How ToEmpower Your Small Business through Digital Marketing?

03 June 2019

Ten years ago, if any small business wanted to promote itself, chances are that there were not many credible platforms around. Credible in terms of affordability and ensuring definite ROIs. For small businesses with low budgets, competing with big brands and Above The Line (ATL) advertising, was simply not possible.

However, in the past few years, the surge of the digital revolution meant that small businesses could make their presence felt in this world. As digital becomes a part of human existence, digital marketing has emerged as a reasonable, definite and direct marketing tool to help small brands.

From a brand website to Social Media Marketing, small brands have embraced the digital revolution wholeheartedly. This has helped them-

Drive traffic to their website
Make more sales conversions
Increase their revenues
Build an online community
Reach out to newer consumers

In this article, we look at the top 3 digital marketing strategies that are being used by small brands to help them grow their businesses.

1. Brand Website:

Let us start with the foundation of digital marketing. A brand website is like an online address for your brand. In many ways, it is similar to the physical store that the brand may or may not have. By being on Google search, every brand improves its chances of being discovered.

This helps more and more people know about the brand. By climbing the search pages, small brands vie for more clicks and revenues. This also opens up different avenues of growing businesses. Like an e-commerce store, Google AdSense revenues, collaborations, and other sources.

A brand website is a first and foremost thing that a small brand should invest in. It does not require huge investments or technical know-how. By outlining your major products and services, small brands can attract a huge consumer base.

2. Social Media Marketing:

When social media burst onto the scene, no one had expected it to have such a great impact on human civilization. As human beings spend more time on social media than on any other life activity (apart from work or sleep), small brands have flocked to the medium aggressively.

The most attractive proposition that drives social media is good content. In addition, the medium is free, unless you want to promote yourself in a paid fashion. By maintaining social media presence, brands have been able to reach out to newer audiences and build engagements and communities.

From Facebook to Instagram, from Snapchat to Pinterest, small brands are competing aggressively with big brands. When it comes to social media, great content and strategy take priority over outright infusion of money. You can learn more here about ways of using digital marketing for social effectively.

3. Google My Business (GMB):

Like social media, Google My Business has helped small brands integrate their online-offline presence. In other words, GMB helps local businesses find audiences by linking them to local populations and geographical locations.

For example, if anyone Google’s ‘Cake Shop’, Google located the person’s GPS and shows him the nearest cake shops in the area. If a small cake shop maintains its GMB page and is active on it, GMB will show that establishment right at the top.

This is one of the best digital platforms for small brands to maintain their online presence. Not only is GMB free, but it is also very credible and effective. All small brands need to do is maintain a thriving GMB profile.

Conclusion

Gone are those days when hoarding, billboards and TV primetime were the only ways of reaching audiences. The digital transformation has made digital marketing a potent force for small brands to excel. By maintaining an online presence, small brands can transform their businesses completely.

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7 Proven Marketing Tactics to Increase your ROI in 2018

