Most small businesses rely on word of mouth to generate business. Wouldn’t you like to have more control over your leads? Well, you can with an effective digital marketing strategy.
Today, just having a website isn’t enough. You need to have a significant digital footprint if you’re going to make any impact, and stand out from your competition.
Our digital consultants come across this scenario with small businesses all the time. So in direct response, we’ve identified 4 common challenges small businesses face when it comes to digital marketing, and how you can keep moving forward.
What digital marketing activities should I focus on?
It’s not always easy to know where to start and how much you should be investing in digital marketing. Having a clear direction will help dissolve majority of the challenges you might be facing. And this is where a digital marketing strategy comes in handy.
Before you execute anything, you need to identify your marketing goals and define your audience. The channels and tactics that follow will steer you in the right direction to achieving those goals. We can help develop your strategies, and determine the channels and activities that will generate the best ROI with the least amount of effort, based on your available resources (budget and people).
I don’t have the time or the resources
And so we slide into Challenge #2. Let’s face it, if you’re a small business owner you’re busy enough as it is. You could outsource your digital marketing to lessen the burden, embrace it internally and plan ahead as much as you can, or perhaps do a combination of both.
Developing engaging content is time consuming. Be realistic about how much you or your team can take on, their skill sets and create a schedule. For example, if you have an email newsletter consider how frequently you want to target your audience, plan your topics and content with an editorial calendar to loosely guide you, and include deadlines.
How will customers find me?
How do you normally find what you’re looking for online? Improving your search engine rankings through effective SEO will increase your brand awareness and generate more leads. You could also try paid search, build up your listings in directories and grow your audience via social media.
Is what I’m doing even working?
Time is money, and if something isn’t hitting the mark you need to change it up. The beauty of digital marketing is that it’s so measurable, so you can see what is or isn’t working. Your strategy should include analysing the performance of your activities and campaigns within a realistic timeframe, to determine its effectiveness.
With a solid strategy in place, you can quite easily overcome your digital marketing challenges and give your business a competitive edge.
Ready to tackle digital marketing head-on? Get in touch with Cloud Cartel and let’s make it happen.
