We get it. It’s very difficult for a small business owner to juggle every aspect of running a business effectively while having to wear numerous hats. In many instances, small business owners handle the role of sales director, human resources director, and operations director, in addition to the possibility of numerous other roles that come with maintaining and driving growth of a business depending on the audience you serve and the product you market. Unfortunately, marketing can sometimes take a back seat, when in reality, it should be a primary focus to drive awareness of your business and increase sales. It’s important to invest to drive growth. If your target audience doesn’t know about your business, how are you going to sell your services or goods?
In this post, we provide you with a top-level look at what areas of digital marketing you should consider as an initial focus to keep your business relevant and drive sales.
Let’s start with the basics. What is Digital Marketing? Digital Marketing is the ability to promote your product/goods and/or service utilizing the internet with digital media as the medium. Digital Marketing allows you to target customers through the internet while consumers are actively utilizing a variety of screens; computers, tablets, mobile phones, and connected televisions.
Basics of Digital Media:
Search Marketing (SEM): text ads using relevant keywords in search engine results (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). This type of marketing is very effective for driving awareness and sales. It’s the “yellow pages” of the web. This is not the same as search engine optimization (SEO).
Online Display: Banner ads using a variety of tactics, including targeting by a users geography, demographics, audience attributes, similar sites they visit, in-market for a particular product based on their search results, etc. This type of advertising is very effective to drive awareness.
Video Ads: Video ads use similar targeting tactics as display to reach online users and are typically used to drive awareness. Consumers are visual. They love video, and as long as your message is short and to the point, and contains the main premise of your message within the first few seconds, you are golden. Grab their attention at the start, and they will more than likely stay until the end.
Social Media Marketing: Use social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. to drive awareness of your business based on a users geography, demographics, interests, etc. All social platforms engage with their users in a different way, so make sure to pay attention to your audience and where it would be best to reach them based on their targeting capabilities.
Email Marketing: Utilize a service which allows you to send emails to an opt-in database of customers to market your product, sales and other information to drive business and retain loyalty.
In addition to all of the above mentioned digital media forms to consider, there is also the data element; an analysis which should occur during and post-campaign. Because digital marketing is the most measurable form of media, data analysis is critical to the success of your campaigns. It allows you to identify what forms of media and targeting are working, what is not and where you can further optimize your current and future campaigns for success. Additionally, digital marketing helps you to understand your engaged audience to a much greater degree.
B. Rogers & Associates, LLC is a digital marketing and programmatic media consultancy based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. We partner with businesses and organizations, assisting with digital communication strategy, planning, implementation