sending out email campaigns. These can include newsletters, promotional emails, or even automated drip campaigns. To be effective, your emails should be visually pleasing, well-written, and include a clear call-to-action.
- Segmenting your email list – as your email list grows, it becomes increasingly important to segment it into smaller groups. This will allow you to create more targeted campaigns that are more likely to be effective.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the practice of creating valuable, informative, and engaging content that can attract and engage new customers. By providing helpful information, you can establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and build trust with potential customers. Here are a few key components of effective content marketing:
- Identifying your target audience – before you can create effective content, it’s important to understand who you are creating it for. This includes identifying your target audience’s pain points, needs, and preferences.
- Creating a content calendar – having a content calendar can help ensure that you are consistently creating and publishing new content. It also allows you to plan ahead and make sure that you are covering a variety of topics that are relevant to your target audience.
- Creating different types of content – while blog posts are a great way to provide helpful information, they are not the only type of content you should be creating. You should also consider creating infographics, videos, webinars, and other types of content that can help you to reach your audience in different ways.
- Optimising your content – even the best content will be ineffective if no one sees it. That’s why it’s important to optimise your content for search engines and social media. This includes optimising your meta tags, images, and other elements of your website.
- Measuring and analysing performance – once you’ve created and published your content, it’s important to measure how well it’s performing. This includes Analysing your website’s traffic, engagement, and conversion rates to see which pieces of content are resonating most with your audience.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising allows you to place ads on search engine results pages and other websites, and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. In our experience for smaller companies, this can be a bit more expensive that social advertising, but an avenue to consider as you are targeting people who already one step further in the funnel because they are looking for products like yours, but can be an effective way to drive more traffic to your site and generate more sales. Here are a few key components of effective PPC advertising:
- Keyword research – as with SEO, keyword research is a critical component of PPC advertising. By understanding the keywords that people are using to find products or services like yours, you can create more effective ads.
- Ad copy and design – your ads should be visually pleasing, well-written, and include a clear call-to-action. It is also important to use persuasive language that motivates users to click on the ad.
- Landing pages – your landing page is the page that users are directed to when they click on your ad. It is important that your landing page is relevant to the ad and provides a clear and easy path to conversion.
- Bid management – PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads allow you to bid on keywords, the higher you bid the higher chance your ad will show. It is important to have a good understanding of the cost per click (CPC) and to manage your bids accordingly.
- Campaign measurement and optimisation – as with content marketing, it’s important to measure and analyse the performance of your PPC campaigns. This includes analysing click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) to see which ads and keywords are performing the best.
Overall, both Content Marketing and PPC advertising are important aspect of digital marketing, but how and when you use them will depend on your goals, audience and budget. It’s important to have a good understanding of these different strategies and experiment with what works best for your business.