The digital marketing landscape has become more diversified than ever in 2018 because consumers are generating their own content and marketers are searching for more ways to create product awareness and interest. Since the digital space is highly competitive, marketers are ready to do whatever they can for gaining a competitive advantage. However, instead of dipping your hand in all the pies, it is best if you use marketing strategies that are bound to increase your ROI in the form of more leads, higher traffic, increased conversion, and sales. In a nutshell, you want to use tactics that add something to your bottom line. Listed below are 7 of those marketing tactics that do exactly that and can be used to boost profits in 2018: Tactic 1: Instagram Ads After Facebook, Instagram has become the newest force in social media. Just like Facebook Sponsored Posts and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets have given results, Instagram Ads can also be immensely powerful. They are like digital chameleons because they are able to blend in with the audience’s feed for increasing awareness and driving traffic to your website. While the demographics of the social network is similar to that of Facebook, Instagram has distinguished itself with a greater level of engagement and creativity and gives you exposure to the right audience. Tactic 2: Reviews The online reputation of a business can be hugely influenced by customer reviews. Businesses with no reviews, no recent reviews or with negative ones are at a significant disadvantage as opposed to their competition. As a matter of fact, more than 80% of people have stated that their buying decisions are influenced by negative customer reviews. Thus, it is essential for every business to get positive customer reviews and should also respond to them in a timely manner. Positive reviews can be showcased on the website and on social media and negative reviews can be addressed before they go viral. Improving the customer review score boosts SEO ranking and improves online reputation. The best way to get reviews from your customers is by contacting them directly. By using a tool called GMass, you can email all of your customers at one time asking them to write a review of their experience. They would be more likely to write a review if they are already online checking their emails than having to remember to write one after they got home from their shopping trip. Tactic 3: Evergreen Content This is content that stays relevant and interesting for a long time, regardless of any cultural change. This can include industry resources, tutorials, tips, and product reviews. While this usually refers to white papers and blog content, evergreen content can also be used for video content, infographics, and email marketing. Tactic 4: Crowdsourced Content Yes, the statement ‘content is king’ might be getting old, but it remains true still. Content remains very powerful in today’s competitive market and can turn the tide for a business. The problem is that turning out heaps of creative and useful content requires lots of resources and time. Therefore, it is not surprising to see a new trend emerge; businesses have begun to collaborate and crowdsource because this allows them to get access to meaningful and relevant content. By soliciting ideas from others, a business is able to get the best quality content and save a ton of its valuable time without making any compromises on quality. With crowdsourcing, you leave the idea and word generation to someone else, mostly in your industry. This enables a business to get insights it may not have come up on its own. Also, using this content allows you to reach a greater audience because the ones who created the content will also share it out. Read also: Improve Your Local SEO Via Content Marketing Tactic 5: Retargeting Ads You just checked out an amazing new camera on Amazon and now when you visit Facebook, YouTube or any other website, you can see ads about cameras. This is a feature of Google Adwords and ad serving networks of other search engines, which is called retargeting or remarketing. When you check a business’s website, they can serve you with relevant and interesting ads wherever you go. Marketers are thrilled with this tactic whereas customers feel a bit creeped out. The best part? Your business already knows what the customer is looking for and targeting them with similar products will actually bring them back to you. Tactic 6: Video Content Marketing Traditionally, video marketing for dispersing content was termed unfeasible and getting an ROI from the video was quite difficult. However, this is the era of smartphones that have spectacular cameras and video streaming services that show you videos in just a few taps. This means that now the benefits of video content marketing can go beyond its cost. Every business needs to use video for product launches, Vlogs, tutorials, and tips because they provide value to the viewers. Videos allow a business to use humor, appeal to emotion and aid apprehension for relating to your customers in a better way. The same cannot be achieved with a written blog. Tactic 7: Custom Landing Pages Simply put, landing pages are webpages describing a piece of content, which require users to enter their information to unlock the said content. It is regarded as a lead capture tool because you want to be able to convert the readers into leads and customers when they go over your content. Otherwise, it is only a waste of time and resources. Landing pages linked from an email or blog should be connected to digital marketing content. Also, the featured content can be an eBook, white paper or anything else, but it has to be valuable enough for people to give their contact info. Using these 7 proven marketing tactics will help a business in increasing its ROI in 2018 effectively. Read also: Building a Brand for Your Small Business Avoid these 5 Mistakes before Starting an SEO Influence Marketing Tool to Move from Local to Global Market How to Write and Design an Article that Attracts New Customers to Your Business

