Most of us are already living in the digital world. We spend a significant part of our life on the Internet searching Google for answers and connecting with our friends on Facebook. We connect to the Internet through our desktop computers and even through our mobile phones so we cannot miss anything from the digital world. For small business owners, this is an indication that they need to penetrate the new media for promoting their business and creating good relationship with customers.
Since a large percentage of the consumers are already spending time on the Internet, businesses of all sizes should consider adjusting to this changing environment. You don’t need to be an owner of a large company to start leveraging the power of digital marketing. If you’re not yet into it, it’s a good step to realize how it can help your small business grow bigger. Here are 10 digital marketing tips for your business in the Philippines.
1. Build a website for your business.
Having a mobile-friendly and user-friendly website is the first step to building a great presence for your business on the Internet. It will be your very own digital marketing asset that you can control to power up various digital marketing strategies, such as content marketing, search engine marketing and social media marketing. Your web pages will also serve as your landing pages where your potential customers can visit anytime and anywhere to know more about your business.
2. Build a blog for your customers.
Blogging is a great digital marketing strategy to constantly communicate with your potential and existing customers. A blog with rich and valuable content can also attract thousands or even millions of readers who could be your potential customers. If you already have a website, you can build a blog within your website using the same domain name.
3. Start creating valuable content.
By creating interesting content in your landing pages and engaging stories in your blog posts, your website and blog could get higher rankings in search engines and be more shareable on social media. Take note that the content that attract more audience and users are those that are created for them, not for you. So know what your target audience wants.
4. Optimize your content for search engines.
Your potential customers are probably using search engines to find the products or services they want. Thus, optimize your homepage, landing pages and blog posts to become more discoverable on search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing. To increase your search engine visibility, make sure that your content can answer the queries or questions of your target customers.
5. Create social media pages for your business.
Determine the top social networking websites where your target customers are lurking. Are they always on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube? If they are always using all of them, then build your business pages on those social networks, and start sharing interesting content such as your blog posts, photos and videos to always engage with them.
6. Start meaningful conversations with your audience.
Don’t just write blog posts and share content on social media, but also listen to what your audience are saying about your business. Start and keep the good discussions with your audience by replying on the comments in your blog and social media posts.
7. Start building good relationship with your customers.
Don’t forget the marketing in digital marketing. No matter how we do business in the digital word using the most advanced technology like the mobile Internet, we should always prioritize good human relationship with our customers. Hence, always go for the things that will make your customers happy, like keeping their trust on you and giving them the best value for their money.
8. Analyze and utilize your big data.
Intelligent data like the information generated by Google Analytics and insights provided by Facebook pages can be useful for monitoring your digital marketing performance. They also provide important data like the demographics of your website traffic and social media followers. To maximize the results of your digital marketing campaign, don’t ignore these big data but use them to make better marketing decisions and ensure the success of your marketing campaign.
9. Create a strategy before you do it.
Digital marketing can be a powerful campaign to achieve your business goals. However, don’t just get too excited and implement digital marketing without creating a strategy. Without a digital marketing plan or strategy, your campaign could go wrong and waste your time and money. Hence, lay down your plan. Document your digital marketing objectives and the steps you need to do to achieve those objectives.
10. Get some help from a reliable digital marketing agency.
Some of the basic digital marketing tactics can be done by every business owner who’s knowledgeable with the Internet and social media. However, digital marketing also involves technical stuff that can only be done by digital marketing professionals. Furthermore, digital marketing involves a lot of hard work that can consume a big chunk of your time as a business operator. Hence, it’s wise to outsource digital marketing to a reliable agency or practitioner who will do it effectively and give you the best results.
Final thoughts
Digital marketing may be a new strategy for many small businesses in the Philippines. Some business owners may not even heard about it. If you’re doing business in the country, innovating your marketing strategy and implementing a digital strategy could be your way to winning your competition.
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
Very true. I like your thoughts here in your article. I really got it. I hope to read more tips like this in your site. Thank you.