A Small-Business Guide To Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the key component in the digital transformation of your small business. As a start, you may find my earlier posts about launching your first website and the basics of SEO here. Once your website is up and running, how can you now attract your dream customers to visit your site and then convert them to your customers?

In this blog post, I will write about the key principles of each channel that you can use to execute your digital marketing strategy. But before that, the core foundation of your marketing should be to communicate your brand. What is your \”Why\” for doing your business and how can it help your audience. What is it that identity or niche that you wanted to be known for? I will also iterate some tips on how to find the right partner for your digital marketing initiative.

Branding is not limited to your company name, your logo, or your tag line. It has to be living your mission and vision as a company and how are you different from your competitors. If you are a marketer, then you can probably take charge of the content of your ads but you can always delegate them to your marketing team or a marketing partner.

See checklist below:

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Digital Marketing Checklist:

CONTENT MARKETING.  This is one type of marketing or campaign that you can use to be the leader of your niche. You have to provide your audience with powerful information that they can use as their benefit in availing of your products or services.

On top of a website and SEO efforts, a blog or a vlog is the best way to do your content marketing. Post original content about your subject, provide tips, and how-tos. Post stories, announcements, promos, sales offers, challenges, ebooks, webinars, or news about your company and most importantly, valuable blog posts.  

Here are some content ideas that can help you stimulate your creativity in coming up with blog topics. 
Make killer headlines or great hooks to attract them to read your post.

Blog posts must be done consistently. It may be daily, weekly, or monthly.

Be sure to communicate it to them, say, posting every week and avoid failing them to keep the momentum and keep them engaged and excited on your next posts.

If you\’re using WordPress for your website, it has its blog module that you can use. Some free blogging platforms are medium.com, tumblr.com, or blogger.com. YouTube is the common platform if you choose to provide video content or vlogs.

In any case, almost all social media platforms have a native video like Instagram video/IGTV, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the now trending TikTok.  

 EMAIL MARKETING.  This type of digital marketing is a way to communicate with your clients via email.

The first step in doing this is to have a database of customers or lead email addresses or email list. You may get your first email list from your existing contacts or email threads then gradually build them from your different channels.

The best practice in building your email list is through a pop-up form from your website inviting them to subscribe. Another way is through collecting email from your online ads, or offline events if you do one. One technique is asking for their email in exchange for a product freebie or gift cheque.

The email list is considered an asset or a funnel that you own because once you have them, then you don\’t need to spend online ads to communicate to them because email is free.

Just take note of an important etiquette in email marketing, do not send them an email if they choose not to subscribe. And do not spam. The commonly used tool for email marketing is MailChimp, GetResponse, and SendInBlue. They have features to automatically sync emails from your other channels such as website, or online ads.  

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS   We can make the most from social media by understanding each platform and its purpose. If you visit each platform, each has its own missions statements:

Facebook — “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

Instagram — ”to capture and share the world’s moments.”

Twitter — ”is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve — and do not detract from — a free and global conversation.”

LinkedIn — ”connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

YouTube — “to give everyone a voice and show them the world.”

Medium — ”is to deepen readers’ understanding of the world and to empower writers to share their best work and biggest ideas.”

TikTok — ”to inspire creativity and bring joy.”

With the above, I tried to re-think of my social media strategy that is aligned to each platform’s mission.

Now that you understand their purpose, then you have to strategize what type of content you should post. Here are some tips that I do as a strategy for each of them.

Facebook — There are two communities that I am excited about. One is the community of young entrepreneurs and the community of small businesses who want to adapt to digital transformation. I think there are a lot of people who already contribute to the young entrepreneurs with a lot of motivational speakers and coaches both local and international. But the community of small businesses who wanted to digitize and automate their processes technology, I think that’s where I can focus on, hence, I will focus my content plan to this audience and try my best to engage with them through a Facebook group and a business page.

Instagram — It is pretty much self-explanatory. Every moment that is momentous to my life or attractive to my eyes, I will share.

LinkedIn — This I think is where I would share my passion for productivity and work.

Twitter — This is a platform for me to provide a thought to conversations across the globe relevant to digitalization.

YouTube — We all have voices in our heads and this platform allows everyone to express the voice whatever it is in a short or long video form. It is what I am going to do, use YouTube to post the video versions of the blogs I post here.

Medium — this is where my writing abilities get challenged. I will share here my deeper thoughts and ideas about my passion.

TikTok — this is where I will post fun, art, humor, and silly stuff.

For each of these platforms, you will build different profiles and set of followers that may be your future customers. Linking up your website and sales pages is a good way from time to time to convert from these channels. But again, provide them value first.

PPC – Pay Per Click. PPC is a form of Internet advertising where a company pays the platform only when the ad is click. Almost all social media channels have this but I will focus on Google/YouTube and Facebook.

Google and YouTube have both search and display ads. A search ad is where you bid on a certain keyword for example \”laptop for sale\” and then your ad will be rendered in the user\’s page depending on your bid. If you\’re the highest bidder, then you\’ll be at the top of the page. A display ad is a type of advertising where you choose which locations, demographics, webpages, or URLs (placements), targeting you would like the ad to appear.

Google and Facebook both have these and this is where I focus my efforts on. There are several types of ads that you can buy from these platforms, such as a link to your website, a link to your sales page, a link to your digital product, a signup form, or a lead form. It depends on your objective.

Typically, you set a daily budget/threshold to limit the ad display once it reached the budget that you set. A good strategy is to make it a narrow target as possible. You may start with your existing email list or audience, or a certain type of behavior or demographic. PPC is the quickest way to gain traction because these are leads that you buy.

You may use Google and Facebook ad managers to analyze the performance of your ads. You can also put trackers on your website such as FB Pixel to monitor the visitor\’s behaviors and communicate it to Facebook. You can perform several A/B testings to make your ad effective and cost-efficient.

INFLUENCER/AFFILIATE MARKETING. Influencer/affiliate marketing is one type of digital marketing where you partner with an influencer within your niche and engage with them for a brand deal. This is where they will promote your products for a fee.

Another form of affiliate marketing is by registering your products in an affiliate marketing platform such as ClickBank, Amazon, or Rakuten, and then an affiliate marketer sells your products for a commission.

Marketing, in general, is a very broad topic to discuss and these are just a quick overview hoping to guide you on a macro level in starting your digital marketing strategy. If you can afford it then you may outsource it to digital marketing agencies and I am sure if you find the right partner, then you\’ll get what you will pay for.

Here is a bonus tip in finding your digital marketing partner whether it is an individual or a marketing firm.

The tip is very simple. Just observe them and their existing clientele. If their clients and themselves have obvious traction in their channels then it only means they are effective. Look at their websites, check their social media if there are engagements, and/or if they post free valuable content about digital marketing. Lastly, if they practice all the above channels, then your search is over. 

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