Owning a small business means wearing many hats, from receptionist to accountant – and everything in between.
Each hat you wear holds equal value.
You may love managing operations and developing your product line. And loathe the days you have to be your IT Specialist. But ignoring one aspect of your business has a ripple effect.
It can be hard to know which tasks to prioritize when you have limited time, money, and resources.
While I can’t help you with accounting, there is one area I specialize in – digital marketing.
As a copywriter, crafting competitive content is my specialty. At Maggie Writes Copy, I help business owners like you reach your goals through quality copywriting.
Sign up for my newsletter and get an SEO and Content Creation freebie delivered right to your inbox. I’ll give you my top five tips for writing competitive content that’ll elevate your digital marketing strategy.
If you’re ready to elevate your small business with an efficient and cost-effective online marketing strategy, you’ve landed on the right article.
Why Digital Marketing is Essential for Small Businesses
5 Low-Cost Digital Marketing Strategies
Important Metrics You Need to Know in Digital Marketing
Hiring a Professional for Your Digital Marketing Needs
Digital marketing connects you to your ideal customers through the Internet. It comes down to showing up at the right time and the right place.
An estimated 31% of adults in the U.S. go online almost constantly.1 A strong online presence isn’t a luxury for your business’s success – it’s a necessity.
A clear digital marketing strategy better utilizes all your marketing channels, such as:
When your business has direction and clarity, you can connect with your audience on a personal level.
Digital marketing makes it possible to reach new customers all over the world at a fraction of the cost.
It offers a return on investment that’s four times higher than traditional marketing methods.2
But there’s one issue – digital marketing is always changing and influencing customer behavior.
Remember when Facebook and Instagram used to be the primary social media channels? Now there are newer platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Discord. Staying on top of these changes and trends helps your business show up on your customers’ favorite platforms.
Here are five digital marketing trends to know.
People spend around four hours and thirty minutes on their phones daily.3
Consumers use mobile devices to do almost everything – set appointments, check email and bank. Most of all, they shop. Shopping on the phone makes it easier to compare prices, ultimately influencing their buying decisions.
Optimizing your website for mobile devices improves the customer experience resulting in more sales.
The foundation of your marketing strategy should be creating high-value content that’s engaging and consistent. This includes blog posts, social media content, and videos.
Video marketing is proving to be an effective marketing tool. Live-streaming lets you promote new products, get customer feedback, and improve your SEO.
Attempting to serve everyone often results in serving no one effectively.
The same theory applies to your messaging. Generalized messaging fails to connect with your customers and you end up speaking to no one.
Talk directly to your consumers by addressing their pain points, struggles, and fears impacts engagement and leads to higher conversion rates.
Amazon Echo and Google Home are opening the doors to voice search technology. Voice searches are often done on mobile devices (how often do you use Siri when looking for the nearest gas station?) and are more conversational.
Adjusting your digital marketing strategy to include voice searches keeps you competitive and relevant with your audience.
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) give consumers interactive experiences with products. AR lets you see how a sofa will look in your living room before you purchase it.
AR experiences elevate your marketing, improve customer experience, and showcase your products.
Engaging with your customers and reaching a broader audience is possible using the right tools and strategies. Here are some cost-effective tips.
Even with a tight budget, there are plenty of ways you can harness the powers of digital marketing to promote your business effectively. Here are a few of your best options.
If you have a local business, setting up a Google Business Profile is a great marketing tool.4 And the best part – it’s free!
Helpful tips when creating your profile include:
Optimizing your GMB profile increases your visibility, improves local SEO, promotes your brand, and gives your users a better experience.
A few questions to ask yourself before creating accounts on all major social media platforms include:
Don’t waste time, energy, and money creating content on platforms where your customers don’t hang out.
Speaking of content…
Content marketing involves creating and sharing relevant information with your audience to increase product interest. It’s often done through blogs, emails, white papers, social media, and videos.
Your customers want relatable and valuable content.
Helpful tips when creating content include:
When done correctly, content marketing has huge payoffs for your business. These include boosting brand awareness, establishing your authority, and generating more leads.