5 Benefits of Digitalization in Marketing

Marketing is an integral part of any business. It is the bridge that connects consumers to products. You want consumers to purchase from you and trust your company as a business owner. So, you can undermine the value of good publicity for your company. Globally, companies are willing to spend trillions of dollars to work on their marketing plan, including working on witty commercials, socially aware campaigns, and even constructing a user-friendly website convenient for consumers. Therefore, digitalization in marketing is no less than an asset for any flourishing business. This digitization brings profitability and visibility and helps your business grow in exchange for minimal effort. But the perks of going online don’t end here. Buckle up and learn more about the advantages digitalization in marketing has brought. 5 Noticeable Benefits of Digitalization in Marketing 1. Accessible Digital Tools There was a time when putting up an advertisement was tedious. You had to make several stops along the way to find a reliable advertising company, think of a catchy billboard sign, and negotiate a price. This task was also risky since you get one shot to run a proper advertisement in exchange for a handsome price. In addition, if your commercial contained a mistake or a typing error, it would cost an additional fee to get that corrected. However, in the age of digitization, you no longer have to deal with this to spread the word about your business. Platforms like the DigitalSupermarket have all the digitalization in marketing packages you need to create and manage great online advertisements. So whether you’re looking for ways to upgrade your SEO, build your content, or need a nifty tool to make your company popular in social spaces, you can find them here. By browsing through the different prices, you can match with a platform that goes nicely with your budget and get to work right away. 2. Saves You Money As a business, you want to save every penny running your business. That is because maintaining a company is expensive. To have a flexible budget, you need some cash in hand. Therefore by relying on types of digital marketing, you get an opportunity to save money by choosing cost-effective ads. For instance, while opting for a pay-per-click advertisement, you can choose from spending less than $500 or staying within $1,000 to determine the number of ads you need and how frequently they should target consumers. Alternatively, social media marketing also offers minimal costs. You may need to spend a small amount to use applications to schedule your posts online and create a social media campaign, but you don’t need to break the bank. By going on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, you can quickly post content about your company and display products by going on Instagram live or Twitter to tweet more about your business by sharing relatable hashtags. Saving money allows you to spread your wings, continue posting quality content, and use your money to work on other projects. So now you’re no longer obliged to spend thousands of dollars to make your company visible and expand. Related guide: Importance of Storytelling in Social Media Marketing 3. Let’s You Cultivate Consumer Trust A customer trusts any company based on two factors. One is that the business produces quality goods, and two, the company makes an effort to connect with them. Your culturally sensitive ads will work only for a short time if you only produce conventional ads but don’t bother keeping in touch with your consumers. You need to make customers feel important and feel as if they’re essential to your business. Therefore, through marketing techniques like personalized emails and introducing loyalty points, you can build an understanding with your client. Digital marketing analysis also allows you to check on your consumer’s habits, so when you’re curating an email for them, you know what their favorite products are and reference them in the mail. This makes the email relatable and shows the customer how much you care about their choices instead of sending a generic happy holiday greeting card. Try to put consumers with similar purchasing habits into one subscriber list to generate leads and offer the same seasonal discounts. Loyalty cards are another great way to ensure you’re keeping tabs on your clients. By asking your consumer base to subscribe to your business and provide their details, you can create unique digital cards which redeem loyalty points. With every purchase, a consumer gets points which should give them access to gifts, free samples, and deals encouraging them to buy from you more. 4. Allows You To Compete On A Wide Scale Whether you’re a small business or a large booming industry, you can compete with anyone, anytime, by using digital marketing. Online spaces work differently. To gain an edge over your competitor, you need to know how to make content, build SEO, make sure your website is easy to follow, and follow hot trends. These include creating a tik to video or donating to social causes. When you’re online, the size of your office, number of employees, and duration of your business are meaningless. It all falls to where you rank on the search engine results, the consumers you attract, and how smart you are in utilizing keywords in your content. Once you manage your business online, you can quickly build a reputation and even earn a high net worth. Therefore, get used to digital marketing if you’re trying to make a name for yourself without going overboard with spending an exuberant amount. Related guide: What Is The Future Of Digital Marketing In Regards To Shaping Up Small And Large Businesses? 5. Your Progress Is Measurable Tracking how well you did with your marketing campaign is imperative since you want to know whether you got a high turnover rate or not. Unlike traditional billboards, where you can’t track the number of views, digital marketing comes with metrics. Tools like google analytics provide you with an optimal breakdown of your marketing tactic. For example, you can see the number of comments, likes, shares, and even purchases your business got. This can help you make a graph and deduce what marketing tactics benefit you every year and what month always gets you new leads. For instance, you may notice that your products sell well during the holidays, and your social media posts also get shared more around the same time. So you can study what aspects of your campaign spoke to consumers around that period. As a result, you will have a better idea of what you need to do for your company. When you learn about the return on investment your campaigns generated, it helps you map out new plans, work on your SEO, and discard methods that don’t yield results, saving you more money. You flourish when you’re no longer in the dark about how well you’re doing as a business. Final Thoughts Digitalization in marketing has taken the world of business by storm. It has brought benefits that traditional marketing can no longer compete with. By going online, you can find your consumers, get their trust, become visible, get ahead of your competition with no fear and ultimately gauge where your business stands. There is nothing better than enabling your organization to find a stable footing in the marketing sector as a business owner. In addition, digitalization in marketing also pulls back costs. It helps you design a budget that prevents your company funds from getting drained. So instead of spending thousands of dollars on marketing with a few hundred bucks or at most less than $5,000, you have a strong campaign ready for launch. Read Also: Effective Ways to Utilize Digital Marketing How to empower Your Small Business through Digital Marketing? Advantages of Search Engine Marketing in Tulsa 6 Reasons Why Infographics Are Important in Media Marketing Benefits of Having a Strong Digital Marketing Program

