The short answer to this question is always a resounding yes! If you want to compete in today’s market, you have to use digital marketing whether it’s to get more customers or to build brand awareness. You have access to a larger, and highly targeted audience allowing you to meet your marketing and business goals. Also, you see a better ROI with affordable, and often practically free marketing tactics available. Here we explain why digital marketing is a good idea for your small business.
Why Digital Marketing Rules
Digital marketing is the most direct route to interact with your ideal audience in a more meaningful way. It is also measurable and allows you to collect important data, so you better understand what your customers want. Although you are small, if your aspirations are big, you can more easily reach a global marketplace. Even if you want to remain local, nothing allows you to reach a local audience more effectively than digital channels. Best of all you save money compared to traditional tactics while helping develop:
- Brand awareness
- Brand loyalty
- A wider audience
- Industry recognition (if you so choose)
- Effective tracking methods for crucial metrics
- A more personalized approach to your marketing strategy
All of these things lead to you becoming more responsive to customer needs, creating a more effective sales funnel.
It’s Where Your Customers Are
Love it or hate it, your customers are living life in a digital world. They love their technology and depend on it to meet their day-to-day needs. Since the web is where they spend their time, that’s where they expect you should be as well. If you aren’t available online, today’s customers figure you aren’t available – period. The only result is them finding your competition. Therefore, you don’t just need a website, but also social media pages to help people find you first.
Customers are Digitally Curious
Customers want to do business with brands they trust. If you aren’t online, you won’t help satisfy their curiosity about who you are and what you offer. In fact, many people might stumble upon you in their ongoing search for something new, interesting, fun, educational, or whatever their latest search is all about. With such a curious society, you have an opportunity to be there when they need you regardless of your products and services. If it can be bought and sold, there are people out there looking to find it. Digital marketing is a dream come true for small businesses with small budgets, as when done right, customers come to you.
It’s Where Your Competition Lurks
Small businesses have to keep up with the Joneses which means you need to be wherever your competition is found. They are lurking on the internet just waiting for an opportunity to snatch up your customers. If you aren’t there, customers can be pretty fickle and easily distracted. Something shiny and new like your competition’s website could be just what they need to go elsewhere.
New customers will also be out of reach since they are easily finding what they need courtesy of your competition. You need to do run keyword-driven searches to see what you’re up against. You want to be using the same channels as the competition in the coveted top-ranking positions including the same content. Whether it is blogging, case studies, white papers, video, memes, social, images, etc. study what they do and then do it better.
Accessibility
Your online presence shows you are in touch with customer needs. People don’t want to hunt for you. They want to know now, how you can be reached, what you offer, how to use your products or service, etc. When you’re online, you offer everything they need, while allowing new prospects to find you. But remember, you’re behind in the game if you don’t have a digital marketing strategy in place. The longer you wait to create an online presence the harder you’ll have to work. Since your competitors have already hit those precious top-ranking spots, you now have to come up with an SEO strategy that helps move you to the top.
Local Prospects
As a small business if you depend on local prospects, even if you have a spiffy storefront, or reasonably easy to spot address, nothing sends more customers your way than the “near me” search. Digital marketing has created a new set of prospects, that as mentioned above, are ready to come to you. They use the near me search at the moment they need a product or service.
So whether you are an emergency dental or walk-in clinic, a florist, have a restaurant, or anything else for that matter, as a local business, having your location online brings people in your vicinity to you quicker than any other method. Their search is in real-time and shows intent when they need something now.
Let’s discuss a plan of action for your small business. Schedule a free call with our team today!