With innovations disrupting best practices seemingly every day, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often find themselves in a maze of new trends and technologies.
Keeping pace can be daunting, but it's manageable.
This guide presents a dual approach for SMBs wanting to improve their digital marketing: basic strategies that SMBs can implement independently and advanced techniques where considering an agency's expertise might be beneficial.
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Whether a novice in digital marketing or ready to explore more sophisticated methods, this journey is about turning challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
SMB owners looking to implement low-effort and low-budget—yet highly effective—digital marketing strategies should consider claiming their Google Business Profile.
Disseminating strategic press releases, implementing creative ideas, deploying NPS surveys, and initiating email marketing campaigns are also worthwhile.
These strategies require minimal specialist marketing knowledge, making them accessible to business owners who are juggling multiple roles or the one- (wo)man marketing team.
Local SMBs must prioritize their online presence to attract and retain customers. Claiming and optimizing a Google Business Profile is not just about being found online; it's about making a lasting first impression.
For local businesses, this is a crucial step toward improving local search visibility and credibility.
With a Google Business Profile, SMBs can position themselves effectively in local markets for increased customer engagement and interaction.
Examples of Google business profiles
The ultimate goal is to be featured in Google's 'Local 3-Pack,' the block of three business listings that appear at the top of Google search results for local queries. Businesses in the 3-Pack gain significantly more visibility and are likelier to be clicked on by potential customers.
By effectively optimizing their Google Business Profile, SMBs enhance their local SEO and lay a solid foundation for broader digital marketing efforts. Partnering with the best digital marketing agencies near you in the USA can significantly amplify these efforts.
While a more traditional tactic, press releases are still relevant and stand out for their ability to broadcast significant company milestones or product launches. Utilizing press releases is a strategic move to gain media attention and reach a broader audience.
Additionally, SMBs can effectively communicate their unique value proposition, capturing the interest of potential customers and investors. This traditional yet powerful tool can amplify an SMB's voice in a competitive market.
Similar to press releases in that they enhance brand visibility and reach, SMBs can implement creative marketing strategies to differentiate themselves further and create a lasting impact on their audience.
A more modern marketing tactic — simple yet challenging to master — is embracing creativity. Creative marketing strategies can set an SMB apart in a crowded marketplace.
Yet, it’s not just about standing out; it's about creating a memorable brand experience that resonates with customers. This approach is crucial for SMBs looking to establish a strong brand identity and foster customer loyalty.
By injecting creativity into their marketing efforts, SMBs can engage their audience meaningfully, setting the stage for increased customer interaction and brand advocacy. Thus, it’s essential to implement creative strategies that:
BarkBox, a monthly subscription service for dog products, executed a remarkable National Squirrel Appreciation Day campaign, turning this obscure holiday into a highly engaging social media event.
They creatively simulated a 'hostage takeover' of their social media accounts by squirrels, claiming that a BarkBox walnut toy had depleted their food supply.
This playful and imaginative campaign, which involved changing social media profiles and posting humorous, threatening messages from squirrels, generated significant user engagement.
Followers enthusiastically participated, creating a buzz around the brand without any direct call-to-action for sales.
This campaign is a prime example of how creative storytelling and audience engagement can elevate a brand's social media presence and foster a deep connection with customers.
Should the idea of a full-blown creative campaign be too cumbersome, SMBs have other options to deepen customer relationships and loyalty, like through NPS surveys.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys are a popular tool for preventing and managing customer dissatisfaction. They ask customers how likely they are to recommend your business to others, usually on a scale from 0 to 10.
Understanding customer sentiment is essential for sustainable growth for SMBs. Implementing NPS surveys helps gain invaluable feedback and actionable insights into customer loyalty and satisfaction.
This tool enables SMBs to pinpoint areas of excellence and those needing improvement, helping guide strategic decisions and change.
The insights gathered from NPS surveys provide SMBs valuable feedback for continual improvement. You can then use this insight for direct customer engagement strategies like personalized email marketing.
Email marketing offers an unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with customers. This is especially true for SMBs with a marketing team or technologically savvy owners who desire to learn.
Those with limited knowledge of email best practices should start by incorporating a monthly newsletter.
