The initial focus of any new small business is survival. After all of the time, effort, and money spent getting prepared to open a new small business; small business owners often struggle over how to get customers through the doors so the doors can stay open.
No matter how good a product or service is, nobody will buy or use it unless they know that it exists. Business marketing informs the public that your product or service exists and gives you the opportunity to convince potential customers that they should come to you.
Traditional methods of advertising such as print ads, direct mailers, and billboards are often used, but their reach is limited to where these ads are physically located or sent. Modern digital marketing allows a limitless reach with the ability to target specific demographics of potential customers. If you are a small business owner, failing to use digital marketing is failing to bring your business to today’s landscape.
Digital marketing can singlehandedly change your business and earning potential. The following is a discussion of how digital marketing can help you maximize the potential of your small business.
Advantages When Using Digital Marketing
People are glued to their cell phones and computers for much of any day. Whether at work, home, or on the road, people are constantly seeking interaction with others through various electronic mediums. Digital marketing aims to capitalize on these habits. When small business owners advertise digitally, they can find several advantages over traditional forms of printed marketing, including:
- Reaching a broader potential customer base for less money
- Directly interact with any potential customer
- Easily change any marketing media without high costs such as printing
- Target specific potential customers through various marketing data technologies
- Learn precisely what your customers and potential customers are looking for
These are just some of the advantages small business owners who advertise digitally have over their competitors. For example, if someone is looking to try out a new salon in Phoenix, it is much more likely that they will use their cell phone to search on the internet where they should go compared to using the yellow pages or a coupon they received in their junk mail. It’s called junk mail for a reason.
Understanding Your Customer Base
Digital marketing gives you the opportunity to learn about your customer base through several avenues. Small business owners can learn several important pieces of information about their customer bases through their website analytics which can inform them of:
- How many online visitors there are
- Where these online visitors are from
- How long do they stay on each page of the website
These pieces of information can be used to formulate targeted ad campaigns so small business owners can maximize their advertising dollars. When online advertising is used on Google, Facebook, or Instagram, the ability to reach a broader but more targeted market becomes a reality for a small business owner.
The analytics engines of these marketing tools allow small business owners to learn what their customer base likes, what they don’t respond to, and what they want to be satisfied with their customer experience.
Digital marketing allows a small business owner the opportunity to go viral if their marketing and product excite users enough. Small business owners can collect email addresses through various promotions to help grow their email marketing lists and maximize their growth potential.
Understanding Your Competition
When entering the digital marketplace, it is crucial to understand what the successful companies in your space are doing to be successful themselves. When you search for a local company in Scottsdale online, that does what you do, what pops up? How are your competitors trying to appeal to potential customers online?
You will learn about your competition simply by playing the role of a potential customer. It is important to understand what will drive traffic to your website so people find you on the first page of Google or react to a targeted digital advertisement. There are several online tools that can help you generate the information and analytics necessary to understand what type of digital content gives you the most bang for your advertising buck.
If you are opening a new salon in Scottsdale, Arizona, you are most likely going to get a map pack that includes websites and directions, but you are also going to get the most popular salons in the city. This can allow you to do research on what your website should look like, say, and what your competitors are doing so you can be a fierce competitor in this industry.
Having an experienced digital marketing company on your side during this process can be invaluable for your business.
Increasing Accessibility to Your Customers
With print mailers, potential customers are often given a phone number or website to go to reach the business being advertised. With digital marketing, users can simply click a link on their phones to instantly call, chat, or email a small business.
The ability to directly and instantly communicate with potential customers in this way allows them to immediately have their questions answered so they can turn into actual customers. Accessibility for customers increases brand trust and helps customers become more confident about their choice to do business with you.
Search Engine Optimization
One way to increase accessibility to your customers through digital marketing is through search engine optimization (SEO). What is SEO? Search engine optimization is the process of increasing your opportunities to rank on search engines such as Google and Bing. There are many different strategies a digital marketer can use to boost your rankings, but it depends on the current state of your website, your industry, competitors, and what you want to rank for.
Search engines are similar to an index at a library. The librarian can find any book you want, but the most popular books are going to be at the top of their index. Like the librarian, Google and Bing index the pages on your website. Through the combination of user experience and knowledge of the different algorithms, SEO specialists can help boost your rankings on all search engines.
Cost/Benefit Analysis of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing allows small business owners to reach a limitless base of potential customers in a more cost-effective way when compared to the traditional forms of marketing. Social media ad campaigns can run for short periods of time on particular budgets to allow small business owners to try digital marketing ideas without putting too much money on the line.
Ad campaigns on social media can be run for under $100, while blogs and online content can be expertly written to drive interested readers to your website at a low cost.
Anyone can put a billboard up on Camelback Street for thousands of dollars, but what good is that if you aren’t targeting the proper audience? Sure, the millions of people that drive down Camelback and 40th Street could use a personal injury lawyer, but what about your small grocery store? What about that new groomer business that just opened up? Don’t exhaust your marketing budget with advertisements that could be missing your target audience.
The Potential of Creating a Worldwide Brand
Depending on what you sell, it is becoming less and less necessary for customers to physically walk through your doors to do business with you. Your brand identity could ultimately now be online, and your business can be tailored to that understanding.
Digital marketing allows you the potential of creating a national or even worldwide brand without the need for a brick-and-mortar location for your customers to come to. If you are looking to grow your small business, then it is essential to understand how digital marketing can help you.
Get Visible Digital Marketing Agency
For over 25 years, Get Visible has been learning and transforming our clients’ online presence all over the U.S. into blooming businesses. If you want to be another success story of ours, contact us today. We look forward to assisting you in reaching your true potential online.
