Digital marketing comes in many forms. Search engine optimisation (SEO), social media management (SMM), search engine marketing (SEM) —all of these are part of digital marketing, and they can help your small business grow.
Even though you can use traditional advertising methods such as print ads in newspapers, radio announcements, and sending out flyers on the streets, these are enough for your small business to attract customers, raise brand awareness, and make a lot of sales. Without digital marketing, you are missing the opportunity to reach out to over 5 billion internet users worldwide. Doing both traditional advertising and digital marketing is the best way to succeed.
Why Is Digital Marketing Important For Small Businesses?
Managing a small business can be challenging, especially for first-timers. The good news is that digital marketing allows you to build long-lasting relationships with customers.
For starters, almost everyone is online. If there are 7.7 billion people worldwide and internet users are around 5 billion, that means 64.9% of the world’s population is on the internet. Implementing effective digital marketing strategies allows you to reach thousands of potential customers online and grow your market.
Also, digital marketing offers multiple channels for you to reach your target audience and boost conversions. Some of the most effective digital marketing channels include emails, websites, social media, and search engines.
In summary, you can expand your customer base in many ways. Consider experimenting with various digital marketing services, such as SEO, SEM, and SMM, to see which one works best for your small business.
5 Ways Small Businesses Can Compete Digitally
1. Reach Customers More Efficiently
Traditional advertising is challenging when it comes to engaging with customers. In digital marketing, however, you can reach your customers more efficiently.
For instance, you can go online and learn more about your customers by using tools made for target market research, including Google Analytics and Google Trends.
These tools are effective for identifying audiences and trends. You can create digital marketing campaigns and ads using the data you gathered to target your target audience specifically and avoid the trial-and-error process of marketing that could cost you a lot of time, effort, and funds.
2. Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing techniques today. You can improve your website’s online presence to attract more potential customers.
LEARN MORE: SEO For Small Businesses: 5 Challenges That You Will Face
The goal of SEO is to enhance the search engine rankings of your website on search engines like Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Doing so should help more people be able to discover your website when using search engines to search for things related to your niche.
Plus, SEO is perfect for small businesses because it can help raise brand awareness. If you successfully improve your search engine rankings, your website can appear higher and might be on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs). The more customers discover your website on Google, your brand awareness also increases.
Several SEO strategies can help you improve your search engine rankings. Here are a few examples:
- Keyword research and optimisation
- Link building
- Website blogging
3. Grow An Audience On Social Media
Social media is one of the most effective digital marketing channels today. With social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok gaining more users each day, you could use these to your advantage and grow an audience.
2.91 billion people on Facebook in 2022 worldwide; that is an indicator of how Facebook has become a social media powerhouse in the past few years. Because of this, it is—a good idea for small businesses to launch Facebook marketing campaigns. Not only can your small business attract more potential customers on Facebook, but it can also help increase your customer base over time.
LEARN MORE: Increase Small Business Consumers Through Facebook
Before you make a social media page for your small business, you should choose the right social media marketing platform. Between the social media sites mentioned above, ensure to pick one where your target audience is most active.
According to Social Media Today, each generation spends most of their time on various social media. The image below showcases which social media Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers use the most.
This image is a snippet of the infographic made by Social Media Today.
4. Improve Your Web Visibility
Part of digital marketing is SEMt, a technique used for boosting sales through paid ads. Once you have a Google Ads account, you can set up a SEMcampaign.
LEARN MORE: 7 Common SEM Mistakes to Avoid (And How to Fix Them)
With a SEM campaign, you can highlight the unique selling points of your small business. Doing so requires online ads, which are easy to make. Your online ads have a higher chance of appearing on top of a SERP, thus improving your web visibility much quicker than SEO campaigns .
The problem, however, is that you need to pay for it every time someone clicks on your online ad. The price of SEM campaigns is worth it since you can reach potential customers quickly and efficiently.
5. Get To Know Your Competitors
Besides your customers, you can also get to know your competitors. Since they are also implementing digital marketing strategies to promote their products and services online, it will not be a bad idea to use those against them.
Learning how your competitors engage with their customers allows you to improve your customer service and user experience. All you need to do is take one or two ahead of what they are implementing and ensure to double down your digital marketing efforts to attract more customers, gain leads, and make sales.
Below are some tips on how you can get to know your competitors:
- Read their customer reviews
- Observe their social media platforms, from likes to shares
- Look at their pricing page
- Become a customer
- Evaluate the content of their website
- Research which of their web pages are ranking on SERPs
- Check the loading speed of their website
Final Remarks
Launching a digital marketing campaign in Singapore requires a lot of time, effort, commitment, and dedication. If you need help managing your digital marketing campaign consider reaching out to an award-winning digital marketing agency.
For reliable and affordable digital marketing services, contact OOm at 6391-0930 or leave a message on our website if you are interested.
