When running a small business, it’s necessary to be both strategic and cost effective in your digital marketing efforts. That’s why it’s important to plan well in advance before launching into something that may be unsustainable and could ultimately hurt your bottom line in the long run.
Since Vervology understands that getting started is often the hardest part, we have a few tips and tactics that we want to share. We’ll take a look at a few ways you can incorporate digital marketing into your business plan and how to keep it going. Keep in mind that it may take time to find what works best for your business. Each digital marketing strategy will be unique to the needs of the company. However, with a few key plans in place, you’ll be in a great place to start building your strategy.
Know Your Target Digital Marketing Audience
The most important first step is to know who it is you’re actually marketing to. This will inform every move you make from this point forward, so it’s crucial to do some research and take some time with this. What types of people typically frequent your store, website, and social media profiles? Get a sense for their demographic information. Then, you can begin to dig deeper by learning more about their psychographics, like their opinions, thoughts, and ideas. What do they like about interacting with brands online? What are the values that drive them?
It can be helpful to pull all of this information together into one or more buyer personas. This will help you get to know your audience better and plan your next steps throughout the process. It’s important to constantly be thinking about what will resonate with your audience and what the best way to reach them is. By doing careful research in the beginning, you’ll set yourself up for a smoother process.
Practice Active Listening
As you go through implementing key digital marketing tactics, you may find that some are very effective, while others fall short of where you had hoped. Try to stay as flexible as possible. If something isn’t resonating with your audience, try to find out why. Then, be ready to reroute your efforts as you begin new approaches.
When dealing with digital marketing, you don’t want to come off as out of touch. So, if your audience is telling you that what you’re doing isn’t working, be sure to listen. They will appreciate the fact that you re-routed to better connect with them.
Market On the Most Effective Channels
Now that you’ve taken some time to get to know your audience, start deciding what channels you will use to create and send your messages. You may have multiple social media channels that you post to regularly, but if you plan to use them all in your strategy, you should have a plan for how to most effectively use each one.
For example, are you going to make use of Facebook advertising features? If so, you may start thinking about integrating Instagram into the mix. How will your messaging be different on both of these channels? How many ads will you decide to run overall?
A lot of these questions will be answered as you do research on your target audience. You want to put the majority of your time, energy, and resources into the channel(s) you get the most engagement from. If that happens to be Facebook, you will probably spend a lot of time developing multiple ads intended to reach each of your target personas. That doesn’t mean you should discount your other channels, however. You should have a digital marketing plan for each of your platforms, although some may be more prominent in your strategy than others.
Marketing Channels to Consider
- Google My Business
- Google Adwords
- Personal blog posts
- Newsletter and email marketing
Determine Your Marketing Goals and Messages
Before you begin actively implementing any marketing plans, it’s important to know what you are trying to get out of them. You could be trying to increase brand awareness or telling customers about a new product or service. Maybe you are attempting to attract new customers through promotions or outreach programs. Whatever you are trying to achieve, be sure to set clear benchmarks for success, and use specific figures so that you know when you’ve reached your goal.
Knowing your specific goals will also help as you craft your messages. It’s important to keep the end goal in sight as you begin creating the ways in which you will reach your audience, so be sure to keep them in mind as you begin the creative process.
Be Consistent
While it’s true that you may need to adapt your strategies as you begin your marketing efforts, it’s also important to stay consistent on a certain number of things.
For example, every piece of content you create should line up with your outward-facing brand values. You should try to create a content calendar so that your marketing materials don’t clash with any regularly-scheduled posts. Plus, this will help make sure you are actively putting your messages out in a way that is even and not overwhelming.
Overall, how you decide to market your brand online will be up to what your customers want to see and what feels genuine and authentic for your company. Audiences want your brand to be visible and approachable, and digital marketing can help bridge the gap.
If you’re having trouble getting started or need a partner to help while you focus on your business, Vervology offers services catered to the exact needs of your company. We’d love to hear from you.