In 2020 people are using online digital platforms to make real-world decisions every day and your customers are engaged online. You need to have a website and a digital marketing strategy in 2020. Now don’t be alarmed, it is much easier to get started with digital marketing than it may seem. Watch this video for a beginner’s guide on digital marketing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnYm2Y86Y3A.
Your small business needs digital marketing in 2020 because;
Acquire Hundreds of New Customers While Gaining Social Proof
Access ‘Priceless’ Data to Make Decisions That Generate Positive Results
Retarget Potential or Existing Customers for Efficient Conversions
Acquire Hundreds of New Customers While Gaining Social Proof
There are many strategies and tools within digital marketing and it can be overwhelming so we will start simple. The power of online marketing to attract and acquire new customers is exemplified with Google MyBusiness.
Apache Burger is a local restaurant and the picture is the Google MyBusiness widget. This widget displays restaurant reviews, phone number, address, pictures, and more when a customer searches the restaurant on google. Over 1000+ reviews on this restaurant with an average for 4.2 reviews.
91% of consumers regularly check online reviews and 84% trust them as much as a personal recommendation.
This is a simple way for new Apache Burger customers to form a deeper connection with the brand and ensures they will enjoy the restaurant for the first time. Think about all the times you have done this when you are deciding a new restaurant to try or any other local small business. It is so simple to set up your own Google MyBusiness account in less than 30 minutes; https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/business/
Ever Green Blogging is another simple tool in the digital marketing toolkit. Ever green blogging is the process of creating valuable content for your small business niche to drive website traffic and conversions. Ever green blogs typically increase in search volume and engagement over time. Ever green blogs are super effective because your customers are not searching for your site but for a solution to there problem.
For example, a customer who is a first time home owner is looking to learn how to take off a door for the first time. They will look up on google “how to take a door off”. They will come across relevant content on how to take a door off. If your small business sells tools then this could be a great ever green blog post for you.
In this ‘how to’ blog post you could include a video demonstrating how to take the door off using your brand tools and recommending them but always remember to make sure the content has depth and value. By simply doing an ever green blog you increased website traffic by helping a customer find a solution to there problem, increased brand awareness and loyalty, increased social proof, and will increase sales as you create a strong relationship with your customer. It may take a few attempts to understand what blog content will work for your business but do not worry that is part of the process!
Learn more digital marketing ‘tools’ by watching this great video with Neil Patel; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uar2hXRrckY
Access ‘Priceless’ Data to Make Decisions That Generate Positive Results
In 2020 almost everything can be tracked online and let’s not go gloom and doom about that because guess what, it has benefits! Customer get relevant ads, movies suggestions based on search history, localized search, and so much more. It was not too long ago since we were being bombarded with random ads in our mail, tv, and phone, ohhh have the times changed. Small businesses are able to reduce marketing and decision making costs and gain more customers; spend less and gain more.
Gone are the days when marketing decisions were guided by intuition and experience
Digital marketing unlocks customer data for a small business. Imagine you are at a shooting range trying to shoot a target but you are blindfolded. How many times are you likely to hit the target; very little or maybe even none. Now imagine you are at the shooting range with the blindfold off. Will you miss the shot as many times as you did with the blindfold; definitely not. Having customer data is removing the blindfold from your small business so you can hit the target, aka, your business goals, more times with less costs.
Provide valuable content, products, and services to the people that desire it.
Google Analytics is the place to start for data & analytics. Google Analytics will display your customers age, gender, location, website session duration, the pages they went on, the sources they came from, and much more. Google Analytics also lets you compare your websites performance with your site averages or industry benchmarks to let you know the webpages to improve on. Customer data is a ‘step-by-step book’ on how to continually improve your business strategy, digital marketing efforts, and website.
Retarget Potential or Existing Customers for Efficient Conversions
Retargeting increases sales, increases brand awareness, and lowers costs by retargeting customers that have already came to your website but took no action. So what does this all really mean? Well, these potential customers are actually further down the purchasing conversion funnel because they have already shown awareness and interest in your service/product/blog/etc (refer to Oberlo diagram). Similarly, this can be done with existing customers because they have shown all four stages of the conversion funnel.
Another way to think about this is to imagine yourself as a customer buying a new product on a website you have never been to before. How likely are you to buy this new product on the first website visit? You probably answered like most of us; not likely. Only 2% of website visitors take action on their first visit.
We need customers on the site multiple times to convert and that is why retargeting is so valuable. Now imagine you are on a website not sure if you want to buy a product and you leave the product page and the website. The next day you see that same product being demonstrated in a youtube ad; more likely to buy now? Well the research says so; there is a 147% increase in conversion rate when retargeting potential or existing customers.
I hope this article has convinced you Why Your Small Business Needs Digital Marketing in 2020.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn by Thomas Durham.
Sources
Photos by Negative Space & rawpixel.com from Pexels
Photos by Oberlo