Make Your Business Popular Online

Start Your Website: Almost for every businessman, whether small or big getting the highest rank on search engines is a dream. To achieve this, you should build and manage high-quality and useful for customers website. Let get the insight of the most important reasons on commercial site search ranking. For every website, the home page is very influential, so the presentation part is more important. If they find the improper link or irrelevant link, they ask you to edit it. Content, keywords, and the website design are essential things for SEO marketing. The content play a very important part in website promotion therefore content should be very clear and relevant. Unclear and illogical text can get the trouble for your website as Google can block it. Use of keywords should be appropriate and limited. It should not be repeated more than thrice. If your website has hyperlinks which do not take the user to the right page, it should be corrected or deleted. Also, it's very important to create clear, well-structured and easy to use website design. It should allow users to find any information in not more than three clicks, that will be loaded quickly as on desktop as on mobile. Use Social Media: The next step is related to social media marketing ideas which will improve the outlook for your online business It's likely that you're aware of the potential effect of social networking around the world. Do you know that internet websites are also great for promoting your business? Below are some ways you can use social internet marketing that will help you increase your organization. Create your post's headlines clever or attractive. The very first thing the various reader's views is the heading. Your headline must be interesting, useful, and also beneficial. Set some real attempt into great headlines. If you are planning to create a social networking profile, you must be prepared to regularly upgrade it. Staying updated will keep your articles new. Therefore folks think that they're studying something new and also interesting. Enhance your websites many times per week to enhance the standard of your articles. One great way of boosting your readers is by providing discount coupons as well as special discounts to them. Your customers will increase your gains and provide you extra product sales after they feel they're in a membership that is special. A highly effective Social Media Marketing strategy requires more than just good articles; it requires to resonate with buyers and also readers. So just be sure you do not change all your focus on one area like video clips and that you utilize resources like Facebook tweets or Twitter posts to assist you to market your products or organization. The objective must be to get and keep a reader's interest for as long as essential to deliver information. The long activity, obviously, is to have recurring site visitors. Do not let social media's popularity mislead you; you still have to make a cogent strategy to take benefit of this promoting. You must know how social media marketing can assist you and exactly how you can manage issues that come along with it. Managing a campaign with both training and organizing beneath your belt can help you defeat your rivals and build much more efficient techniques. Develop a competition for your clients through Twitter. Many people appreciate joining a contest or competition. By running either a contest or competition on your Twitter, the attraction of your web page will increase rapidly. These kinds of marketing promotions can help increase the popularity of your brand name. Utilize some network marketing sites for the best success. Facebook is hugely preferred. However, Myspace still has a following, as well as Twitter is growing in popularity. You have a higher possibility of success if you implement various kinds of media outlets. By using these tips, social networking sites will help make your organization. Social network sites now go beyond the occasional rank replace or discussed picture book; these days, these websites offer important chances for organizations. By applying the knowledge you have figured out above, you'll be able to use social networking to boost your business position. Read More : 1. The 10 WordPress Plugins Every Successful Blogger Uses 2. Building A Brand For Your Small Business About the Author: Carol James is an EssayLab writer and senior editor. She has an MA degree in social sciences and is an excellent specialist in this field. Moreover, Carol writes articles, reviews on the different subjects interesting to her readers. So, if you have any questions, suggestions on the writing, feel free to ask her!