Every small business needs a digital marketing strategy to keep up with the market in this day and age. Once your strategy is in place, it needs to be kept updated. It takes monitoring your digital platforms every day to make sure that your digital marketing strategy is working to your satisfaction.
Stay Up to Date
You need to make sure you’re using the most up-to-date tools and technology when you’re planning your digital marketing. Strategies that worked great a decade ago might not work optimally today. Learning from experts about digital marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) can help you stay up to date. There are many different platforms you can use to learn from them. Attending a will give you new ideas about today’s best digital marketing strategies. At this meetup, professionals can also show you new tools and resources for you to try. SEO is not only about putting the proper keywords in your content and ranking high in search engine results. It is also about keeping your digital marketing strategies fresh. Thankfully, there are numerous resources and tools that can help.
Schedule Announcements
As part of your digital marketing strategy, you should be active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other digital platforms. While you don’t need to be on every single platform, utilize the ones that your targeted audience is most likely to be on. Using this strategy will keep your current customers engaged with your business and help you get new customers.
You might announce a big sale, a new product, or promote an article or other news related to your small business. You can schedule these announcements for any time you want using resources like Hootsuite or Buffer.
Go Live
While scheduling is important, you can also start using social media platforms to host live videos. This is a popular tool to engage a wider audience. Depending on the type of store you have, you might make live video a weekly occurrence so your audience can anticipate each broadcast. For example, if your business sells craft supplies, you should consider doing a weekly project.
To make the experience more interactive, plan ahead so you can include a supply list for each project. This is an ideal way to generate sales, because you can easily link your audience to the materials they can purchase from your business. Informative weekly content is always useful, especially if you sell items in the technology or fitness niche. These videos are usually archived, so they can be shared by your audience, helping you expand your following.
Design Unique Graphics
Another strategy is to make your brand stand out among other small businesses. Having graphics that stand out on Pinterest, Facebook, and advertisements will help potential customers to notice your brand. You don’t have to be a graphic artist to make pages that stand out among the crowd.
Using resources like Canva can turn anyone into a graphic artist. You will be able to create Facebook banners, Pinterest pages, and advertisements that look professionally created.
Utilize Direct Mailing
Direct email is still a good market strategy for your small business. Direct email allows you to stay in touch with your customers and let them know what new products and deals your company has. Make sure your mailing strategy involves a personal touch. You can send out happy birthday wishes and holiday greetings using direct emails.
Although email newsletters can be notoriously annoying to the recipient, this type of marketing can work well, as long as you use it sparingly. If you are sending out emails more than once or twice per week, you will likely have many people unsubscribe. Try to consolidate information into a single, weekly email. If you plan promotions or newsletters in advance, you will find there is no need to send out an email to broadcast a sale and then follow up the next day with another email announcing a new product.
There are resources, like MailChimp, that will help keep your mailing list current when sending out important emails. You can also encourage customers to sign up for your mailing list with discounts or other rewards.
Even if you do not have immediate plans to use email marketing, simply create an email capture form on your website so you can begin building an email list. Email marketing is an excellent way to keep your business fresh in the minds of your audience so they will be reminded to return to your website and possibly make a purchase.
Keep Content Fresh
Having content on your website is perfect for getting your small business noticed. Creating information content related to your business can help bring in new customers. Showing that you understand your product, service, and industry helps your audience trust your company. Remember when you’re making content to utilize SEO practices so that your site will get noticed on search engines.
Watch Your Reputation
Assuming your business is not new, there is likely some information floating around online about your business. It is imperative to keep an eye on what is being said about your business, both negative and positive. You can generally search for your business through search engines and on different social media platforms to see what, if anything, is being said. It is equally important to thank people for kind words about your business as it is to diffuse negative words. If something negative is said, kindly ask the person to contact your business to address the problem. Ignoring negative comments is usually viewed as not caring about what customers say or in some cases, the problem can quickly snowball out of control.
Effective digital marketing is necessary for any business to survive in this era. Using different tools to promote your business and handle both good and bad comments in a professional way can help people look favorably upon your business. Your digital marketing strategy is your small business’s gateway to the world. Keeping it updated will ensure that you continue to keep current customers while also attracting new customers.
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