In the US, small businesses account for 99.7% of all the businesses. Hence, we can say that without small businesses, the economy will not survive. They provide millions of job opportunities. That’s why they are as important as large corporations.
But with thousands of small businesses around the globe, the competition becomes stiff. That’s why business owners try to compete by utilizing marketing strategies for their brand to work.
There are various techniques business owners can try to market their brand. But the most effective in our current times is digital marketing.
Definition of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a form of advertising that mainly focuses on delivering content through digital channels. It includes search engines, websites, email, social media, and more. It’s advertising delivered through any electronic device.
Since most people or customers rely on using their mobile devices, online media or advertising is the most effective way to promote a brand.
Different Digital Marketing Strategies
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
93% of online interaction or decision-making before purchasing a product starts with a search engine.
SEO is a digital marketing strategy that centers on improving a website’s rank on the search engine. It uses keywords and phrases that are related to the business’s niche. The higher a website ranks on search engines, the more clicks, and visits it gets.
When your website ranks higher on search engines, you have a better chance of getting leads or selling your products. You can gather the data and turn leads to paying customers with a few more marketing strategies.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is responsible for reaching and connecting to consumers. It provides educational content or information that a person needs. It can come in the form of a blog post, video, infographics, and more.
It works in tandem with SEO marketing as you use specific keywords for your content to rank on social engines. The goal of content marketing is to increase traffic and generate conversion.
Email Marketing
There are 293.6 billion emails sent every day, and it is expected to increase to over 347.3 billion by 2022. That is a lot of emails! Therefore, email marketing is still valuable in this digital age.
Often, email marketing tends to encourage repeat orders or retain previous customers. Although it also gains new ones, it’s much more of building brand awareness and loyal consumers.
Email marketing’s content includes beneficial information that would help your clients with what they need, or they’ll remember your brand whenever they require something. Each email campaign varies. It may be a coupon, sale, news, or so on.
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
In PPC, marketers bid for keywords that they want their ads to show on search engines. PPC content appears along with organic searches but is on top of the list. The only time you pay for the ad is when someone clicks on it.
PPC targets people who are sure of purchasing a product. When they click your ad, they’ll be directed to a landing page that can either be the product itself, a newsletter, or any action.
Social Media Marketing
SMM is designed to help brand awareness, increase conversion, and bring in more leads.
The campaigns created for SMM depend on the platform a business use. There are various types of social media.
- Snapchat
- Tik Tok
- YouTube
Since there are millions of active users daily on each platform, marketers must create content (videos, images, and more) to grab people’s attention.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is a powerful social media marketing strategy. As the demand of viewers increases for video content online, the more marketers invest in it.
With video content, consumers are given information that they need and one that adds value to them. There is plenty of video content a business can create. It could be instructional, an announcement video, behind the scenes, user-generated content, and more.
It aims to build brand awareness, convert leads, and increase company revenue.
Voice Search
Voice search is the latest digital marketing strategy that’s rising. With people wanting things to be convenient, instead of typing, they want to make queries faster than ever.
When you optimize your content for voice search, you can be on Google’s featured snippet or top of SERP. By ranking on top of the search engine, you become more visible to potential customers.
As a business, any digital marketing strategy that can drive sales and grow your brand is what you should choose as your marketing strategy.
Among the mentioned digital marketing forms, social media marketing is the popular form used by small businesses. It’s free, and most of their customers are highly active online than on any platform.
So how can social media help your business grow?
How Social Media Affect Small Businesses
Helps Reach Bigger Audience
With billions of social media users and growing, small business owners can find their particular target audience on this platform.
Social media can bring more traffic to your website or online shop when you have the right content for your target audience.
In the past, social media is used to build brand awareness and promote your products, but now it’s more than that. Small businesses engage with customers, build community, and directly sell on Instagram.
The most popular social media platform as of 2021 is Facebook, with 2.7 million active users. However, you can choose which social platforms you want to promote your product or business.
Social platforms like Tik Tok, Instagram, and Twitter are mostly younger users (Millennials and Gen Z).
Learn who your target audiences are and what content you can produce before selecting a platform.
Drives More Sales
As mentioned earlier, social media brings you a large audience. You can reach out to anyone online to build your brand. Putting your business out there can increase traffic and sales.
When you choose the right platform for your business, you can easily convert your leads to customers. As people visit your social media profile, more traffic enters your website. Therefore, you know that they are interested in your products. All you need to do is convince them to buy the product.
Engage with Your Customers
Personalize content, better customer service, and communicating with your audience can help small businesses grow.
When you put your business on social media, you can see what your customers want. You can reply to their comments and answer their questions quickly. Also, you get to collect feedback from customers to help you improve your brand.
Valuing what your customers need shows how you care.
Creates Brand Credibility
Most people check a brand through their social media accounts. They want to know if your business is still existing or what others say about it.
People check on reviews, so encourage your customers to leave one on your social media page. The more positive reviews you get, the better your chance of selling a product.
However, it’s not all the time you can please a customer. So, responding to a negative comment professionally also matters. Customers or potential buyers would want to know that their concerns matter, so responding to negative feedback or experiences of your customers show that you care for their needs.
Build Brand Loyalty
Building customer loyalty can keep your brand relevant for a long time. People will keep coming back for more, and what’s even great, they’ll bring in new customers.
Social media plays a major role in building loyal fans and relationships with your customers. Your loyal customers keep you ahead of the competition. Even though there are alternative options, people will always choose your brand if they trust it. Also, loyal followers can promote your brand without any effort on your part.
People share online about the things that they like. So, if your brand meets their demand, they are more likely to share their positive experience with others.
Keeps Your Business a Step Ahead of Your Competitors
Knowing what your competitors do to stay active and get better sales can help you with your strategies. You don’t have to copy what your competitors are doing. All you need to do is see what content they deliver or what they don’t provide that you can.
Marketing professionals can use tools or productivity tools to check on their competitors and collaborate with their team to create engaging content.
Social media is a great way to learn about other businesses. You can get ideas to help you create a campaign and content that gets you ahead of the game.
Increase Website Traffic
If most of your content is posted on your website, you can use social media to bring more traffic. Sharing your content on various social platforms can help people discover your brand.
As people visit your website, they’ll get the chance to explore it and eventually purchase your product or service.
Conclusion
Social media is an excellent way to build brand awareness, reach customers, promote your website, and create strategies that get you ahead of your competitors. If you want to succeed in your social media campaign, learn how to set goals and create engaging content.
Vanessa Venugopal is a passionate content writer. With four years of experience, she mastered the art of writing in various styles and topics. She is currently writing for Softvire Australia and Softvire New Zealand.
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