subject: Digital Marketing for Small and Medium Business Owners - Seven Basic Points You Need to Know [print this page] Digital Marketing for Small and Medium Business Owners - Seven Basic Points You Need to Know
Establishing a business is always a challenge. Even for people who have already done it, still the difficulty of setting up a new business is always present. For it to be successful, one has to exert his best effort on it. Another basic part for a successful business is to invest on several marketing strategies that will help build your business rank in the industry. Bearing in mind that one should know the acquisition costs on intimate level, having a firm awareness of what one is willing to pay for each new customer or action any advertising obtains.
Marketing plans have drastically changed over the past years. This is because the world, particularly its communication have also changed a great deal. With our current technology and how it is going to undergo more development, digital technology had overtaken the conventional way most industries did marketing before. At this time it would be wise for one to do a digital marketing strategy even for small business. Marketing is more content-driven, measurable and modifiable now that digital marketing dominates. The problem lies with the fact that many business owners have still not learned even the basics of digital marketing, and getting left behind quickly.
Here are the seven important things one needs to know before engaging to digital marketing:
1. Design a step-by-step strategy
You need to know where your company is presently positioned in terms of marketing efforts and staff expertise. The culture and values of the company ought to be incorporated. This is the reason why your digital marketing or website should have a main focused on customer service and engagement not just selling your product or service. Customers at all times want to feel valued. Having an effective website means you have already considered optimization of search engines and having links to social network sites. This is the age where everyone goes online for practically anything. Having your business seen everywhere creates recall.
2. Make your business stand-out from the rest
One should aim at the niche market. Make a strategy that differentiates one's company position in the market place.
3. Maximize your digital media platforms
Widen your reach through effective traditional media, PR and online environment. This can be done by connecting these conventional marketing content to social and digital media. One way to do it is o develop the potential of each platform to increase site traffic, search engine rankings and sales revenues. These can be done by using same keywords across all platforms, enhance the user's digital connection and involvement with online hub, build interactivity, conversations, relationships, and incorporate engaging calls to action.
4. Develop an engaging "sharing" content strategy
One should create a rich content that promotes sharing easily with associates and contemporaries, encourage user to mix one's content with mashup, reward conversation and engagement, include keywords in content updates, produce consistent updates by utilizing staff resources through training and outsource updates through regular client contribution.
5. One should expand database into targeted social communities
Influence current users by allowing them to sign-in with social network identities and make it easy to share user content to other site.
6. Examine, Measure and Benchmark Performance
Analyze user interactions to determine other opportunities and track referral traffic. It should also be able to relate performance to customer goals, satisfaction and results. Also use expanded return of investment for evaluation.
7. Know what digital marketing can do to for your business
Business owners should know how the mechanism of web search affects the interest of buyers in finding his or her products, how the social media drives the conversation about ones product and business, how websites can promote well of the products and services, how blogs and review sites changes the way industry experts communicate and deliver news and particulars to one's market, and how smart phones and iPad changes the way people get details and interact with the company.
To any business to be successful, a good marketing strategy plays a very important role. It is a whole new ball game out there and digital marketing, even for small businesses is the way to go today. All one need to do is know those essential facts mentioned above before engaging to it. Time has changed. The world had become smaller. Marketing has gone digital. As a business owner you must get on board before it's too late.
