For local SME’s, effective digital marketing is obviously an essential way to drive sales and make informed, smart decisions for the business, but in an ever-changing digital landscape, compounded by potential financial constraints, how is the best way to utilise your digital marketing budget? It’s a tricky question to answer, so we spoke to the experts, local digital marketing agency, Logica, who recently celebrated their 4th birthday, to get some handy hints and tips… It’s unfortunately true that many SMEs and business owners struggle to find the time and resources to dedicate to digital marketing. It can often seem confusing and impossible to know where to start – which perhaps explains why 36% of small businesses still don’t even have a website – but it doesn’t have to be this way! One of the first things to take solace from is that if you are struggling, you’re not alone! Many SMEs face the same challenges, but while it is a challenge it’s one that is well-worth attempting to overcome with 63% of SMEs reporting that digital marketing provides a good ROI. To benefit from that handsome return, it’s important to first understand the reasons why your business should be running digital marketing in the first place, in order to target your marketing effectively and achieve your desired outcomes. While there are a myriad benefits of digital marketing, Logica have outlined the top 5 benefits for us: It drives sales – PPC, Paid Social and SEO allow you to reach customers who are actively in market and ready to buy from you. It provides data-driven marketing decisions – real-time data allows you to tweak campaigns and pivot quickly to get the most from budgets. It levels the playing field – between you and larger businesses. It’s cost-effective – allows you to target your audience precisely and allow you to track ROI. Your customers are online! More people than ever are using the internet to research and buy so being there when they’re searching is key. But, with so much to consider with the day to day running of your business, it can sometimes be easy to take for granted the challenge of digital marketing. But, in order to overcome them and act effectively, it’s important to understand the challenges faced by SME’s when it comes to digital marketing. In their experience, Logica have found the most common complaints coming from SME’s when it comes to digital marketing are: Budget constraints Time constraints – no time to dedicate to digital marketing and business growth Trying to use all channels at once – takes time and makes it difficult to know where to focus. A lack of trust in third parties when outsourcing digital marketing. Reticence to try something new. If your business falls into one of these categories, one of the simplest solutions is to overcome the fear of the new, put down the digital marketing guide for dummies, and free up your time by handing your digital marketing strategy over to the experts. It sometimes is the case that no one could run the business as well as you do, or provide the product or services you do, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to be the best person to market that effectively (you probably wouldn’t try to do your own accounting, would you?), so if the budget is there, then handing over to a local digital marketing company that you can trust and who provide regular updates and reporting, is often the best way forward. But what if budgets are tight and there’s no room to outsource? When the economy’s tough, marketing budgets and departments are squeezed. If you’re not getting the results you want but don’t have any more money to put in, there are steps you can follow to get the most from your existing budget. By following these steps from Logica, you might even find you can get more from your original budget. Understand your business goals Knowing what you want to achieve can help you to understand where your budget is likely to be best spent. Digital marketing might not help achieve these goals on its own but knowing where you want to go will help to determine which activities are likely to help you get there. Know your audience Key for any kind of marketing activitiy but especially digital marketing, where targeting allows you to pinpoint a specific audience. What channels do your audience use? Where do they spend time? How do they find out information? This is key to knowing which channels are likely to be most effective. “One of the first things to take solace from is that if you are struggling, you’re not alone!” Know which channels are best suited to your business Once you know who your audience is, you can think about the channels they’re using. If your audience isn’t using the channel, resources and budget are wasted. Start with one or two channels and work out from there If you’re just starting out, start with a couple of channels, optimise them until they’re driving the results you need and then move onto other channels. This way, you’re not spreading yourself too thin. Monitor and measure campaigns regularly Due to being busy, businesses set digital marketing campaigns running and leave them. Monitoring and measuring campaigns is essential to get the most from them. Take a look at what’s working and do more of it and dial down on campaigns that aren’t working as well. Logica Digital is a digital marketing company based in Sheffield’s Harland Works. Originally set up by Mark Skinner, pictured above alongside Keiza Humphries and Izzy Clayton, in the midst of covid lockdowns, the business has flourished across the last four years, in part thanks to him bringing on Amy Ward as a co-director last year. If you want to find out more about the services they offer, head over to their website logica-digital.co.uk or email [email protected].
Leave a Reply