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Digital Marketing, the simple way.

The small business owner

Digital Marketing need not be for the savvy online geek or blogger. Anyone can do it! If you want to build your business online some bravery is needed but a few tips and some planning can make your digital marketing so much easier and less of a hindrance and more of a help.

What is Digital Marketing?

What is digital marketing? You can find many explanations and terminologies online (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_marketing). Simply the word “digital” says it all. Marketing on a digital platform (Social Media, Google, Website) as to a traditional (print, radio, tv) is the most effective route to your customers, best of all you can control and manage it all for FREE! How cool is that??

Can you do it? Yes!

If you’re a small business owner you probably use digital media already. You may have set up a Facebook page or have a website for the business. So what’s stopping you going a little further and making use of the assets and resources available? Register on all the major (channels) websites i.e. Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, etc. Set up a blog on your website. How about sending emails using engaging infographics? All the above channels are used by all the big players for digital marketing and engagement purposes. You can do it for free….

What do to?

Get your website optimised

First thing you need to do is make sure your website is properly optimised. How to do this? Easy, go to any seo tool and run a seo check on your site. Try http://seositecheckup.com/ and download the report and send it to your developer or if you did it yourself, even better.

Pick your channels

Set up your Channels, create your profile pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Youtube. Think about the blog on your website. Maybe you can write an article once a week or once a month (like me :-)). If you don’t like the idea of blogs use email instead. Ask customers to subscribe to your newsletter and send emails with new products, services, special offers, news, upcoming events, whatever you think….

Right channels for your customers

Using the right channels (websites) for your customers is important. For example Facebook is a excellent platform for inbound B2C where Twitter is the preferred platform for B2B engagement. Using the right platform to match your customers will take time, experiment with different topics, news, images, projects and in time you’ll find your way.

Time to plan….

Once you have all the resources in place it’s time for some planning. In marketing a common error is not to write down your plan. Most plans are verbal or put together in ones mind. Get it on paper, that way you can visualize it, modify it, grow it as you grow. Even do it for one week and stick to the plan!

Using the RACE model

When you start your digital strategy you will need to think about how or what you’re going to do so it bears fruit. You can’t just go at willy nilly and hope it all works out??? Using the RACE model gives you a better idea of how you will go about the plan. Obviously the idea is to create more business, but how?
R: Reach. How will you reach your customers. Website, Social Media, Email, Blog? The idea is to get them to your website. Using the channels allows you to do this.
A: Act: How will with your customers on Social Media, Email and Blog? Will you like their comments, re-tweet their tweets, share and engage with their comments?
C: Convert: This is what its all about. Getting that customer from prospect to customer. To do this will mean engagement and pushing the customer down the sales funnel. Having the right keywords in place to get them to your site is paramount. Use interesting titles for feeds or comments on Social Media, put up videos (if possible) of the product presentations, link to faqs, blog posts, special offers to get them hooked.
E: Engage: Now you have their attention you need to feed your customers more. Keep them in the loop on new products, special offers, news and events updated regularly throughout your channels.

Measure

You will want to know how many hits you got from a blog post or an article written on Facebook. Where are your customers based, what’s their favourite product, how many saw your video, the list goes on and on. To do this use Google Analytics. You’ll need to have a Google account or Gmail. Get your web developer to help you add the tracking code to your website. Sit back and watch how your work is doing….it’s addictive 

Summary

We’ve really only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to digital marketing but this should give you a good idea of how you, a small business owner can create a simple but effective digital marketing plan. I’ve listed some great websites with loads more info on digital marketing and resources available. Good luck and enjoy your adventure into online marketing fun! 

Links to Online Resources

Learn more on Digital Marketing and RACE: http://www.smartinsights.com/
How to write killer blogs: http://www.problogger.net/how-to-write-great-blog-content/
Webinars on RACE, Content Marketing and more: http://successflow.co.uk/webinars/
Create infographics for free: http://piktochart.com/
Send thousands of emails for Free: http://mailchimp.com/
SEO site check up: http://seositecheckup.com/
Learn for free: How to Blog http://firstsiteguide.com/
Best business email services: https://www.cloudwards.net/best-cloud-based-email-services/