Digital marketing is a powerful tool that can be used by any business, no matter which industry you are in. Digital marketing can be easily tracked, giving you insight into what’s working and what isn’t. Because it is so quantifiable, you can more easily adjust and evolve your strategy over time, based on the analytics. In this blog, we will dive deeper into digital marketing so that you can use it to help your small business grow.

Digital Marketing Defined

Here at Ellen Grace Marketing, Lyndsay and I often get questions like what is digital marketing and how can it help me grow my small business?  Digital marketing encompasses all of your online or electronic marketing efforts including social media, email marketing, blog writing, SEO, paid search, content marketing, display ads, inbound marketing, website design and more.

There are many different ways to approach and structure your digital marketing efforts. Every small business is different and goals and objectives will vary. We strongly believe that in order to maximize your return, you need to start with a strategic plan. You need to understand who you’re trying to reach (target audience), what you’re going to say (relevant content), and where and when it’s all going to happen (detailed plan by platform or channel, along with timing and tasks).  Next, you must have a structure in place for consistent execution. You don’t want to just post or send whenever you think of it, it needs to be planned out in advance.  Finally, you should be reviewing what’s working and what’s not on a regular basis (results and ROI).

A Digital Marketing Strategy That Works

Our approach to digital marketing is focused heavily on your content – consistently creating relevant content to serve up to your ideal audience.  Creating consistent brand awareness helps to build trust. Trust is the foundation you need to increase your leads, your customers, and ultimately your sales.

When we are creating an approach for a client’s digital marketing plan, the process can be broken down into the following parts. By answering the questions below, you’ll be able to develop your best digital marketing strategy.

Research & Development of Strategic Plan:

• Who are you trying to target, and where can you best do that?
• What are your goals (clicks, conversions, leads, customers, sales)?
• How will you structure your content plan (number of posts/sends/articles by week, by month, by platform)?

Relevant Content Creation + Consistent Execution & Engagement

• Who will manage each of the following areas of your marketing?
• Are you using best practices (hashtags and links, SEO, optimal send times, etc. for the following)?
  • Social media platforms (scheduling, community engagement)
  • Email marketing (lists, segmentation, subject lines, calls to action, links)
  • Blog writing (on relevant topics, on-brand and written for SEO, internal and external links)
  • Others (such as paid ads, website design, etc.)

Review Metrics (adjust if needed)

• What metrics are most important to your business growth and how will you measure them?
• Who will review the metrics and how often?
• What is working best, and how can that be accelerated?
• What isn’t working as expected, and needs to be adjusted?
• How can your overall plan be improved going forward?

The best strategies for small business digital marketing begin with developing a solid plan, followed by consistent and relevant content creation and execution. You will need to review what is working best and evolve your plan as necessary to continue building trust and keeping your brand top of mind with your audience.  As you probably know, the digital marketing world is continually evolving, and it is important to keep up with best practices in order to stay relevant to your audience.

If you have any questions, we are always here to answer them.  If you want to learn more about growing your small business through digital marketing, please click to set up a free discovery call.

We can discuss how to help you stay top of mind to your audience, how to stay relevant, and how to grow your small business.

Reach Out To Us At Any Time…