2. Most small business struggle to have a consistent digital marketing
strategy. Designing a strategic online marketing plan is key to
developing new business relationships and retaining current clients.
Digital marketing can help small businesses compete with same
size companies and even bigger businesses. But digital marketing is
not only about having a great website full of interesting
information, there is much more that needs to be done in order to
kick off your business strategy and start obtaining results.
We have compiled a list of basic digital marketing tools you should
be using in your online strategy. From social media to email
newsletters and affiliate marketing, learn how to make the most
out of your online presence.
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3. Social media should be one of the key parts of your digital
marketing strategy. This alternative is very cheap compared to
other online marketing tools.
You should consider the most popular websites – Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn – to be part of your strategy, but you should also have a
look at other platforms such as Pinterest and Tumblr. Depending on
your vertical, you will see that some channels are better for the
type of consumers you want to target.
Once you have decided the platforms you want to use for your
business, build strong profiles by updating them on a regular basis
and keeping an interaction with your followers.
Use these platforms to show your followers more about your
business and the services you offer.
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4. By sending regular email newsletters to your customers, you can
keep them informed of any new products or services you are
offering. Email marketing also plays an essential role in a well-
planned digital marketing strategy and can be a key factor in
increasing conversions and sales.
Email marketing companies like Emailvision offer tools based on
integrated marketing that combine customer intelligence with
campaign management for email, mobile and social marketing.
These type of tools can help you analyse your customers’
behaviour (including purchase behaviour and responsiveness to
past campaigns), providing feedback to improve your newsletters
and obtain better results.
Image credit: Ian Lamont
5. Affiliate marketing is simply getting other businesses or people to
promote your services or products and rewarding them for each
referral or sale.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to market
your business, especially for small businesses. Have a look at the
different affiliate programmes available online and find the one
that better suits your needs.
This type of marketing is much less expensive than advertising, as
you only pay an agreed commission for it.
Image credit: Ed Yourdon
6. For small businesses, ranking high on search engines results is very
important. Your potential customers are always looking for the
services and products you are offering using different search
engines.
Being on the first pages of those results is essential. There are two
main marketing techniques you can use in order to achieve this:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC).
From a SEO perspective and as a small business owner, you need
to make sure that your website pages are easy to read by search
engines and you also need to figure out the best strategy using
keywords and link building to improve your results.
Alternatively, you can run PPC campaigns like Google Adwords to
bid on keywords relevant to your business so that your website is
displayed on the paid results of a search engine results page.
Image credit: Robert Scoble