Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Business: A 3-Step Guide
This guide will show you how to develop a digital marketing strategy for small business, step-by-step.
Learn how to create a digital marketing strategy for small business, what it involves, and how a simple 3-step process can help you achieve better results.
Table of Contents
Ensure you have objectives and goals established prior to starting.Identify your objectives and goals prior to the beginning.
If you’re a small business owner, then you’ve experienced this before: you’re posting on social media, running the occasional ad, writing a blog post now and then – and it doesn’t seem to be having an impact. The feeling of being ‘scattered’ is typically indicative of one thing. You don’t have a real digital marketing strategy. A pile of tactics is on your table.
My particular areas of interest are at the intersection of digital marketing and technology, with a focus on how to maximize the use of AI and cloud-based solutions to help businesses create smarter online strategies. Throughout the years, I’ve helped small business owners make that random activity organized, quantifiable and most important, repeatable. This post will show you that step-by-step, on a legit project.
A Real Example of a digital marketing strategy for small business.
The only thing that I can recall from a memorable project, was a small service business in my local area. It was primarily “rumor” and it really was a rather familiar location on the ground. In real life, however, it had little to no visibility, but on the internet it had little to almost no visibility!
They had a website that was very basic and had a social media presence, but they did not know who to target, how to measure the success of their campaigns or what they should have. Marketing was going on, it was just not making any headway.
It was not a lack of effort that was the real challenge. There was no plan to link up that effort with a result.
3 Steps to Create a digital marketing strategy for small business
The only thing that I can recall from a memorable project, was a small service business in my local area. It was primarily “rumor” and it really was a rather familiar location on the ground. In real life, however, it had little to no visibility, but on the internet it had little to almost no visibility!
They had a website that was very basic and had a social media presence, but they did not know who to target, how to measure the success of their campaigns or what they should have. digital marketing was going on, it was just not making any headway.
It was not a lack of effort that was the real challenge. There was no plan to link up that effort with a result.
This is the way I went about that business, and still do to begin with today.
1. Conduct an audit to see what’s already in place.
I took a few minutes to see what this site has to offer with regard to content, social interaction and how the site ranks in search engines and made a note of the most significant opportunities. More important than it sounds, you can’t fix something if you don’t check it out thoroughly.
Ask yourself:
- Are customers finding our website for what they are searching?
- Is it an issue or filler?
- Do we take the shot at the hip or do we measure.
2. Determine Audience, and tailor Strategy based on real Searches.
I then outlined my customer and created a content and SEO plan around what type of services they were looking to avail, not what services I was interested in writing about.
Not all small businesses make it to this point. They develop content – not for what the customer wants to see. This is a breeze with a clear definition of the audience, after all, anything after that will have a purpose.
3. implement, optimize, monitor
Then I was in charge of website content, aiding in page optimisations, producing useful social media content and began to monitor traffic, ranking and leads. The tracking part of that is too often overlooked by too many businesses, and it’s the essential element to make marketing a game of guesswork a game of better-over-time digital marketing.
Progress in the business was slow over the next couple of months, with more organic traffic and search visibility, and steadily increasing enquiry numbers. The biggest distinction, wasn’t that it was done in a different way, but it was done in a way and you had a way to measure and track your marketing, instead of just a lot of posts and word of mouth.
The most common mistake of small businesses.
The one thing that I see people over and over again do wrong is attempt to go too many different directions without any sort of plan.
It’s possible for a company to have social media presence, engage in some social media marketing, have a blog and do SEO simultaneously. However, when they aren’t sure exactly what they are looking for, or what they want to achieve their efforts become dashed and difficult to measure.
I’m only getting the answer ‘The only answer is…’.
- The first key is to know your target audience!
- Be aware of the audience(s) to this particular text.
- Select 2-3 channels which will be appropriate for your business.
- Before launching your content, establish measurable objectives.Before diving into content creation, determine measurable goals.
Any strategy that you do regularly, and targeting, will be better than a shotgun approach that is targeting a bunch of platforms that you can mobilize.
Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Tools: How they fit in.How does AI and Cloud come into it?
Here it comes in handy because of my expertise in artificial intelligence and cloud-based solutions. They will be useful in the various stages of this process, but will not be substitutes for the following stages: Researching what your audience wants; Study campaign data; and Draft content quickly. While artificial intelligence may enable you to execute your digital marketing strategy faster, it won’t inform you of the customer you’re targeting or what the results will be that matter to your enterprise. This will still be up to you.
AI and cloud tools should not be used in place of (but rather alongside) a well-defined strategy if employed effectively. If they’re taking a scatter shot (one which does the same will produce scattered content even quicker).
Also, it would be prudent to note that results vary between the different phases of the competition in all beginnings and industries. It’s not something that is impossible – indeed, it may be more obvious for a local service company that doesn’t have a lot of online presence to start with – than a business in a competitive niche.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the timeframe for a digital marketing to work? Those other metrics, such as traffic and enquiries to your small business website take a few months of steady work before you start to see some results (days, not months).
Is it necessary to have a presence on all social media sites? No. It’s more beneficial to have a few posts on 1 or 2 platforms where your true audience will be than 5 and very few posts.
Can AI tools take the place of a digital marketing strategy? The direction (who for, which objectives) and the criteria to measure success have to be human – this strategic direction has to be given by humans and not by the AI tools.
How Long Does a Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Business Take to Work? A digital marketing strategy for small business usually takes a few months of consistent work before you start seeing meaningful improvements in traffic, search visibility, and enquiries.
Does a Small Business Need a Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Business on Every Social Media Platform? No. A digital marketing strategy for small business does not require being active on every social media platform. It is better to focus on one or two platforms where your target audience is most active.
Can AI Tools Replace a Digital Marketing Strategy for Small Business? No. AI tools can help a small business create content, research its audience, and analyze results, but they cannot replace a digital marketing strategy for small business. The strategy still needs clear goals, a defined audience, and measurable results.
The most final part of a perfect strategy is to create the tactics prior to creating the strategy.
It’s not about what channels you use, it’s not about creating your content, a good digital marketing strategy for small business begins with strategy addressing key issues. It begins with an honest inventory, a well-defined audience and a defined strategy that is measurable. Everything else, the contents, the ads, the AI tools – anything else, really – should be on top of that – not in its place.
When beginning anew, don’t try and do it all at once. Determine who you are trying to communicate with, how you will communicate, and what you want to communicate.
For more digital marketing insights and practical strategies, visit my website to explore additional resources.my website
This is an On Page SEO & Publishing Notes.This is an On Page SEO & Publishing Notes.
- Secondary keywords: digital marketing, virtual marketing, online marketing, marketing, marketing strategies, marketing planning, marketing online (all in the H2, one in the SEO title, one in the meta description, one in the introduction, one in one H2, one in the conclusion)
- Internal linking opportunity: If he/she mentions “case studies” or “content strategy,” link to another post that you’ve written on the same topic to your website – such as a post you wrote about local SEO or content marketing.
- External reference (authoritative do-follow): Google Business Essentials — relevant when it comes to “local visibility” and Google Business Profile.”
- Suggested images:
- A basic 3 stage diagram, with the following labels (Audit, Define, Execute & Track) – Alt text: “Digital marketing framework diagram for small business”
- Graph showing the small business digital marketing strategy results before and after, and the growth in organic traffic — Alt text: “small business digital marketing strategy results”
- Digital marketing strategy for small business store front picture — Alt Text: small business online visibility digital marketing.