Marketing has always been an important part of a business. You have to have a marketing strategy, whether it’s going through a list of potential clients and cold calling them, or going to networking events to meet people who can help you spread the word about your business. You can get a bunch of business cards or flyers printed out to hand off to people or put up a store with huge business signs.
Whatever the industry you are in, you have to have a way to spread word about your business.
Digital marketing is one avenue that your business can tap into. But before jumping into that, it’s best to have a better understanding of what it is and how your business can benefit from it.
There are a lot of definitions that fit digital marketing, but HubSpot said it best when they said that it’s using online tools to help leverage your business online. This can be through Google’s search engine, email marketing, social media marketing, having a business website to help build your online reputation, and others.
With the rise of internet use and its accessibility through desktops, laptops, and mobile phones, it makes a lot of sense for businesses to have an online presence.
Sounds easy enough, right? You can just create a Facebook page for your business or get a website up and running. There are so many ways to get your business online! So why do you need to pay a digital marketing agency to do it for you?
It’s true, you can easily put your business online through social media channels or a website. But it’s time consuming to do it while you’re trying to run your business. I’ll give you an example.
Last week, I had a meeting with a potential client asking for a business website. Before I went into the meeting, I looked for the company online. Typed it on Google, even checked it on Google Maps. No luck. Is the business new? No. As a matter of fact, they’ve been around for decades. So my first question was, why a website now?
His answer was simple yet highly relatable, “I’ve been thinking about having the business website for the past 5 years, but I couldn’t find someone who was dependable. Plus, I just didn’t have the time to make the content”
It’s a successful business that’s looking for ways to keep up with the times. They have the right plan to go online but smart enough to recognize that they want to find someone who will do it right for them.
Just by looking around you, you will notice that almost everyone depends on their mobile phones. Can’t decide where to eat? Google it. Forgot where that store is? Google it. How can your business benefit from digital marketing? Google it. The internet made it possible to look up everything you need to know by going online. Especially when you can all do it on a smartphone.
The challenge is how to put your business online and make it easy for your customers to find you when they need you.
The advantage of digital marketing over traditional marketing is that it’s cost-effective and you can measure what’s working and what’s not. If one of your digital strategies are not going as well as you thought it would, you can make immediate changes to your strategy!
For example, if you’re a pet shop and you want to attract more customers to your Facebook page. Your strategy is to provide content that your customers will like so that they will see you as someone they can trust, increasing your chances as the business they want to buy from. After several posts, you notice that your visitors engage with you more when you post about informational stuff rather than just a photo of the product you’re selling. From this, you now know that you should be posting more informational posts and find a way to creatively incorporate your products in your posts.
Other than the ease of putting your business online through social media channels and having a website, having an online presence makes it easier for your business to be found. When customers find you, you increase your chances of making more business.
Digital marketing is the best way to start marketing your small business. You don’t have to spend a lot to build a community around your brand plus you can do it anywhere with wifi and a laptop. You will find a lot of online tools that seem great for your marketing efforts, but only try and focus on 2-3 platforms if you can.
Or you can always just contact us and we can talk about strategies and how we can help you with your online presence and increase your customer reach!
Images used in this Blog: Devices, Man Thinking