As knowledge grows, incorporate personalization (within reason) to help connect with audiences on a deeper level. This personalization goes beyond using the customer's name; it involves tailoring content based on their past interactions, preferences, and purchase history.
Email marketing campaign by forbiddenplanet.com
Successful email marketing hinges on a few key strategies:
Mastering email marketing empowers SMBs to establish robust connections with their audience, serving as a vital step in their digital marketing journey.
This proficiency in email marketing can act as a springboard into more sophisticated strategies, encouraging SMBs to embrace a comprehensive digital marketing approach.
Such a holistic strategy ensures that all marketing efforts are interconnected and synergistic, enhancing the overall impact on customer engagement and business growth.
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6. In-depth market and audience researchFor SMBs looking to take their marketing efforts to the next level, several sophisticated and proven techniques are available.
These strategies typically require more marketing expertise and are best executed by experienced digital strategy consultants or agencies.
Because they involve a more significant investment of time and resources, they also promise a higher return by targeting the right audience and leveraging data-driven insights.
Thorough market and audience research marks the beginning of a deeper dive into understanding the nuanced needs of an SMB's target audience.
This type of research is not just about gathering data; it's about uncovering potential customers' specific desires and pain points, which is pivotal for crafting highly targeted and effective marketing strategies.
It often looks like this:
As we move from understanding the audience to actively reaching them, the next critical step a digital marketing agency would recommend involves delving into an SMB’s SEO and SEM.
With a firm understanding of the target audience, the focus shifts to enhancing an SMB's online presence through effective search engine optimization (SEO).
While SEO is considered a long-term strategy, it’s an integral foundation for implementing other strategies. For instance, if an SMB chooses to implement Google ads, the website’s SEO score can impact the ads' performance and cost.
Expand the prior market and audience research to create an SEO strategy, which will lay the foundation for the rest of the strategy.
The agencies' expertise in this domain elevates an SMB's search engine strategy and sets the stage for the next logical step in digital marketing — investing in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads.
Building upon the foundation of SEO, investing in ads represents a direct and impactful way for SMBs to drive targeted traffic and conversions. This approach is particularly vital for those seeking immediate results. Well-crafted campaigns offer the dual benefit of precision targeting and cost-effectiveness.
While varying in cost, these ads are essential to the marketing funnel, helping potential customers gain awareness of an SMB’s products and services. At a fundamental level overview, agencies will take care of:
Building upon standard ads, SMBs can turn to remarketing strategies, which allow companies to reconnect with users who have shown interest in their products or services but have yet to convert.
Example of a remarketing ad (source: independent.co.uk)
As the marketing journey continues, implementing remarketing strategies becomes critical for SMBs to re-engage with individuals who have previously interacted with their website.
This tactic is not just about recapturing lost opportunities; it's a strategic approach to reinforce brand messages and nudge potential customers toward purchasing.
An agency’s approach to remarketing often looks like:
The effectiveness of remarketing underscores the importance of the following critical aspect in advanced marketing strategies - thorough data analysis.
Finally, thorough data analysis is a cornerstone of informed decision-making. For SMBs, it is essential to dive deep into data analysis to understand their marketing strategies' effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. However, this tactic involves more than just looking at reports, such as:
This step is crucial in closing the loop of the marketing cycle, ensuring that every tactic, from market research to remarketing, is continually refined for maximum impact and ROI.
In conclusion, this comprehensive guide illuminates the path for SMBs to navigate the complex digital marketing landscape.
From basic, self-implementable tactics to advanced strategies that may benefit from professional agency input, each approach is designed to harness the power of data-driven decision-making.
By adopting these strategies, SMBs can enhance their online presence, engage effectively with their target audience, and drive sales growth.
Whether taking the first steps in digital marketing or scaling new heights with sophisticated techniques, SMBs can transform digital challenges into opportunities, steering their business toward sustained success and growth in a competitive marketplace.
Eamonn O’Raghallaigh is a Teaching Fellow at Trinity Business School and Managing Director at Digital Strategy Consultants, which specialises in SEO, Analytics, and Digital Marketing Consultancy.
He is an accomplished professional with over 25 years of experience in life sciences, recruitment, digital consultancy, and academia.
He holds master’s degrees in Neuroscience and Digital Marketing and a PhD in Business from Trinity College Dublin.