Entrepreneur Resources Your source for small business information
Strong, solid foundations that is what successful and profitable small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are built on, and your digital marketing strategy should be no exception. So read on to find out how to construct a strong online basis for your business, and how to use it to your best advantage in levering sales and leads, and so increasing your profits.
Content
Producing the right content is a vital foundation in digital marketing because it is a way of engaging potential customer for your SME. Of course, it’s not quite as easy as just bashing out a few five hundred words articles with some key phrases in. In fact, potential customers are rapidly becoming much more sophisticated in their tastes for content, meaning you might not even get a look in if it’s just waffle or solely promotional stuff design to talk about how good you are.
Instead, service is the watchword in content at the moment. Meaning that the material you produce has to provide a service and be of value to the people that will be consuming it. So, things like how to guides, troubleshooting documents, initial assessments, and even online webinars and social media chats are what an SME’s marketing strategy should consist of. So ditch the than reams and reams of text, that is only about the benefits of your product, or how good it is compared to your competitors.
This service content works as a foundation for SMEs digital marketing in two main ways. The first is that convinces the consumer to give up their time and read/consume what you have produced. Giving you the ability to get your products in front of them. The second is that by offering something without requiring a commitment to buy, you begin to build a relationship of trust with them. Encouraging the consumer to have a positive feeling towards your brand. Something that can help bring them into your fold, and can be used alongside a funneling technique to get them to buy further down the line. Making content an essential foundation that, if used well can be related directly to sales.
Analytics
Analytics are vital for a victorious digital marketing campaign, but what exactly are they? Well, in the very basic form they are the figures that you measure that allow you to know whether you are succeeding or failing.
For SME’s these figures could be profit increase, as well as market share, marketing reach, and site hits to sales as well as a myriad of other markers. Without this information, it is impossible to know whether your business is a success or not. Something that is probably the point in your starting your company in the first place.
In particular, analytics are readily available in anything that is online because the internet is setup to be able to monitor specific actions like sites, visits, and sales. This makes online analytics a valuable part of any marketing strategy because you have easy access to information on how successful; certain parts of your campaign and setup are. It is this information that can be utilized to make changes to your online presence, maneuvering it to be more effective and gain you increased sales.
SEO
A foundation that everyone has heard of in digital marketing is SEO. Although, whether everyone really knows how it works is another matter.
In basic form, if you have good SEO, your business website will pop up first when someone searches for it. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Although it really isn’t. In fact, there is a tonne of work to be done behind the scenes to even get a small rise in your website’s ranking.
This includes on-site SEO, which is anything you do on the actual website. Such as things like page and category headings, descriptions and tags. As well as off-site SEO which is when you have other sites produce and display content for your with backlinks to your site. At this point, you may be asking: “What is more important on-Site or off-Site SEO?” Well, that is a good question and to get the answer, you can click the link for an in-depth discussion and some tips from the experts on how to do both like a pro.
Just remember, that SEO can be a funny beast, being part science and part art at times. Especially with all the updates that the search engines put out regularly to change things up. So asking for a little help from the experts is often the best approach.
Social media
The last foundation to review is that of social media. This is a huge resource that you can tap to increase brand awareness and get your message out there. However, like all powerful resources, it is vital that it be used correctly. Lest it put off potential and current customers instead of engaging them.
That means the message you convey, for the most part, should be short and sweet. No one wants to read an essay on dryer sheets or most other products for that matter. Just give them the essentials.
Also, remember that part of the appeal of social media is its friendliness and non-threatening nature. That means stuffing people feeds’ full of product promotions is just going to get you ignored, or even worst blocked. So limited those posts and vary them too! Don’t be afraid of going a little off-message to provide some content that your audience might find amusing or entertaining.
Lastly, don’t forget that the other boon to social media is that it is an interactive platform for us humans. So use this in your marketing. Ask for opinions, or problems to solve. Get real people to comment and show how they are using your products. Be positive in your interaction with people online even if they are being less than ideal.
This is vital because every interaction on social media is a chance to convince someone of the worth of your brand directly, and many others indirectly. As they will be able to see this interaction as well, so use it wisely. If you do, it can definitely be one of the key foundations to a successful and effective digital marketing campaign that not only raises brand awareness but can also convert into the actual sales as well.
