Digital marketing strategies for small business can boost your website’s traffic, grow your business and retain customers. But, if you don’t do it right, it can break your bank and ruin your brand.
Here are tips on how to leverage your digital marketing skills and improve your campaigns.
Clearly define your market
Don’t waste your time and resources by marketing your small business on the Internet without a customer profile in mind. The most important element of a marketing strategy is your target market. Make sure that you know whom you’re reaching out to; otherwise you will be creating general content. It’s not enough to just say “anyone needing a loan”.
Remember that every niche is almost saturated with digital content and unless you write killer content for the right audience and deliver them at the right time, you’re only setting your marketing team up to fail. If you want to stand out, figure out just whom you want to market to; before you create any content to launch. Study your target market and the things that they value the most and your marketing will work. By creating a target market profile, or an ideal customer with descriptions of their behaviours, values and concerns, you will be able to understand your audience.
2. Strategise and plan how to attract customers
How do you react when someone drops a link to a forum you’re following or sends you a private message? If you have a strong marketing sensor, you’ll probably be on alert and ignore it.
With the proliferation of spam messages online, you can’t blame customers for being extremely suspicious of any type of sales pitch they get. They tend to simply ignore anything that resembles a sales or product page. A digital marketer has to realise that customers shop at certain online stores not just because of the products but because the content they posted on social media has created a connection with them. They were attracted to the personality of your brand.
If you are competing with a brand which is already a recognised leader in your field and it produces products or delivers services that are technically superior to everyone else, don’t lose hope. It may be the brand of choice among a particular market segment, but if your brand can adequately deliver what you promised, and you establish some sort of connection to them through your content and customer service, then you will outperform the superior brand.
3. Engage customers by creating useful free content such as tutorials
While you are using the web traffic that comes directly through your content pages to engage your customers, a good portion of these visitors will eventually purchase from you. So, offer them your coolest blogs, projects, testimonials and other things that could hold their attention. Engaging with customers, helps you sell more than actually giving them a direct sales pitch. Show them that they are dealing with trustworthy representatives of the company who are passionate about their brand. That’s the only time that other people will start genuinely caring about your products.
4. Convert visitors into customers
After your efforts of getting leads, leading customers to your landing page and making great conversations, will you waste the opportunity to sell? If your answer is, “No”, then it is time to plan your follow up. Execute your plan of getting them to sign up or ask for their contact details so you can make another offer. If you really want to grow your client base, don’t ignore the importance of follow up actions to sell your brand. Even if they are not interested, making contact will give them an opportunity to know more about your brand. And, they may probably refer it to someone who might be more interested to do business with you.
5. Solidify the relationships with your customers
You don’t need to give discounts or rewards to earn customer loyalty. Just deliver what you promised and nurture your relationships with your customers by showing a caring attitude, ready to listen to rants and complaints of an unhappy customer to show you truly care about satisfying them. Remember that a single bad review can quickly spread on social media and it will have a negative impact on your business. Fix the problems quickly, attend to their concerns before they spread a word about them and create an excellent customer experience to gain their trust.
- Keep all your interactions with customers genuine. Address your customer by name and tell them your name at the beginning of the conversation. Don’t send forced and uptight messages. Interact like a normal person. They want a genuine reaction and not someone on an autopilot.
- Accept feedback. Keep your patience even to the rudest customer. Listen to what they have to say and think of ways on how you address them. Do you need to make organisational changes or marketing adjustments? Listen to their complaints so you will have an idea on how you can improve your business. Remember that your business will not survive without customers. Get their feedback, from social media, surveys, customer service, email and web forms and forums.
Chilli Dee Digital Marketing Group provides effective and strategic digital marketing campaigns for small businesses like yours. Contact us today to learn more about the most strategic digital marketing strategies that could take your brand to the next level.