Email marketing has the highest return on investment of all marketing strategies – $36 for every $1 spent.5
Elevate your emails with some of these ideas:
Email isn’t affected by things like SEO and algorithms. All the emails you’ve collected belong to you. Facebook and Instagram could close their doors tomorrow, but you would still be able to send a newsletter.
SEO is a way to get more eyes on your website and improve where it shows up in search engines. Effective SEO strategies include using the right keywords, creating high-value content, link building, and enhancing the structure of your website.6
A few ways to improve your website’s SEO include:
A big part of SEO is the user experience. Make sure your website is easy to navigate and has a clear call to action.
Understanding how digital marketing works and implementing those strategies is one part of the puzzle.
The next part is tracking and analyzing how these efforts are performing.
These numbers are called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs let you know if your marketing is moving you toward your desired goal.
KPIs are important for many reasons. A few include:
Here are five KPIs you should be tracking with digital marketing.
CTR tells you who sees an online marketing campaign and clicks on it.
It lets you know if your keywords are working and what needs improvement. If people aren’t clicking on your content, you know there’s a problem with what you’re producing.
To find your CTR:
Total number of clicks ÷ the number of people who see it (impressions) x 100
CTR can be used to see how well an ad is performing and if your email campaign is effective. For example, if your email lands in 100 inboxes, and 15 people click on a link, your CTR is 15%.
Factors that impact your CTR include:
A healthy CTR is 2.5% but varies depending on what industry you’re in. Get to know your industry’s average CTR before tracking your number.7
CR is the percentage of people who are influenced by your ad to take a certain action. It could be signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase.
To find your CR:
Number of people who took a desired action ÷ number of people who clicked on the link x 100
For example, if 1,000 people saw your ad about a free link to a free webinar, and 30 of them clicked the link to join the webinar, your CVR is 3%.
Factors that impact your CR include:
A higher CVR means your audience is connecting with your messaging. Tracking this number gives you insight into customer behavior, increases your ROI, and lets you improve your website or landing pages for more conversions.
ROI is the measurement of how much money is made compared to how much is spent.
Money isn’t the only investment you make into your business. Taking into account the time and resources invested is also important.
To find your ROI:
(Value of Investment – Cost of Investment) ÷ Cost of Investment x 100
For example, if you spend $500 on Facebook ads and produce $3000 in sales, your ROI is 500%.
ROI helps you evaluate how profitable an investment is so you can make better decisions about where to invest your time and money.
Factors that impact your ROI include:
It’s hard to determine whether an ROI ratio is good or bad since each investment is unique. Researching other businesses in your industry and seeing their ROI gives you a good starting point.
This is the price you pay to get a new customer. Money is a big factor, but other expenses to account for include time, effort, and other resources used.
CAC shows how much it costs your business to get a new customer so you can determine if the investment is worth it or not.
To find your CAC:
Sales and marketing costs ÷ Number of new customers
For example, if you spend $5,000 a month on marketing and sales expenses, and end up with 20 new customers, the CAC is $250. Depending on the products and services you offer, you can determine if this is a worthwhile investment.
Factors that impact CAC include:
While customer acquisition is important, it’s better to have customer satisfaction. CAC pays off tenfold when you have a customer for life.
Brand awareness is how familiar people are with your brand. When people trust your brand, they’re more likely to become customers. Brand awareness leads to a better reputation, loyal customers, and more sales.
A few ways to measure brand awareness include:
Brand awareness takes time to grow and depends on how consistent and aggressive your strategy is.
Managing all aspects of your business can feel overwhelming. You won’t create a strong online presence overnight. Small changes and adjustments to your marketing strategy add up.
A great first step is to subscribe to my email list. Each week you’ll receive practical and simple tips to level up your website, helping you reach your ideal customer.
Let me help you create a digital marketing strategy that meets your business’s needs and goals.
1 3 in 10 Adults Constantly Online – Pew Research Center
2 101 Mind Blowing Digital Marketing Statistics – SEO Tribunal
3 Mobile Phone Usage 2024 – Statista
4 How to Create a Google Business Listing – Constant Contact
5 Email Marketing ROI 2020 – Statista
6 Effective SEO Strategies – Mary Herzog Agency
7 Industry’s Average CTR – Campaign Monitor
Author: Mary Herzog
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