7 Small Business Experts Share Their Tips On How To Get Max Benefit From Digital Marketing

There are currently 4+ billion global internet users — a total that’s increasing every second!

Anybody who’s in business cannot deny the significance of those figures. Ignoring this collective online audience is like saying you don’t want your business to make money… So, the value of digital marketing in just 3 key points?

— Reach massive audiences across the entire world

— Online presence is the expectation of pretty much everybody today (so meet this expectation in order to grow)

— Get ahead of your competitors if you’re in a ‘lagging’ industry

If you are hesitant because you don’t know where to start, don’t overcomplicate things!

Read, watch and listen as much as you can…

Sources like Moz, Neil Patel, and PostFunnel will give you everything you need to know as a beginner.

We’re in a digital age, and it’s only becoming more ingrained…

But it’s not too late to make the change. Transform today!

First, decide on what pain you solve and who do you solve it for that can pay for the solution. Determining the exact profile of your targeted prospect is critical. Then calculate the lifetime value of a customer. This number will help you decide on a budget to acquire a prospect. The next step is to document a digital marketing strategy you want to test over a sustained period. Remember that “you can’t sell anything to anyone. You need to be there when they are ready to buy.” So start with one or two tactics (social media, content marketing, advertising) to see what works!

Marketing on the Internet is important because the Internet is where consumers and businesses go to find things they want to buy and to gather information that will help them make their purchase decision. Descriptions, prices, reviews, directions and information on what to consider before you select a product or service are all available by searching online, or by asking Google Assistant, Cortana, or Alexa to find what you need. If you aren’t marketing online, you aren’t going to be found in those searches. Even businesses that rely on personal contacts and referrals need to market online. The reason: your potential customers are likely to look you up online and look for reviews of your company before they decide to call you or come into your shop.

The best way to build a sustainable business online through digital marketing is to have the right systems set up in place first. Many businesses grow and do not have the right infrastructure to sustain their growth. They then have to backtrack and try to systemize their business which stops them generating more leads, sales and therefore revenue. There are lots of systems and software such as CRMs, project management tools etc that will help your digital marketing efforts. Make sure to choose something based on features, not just price.

Digital Marketing is one piece of your marketing puzzle. As a small business owner, you cannot afford to leave this opportunity on the table. Your offline marketing efforts will be amplified by your online efforts; they should be working hand in hand. It is 2019, people don’t want to be sold to while on social media. Instead, they engage with and look to their peers to learn more about a product or service before they buy.Therefore it is important you position your business to be present online, to monitor and be part of online conversations about your brand, and to have an actionable written strategic plan with goals and objectives. I highly recommend small business owners put time and effort in building an online community, such as a Facebook group. That is where you can nurture your (potential) customers, conduct product research, offer special deals and create super fans of your brand! It’s all about H2H; human to human interaction and those small business owners who understand they need to do more than ‘sell’ online, win!

When your customer base (such as mine) is worldwide, digital marketing … through a website, email, and social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn) … is the optimum way to go. And I’m not alone. According to a recent survey, more small businesses prefer digital marketing than traditional marketing.I market my company by sharing information on a consistent basis, such as my Idea of the Day®, which is sent daily to my email subscribers, and by regularly posting content on my blog. Video marketing is another very effective tool. Of course, it’s essential that all of these marketing efforts be readily viewable on mobile devices.

What we are seeing in the current marketing landscape as the very best way to get the most from digital marketing is to shift some or a large part of your efforts towards video with a Facebook Messenger tie-in. Now, with this being said, both components require a lot of initial strategic planning because these are just tactics and if done haphazardly your efforts might be for not. For the video planning, you will need to gather up some key components that will be used in all your campaigns, such as an “Our Story” video, testimonial videos as well as some evergreen type of important video content that speaks to your audience. You will then also want to outline some content tracks where you continue to create top of funnel/awareness content that serves your audience thru education, information, inspiration, etc…And on the Facebook Messenger side, your bot funnels here also need to be strategically planned out and creatively executed and be on brand and in the brands’ voice.But this one-two punch is so very powerful and will give you a way to get an amazing reach and then personalize the buyer’s journey.