Expand Your Small Business Digital Marketing Strategy in 8 Steps

Some of the most fun baking shows to watch are ones where competitors have a few select ingredients and must make a gourmet feast from them. Their creativity shines as they transform what looks like ordinary food into dishes you might order at a five-star restaurant.

When you’re a small business, you might feel like the competitors at the start of the competition. You are looking at your small business budget and comparing your resources and tools to big-time competitors.

You don’t need a buffet of resources to create big-time marketing strategies. You just need the right knowledge to transform what you have into a profitable win.

Start with these eight steps to expand your small business digital marketing strategy.

8 Steps to Growing Your Small Business Digital Marketing Strategy

You already have the ingredients. Now, it’s time to cook up a digital marketing strategy that will win you clients. Here are the eight steps in our recipe for success for effective digital marketing strategies for small businesses.

1. Know Your Audience

Always start with your audience. Converting them is your ultimate goal, so you want to keep them at the center of your strategy from the start.

To better understand your audience, build ideal customer profiles. Include your audience’s:

• Demographics
• Pain points
• Location
• Current needs/wants
• Emotional motivators

Image info from Gartner

You will likely have several profiles matching each type of customer. Those profiles will define what a qualified lead looks like to help you invest most of your resources in the leads with the greatest chance of conversion.

Those profiles will also be the basis for each customer segment or group. As you generate your leads, your leads will fall into different groups based on shared characteristics. You’ll then adjust your marketing to each group, addressing those shared pain points, experiences, and needs for more personalized marketing.

2. Know Who Is Not a Potential Client

While you will spend most of your energy understanding who you DO want to attract. You also want to outline who you want to avoid.

When you map out a long road trip, you don’t just look at what roads lead to the destination. You also look for construction, traffic, and accidents that might cause delays or complete roadblocks.

Those roadblocks in marketing might include customers who don’t have the proper budget, lack decision-making power in their company, or simply show behavior that usually indicates disinterest.

By logging common behaviors you see among your customers, you can help your sales team (whether that’s yourself or an outside agency) know what red flags to look out for. Those leads can go into an automated workflow, so you aren’t investing too much time and energy in converting them when they have a very low chance of conversion.

3. Build a Professional Website

Your online brand matters. Even if you have a physical store, your online presence plays a role. On average, 23% of shoppers research products online before buying them in-store. A website allows you to reach new customers, convert current leads, and control your online reputation.

Image from eMarketer

According to Google’s latest leak, investing in your website directly impacts your site authority. Your site authority, in turn, improves your ranking in search engines, bringing in new leads, which is one of the many benefits of digital marketing for small businesses.

Not only do you need to impress Google, but you also need to impress those visitors you are bringing in. Having a personalized brand website helps you stand out among your competition.

4. Invest Time in SEO

Search engine optimization may sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Start with the basics. Optimize your pages by filling in the metadata (text that appears in Google search), using key search phrases, and optimizing your sitemap.

Every time you fill in the text with your brand name and keywords, you increase your chances of appearing in a search while showing a higher brand authority across the web. The best place to start outside your website is with your Google Business Profile.

As you fill in your website and profiles, you can target your local community to help lessen your competition significantly. Targeting your local community includes using local keywords, local brand ambassadors, and networking locally.

5. Build Social Proof

Lately, there has been a craze around Prime drinks, which started on social media and grew through influencers and social media marketing. The drink ended up selling in some places for over $120 per bottle.

While Prime’s popularity is finally slowing down, social proof’s power remains strong. Having a social following means you have others recommending your product. Those recommendations can spread your brand popularity like wildfire, whether from a celebrity or just friends to friends.

You don’t even need to stick with social media. You will also want to look at review sites like Yelp. Generating reviews will act like personal recommendations for your brand, boosting new customers’ trust in you.

6. Build Relationships

Would you send a public birthday party invite out on your Facebook feed? Probably not, because most of your Facebook “friends” aren’t friends, just like your LinkedIn network might not even know who you are.

Digital relationships are an excellent start to networking, but they don’t build genuine relationships.

However, real-life relationships put a face to the name and create authentic connections. Taking time away from the screen and returning to the old-fashioned networking handshake can go a long way in building your brand authority, getting your name out there, and expanding your small business network.

You can network at conferences, local fairs, community events, and fundraisers. Even a conversation during your weekly grocery store run can be a networking opportunity.

7. Offer Above-and-Beyond Customer Service

We are now circling back to the customer. They are what started these eight steps and are one of the last two steps in creating your digital marketing strategy.

Like we said before, what you do, you do for the customer. Because they are central to your business, your business should put them first in all your activities and services. Having exceptional customer service will elevate you above your competition and help you stand out.

Good customer service includes:

• Fast response times
• Accessible resources, information, and assistance
• Good, clear communication
• Transparent practices
• Reliable products and services

8. Seek Growth Opportunities with Relationships Already Formed

While focusing on putting the customer first, you will want to prioritize your current customers.

Loyal customers are much easier to convert because they already trust you. A few small business digital marketing examples for maintaining trust and loyalty include:

• Loyalty programs
• Consistent communication
• New products or services that benefit them

Even if the customer doesn’t buy another item, their recommendation alone is valuable enough to make any time investment worth making.

In addition to providing recommendations, loyal customers also offer valuable insights into their loyalty through surveys, reviews, and feedback. Those insights will help guide future marketing campaigns around what works.

Cook Up Small Business Digital Marketing Success

Digital marketing is available to even small businesses. You don’t need the latest shiny marketing tool to perform it. You can start with where you are today.

With our digital marketing services, we can help you get started and support you every step of the way. Whether you want to focus on your local SEO or build better brand authority through digital PR, we have the experts ready to provide advice and strategies that will get your small business noticed.

Contact us to learn more about what small business digital marketing strategy is best for you.