Why Small Businesses Need to Embrace Digital Marketing

Almost half of all businesses don't have a digital marketing plan in place. Is your company among them?

If so, you need to make some moves. Small business digital marketing is essential for scaling your business in 2018. Advertising is on its way out, and digital marketing is taking the world by storm.

Want to learn more about digital marketing for small businesses, and how to create an effective online marketing plan? Read on to learn more about the importance of digital marketing strategies for small businesses.

It's the Way of the Future

83% of businesses report that their digital marketing tactics are working to grow their business. There's no denying that we live in a digital economy today. Smartphones are so pervasive that people spend 24 hours per week staring at their phone.

In the twenty-first century, you'll find people on digital outlets more than anywhere else. In the past, car passengers would certainly read bus stop benches as they zoomed past on the highway. Now, they stay occupied by the phones in their pockets.

Same goes for other popular forms of advertising, like newspapers, for instance. Every major news outlet has an app now, so people turn to their phones to get the latest news. It's easy, digestible, and usually free.

Even magazines are turning more and more toward digital publication. You'll find fewer places to place print ads in 2018. Those ads won't get beneath nearly as many people's eyes as digital strategies, either.

Connect with Your Ideal Client

One of the most potent uses of digital marketing strategies is to connect you to your ideal client. Digital marketing offers ways to market directly toward the exact demographic you're trying to target. Traditional advertising methods don't allow this direct targeting method.

Here's a social media marketing example. On Instagram, you can find hashtags that your ideal clients are searching on the app. Once you see these hashtags, you can begin to use them on your posts to reach that demographic.

Here's another example relevant to content marketing. By writing a blog and hosting it on your website, you can attract organic leads that are interested in what you have to say.

With some light research, you'll be able to find the questions your client base is asking online. From there, you can even tailor your blog topics to answer those questions directly. With some search engine optimization, this can land your potential clients right onto your website.

Your Small Business Digital Marketing Plan

Digital marketing is the only way to scale your business in 2018. As old traditional advertising methods die out, small business digital marketing has become a much stronger alternative. It's also the best way to reach your target demographic directly.

Want to learn more about how to dive into online marketing for small businesses? We can help there.

We specialize in inbound and video marketing, two of the most significant branch of digital marketing today. Get in touch to find out how we can help you scale your business!


Five Tips for Efficient PPC Management

PPC, or pay per click advertising, is a mainstay of effective internet advertising that has benefits for the advertiser and the advertisement host alike. Under PPC, advertisers only pay for each click an ad receives. While sites hosting the ads receive payment based on the frequency of clicks. This process helps hosts gain revenue that is tied directly into audience response to the ad while helping advertisers limit ad expenditures to only those ads that get results.

However, to make the most of your PPC advertising, you need to keep a few simple PPC management rules in mind:

PPC BUDGET

Not all search engines were created equally and should not be budgeted equally. An ad hosted on Yahoo will almost certainly not get the same number of clicks – or eyes – as the same ad on Google. Why is this important? When allocating funding for your ad program, you need to take this into account when determining which service will give you the greatest return on your advertising dollar. For instance, if you are running an ad on Yahoo and Google, don’t split your budget 50-50 between the sites. Your budget should reflect a realistic idea of how much cost each site will incur for the campaign. Realistically a 30-70 split should be more appropriate but will vary based on the quality or appeal of the actual ad and how efficient your search engine optimization (SEO) has been set up.

Allocate budget based on hard numbers: A corollary to the point above is to let actual conversion numbers guide your PPC advertising budget. Allow enough budget flexibility that if you see that one campaign is working better than another that you can direct more resources to that ad or ad campaign. However, all budget decisions made after a campaign is launched should be based on hard market analysis, not on gut feeling or personal preference of one site over another.

 

PPC CHALLENGES

Be realistic about the challenges facing PPC advertising: Your PPC program is only as good as the management of your PPC program. There are some pitfalls that good PPC management can mitigate: rising cost of PPC due to increased competition and cost per click; managing hundreds if not thousands of keywords; the challenges of creating PPC advertisements that work in mobile browsers; and the ongoing battle with ad-blocking software. A professional, full-service digital marketing agency can help you overcome these hurdles.

PPC ANALYTICS

Campaign Analytics is your friend: Many services such as Google AdWords can deliver very precise statistics regarding the efficiency of your campaign. Need to know which keywords are the most efficient? What time, the day of the week, or day of the month does your ad drive the most clicks? These services can extract this data for you so that you can fine-tune your ad campaign to deliver the most clicks at best time for your business – and your budget.

PPC KEYWORDS

Don’t be afraid to narrow your niche to drive the right customers to your site: Few things irritate potential customers – and cost you lost PPC dollars – quite like a misleading ad word or SEO term that drives customers to an advertiser that is not what they seem. For instance, if your specialty is electric guitars, resist the urge to push just ‘guitars’ as a keyword. Customers looking for acoustic guitars will quickly flee your site, while you will be left holding the bag for wasted ad clicks. Ineffective PPC is a waste of the customers’ time and your resources.

At HARNESS, we offer a full range of digital marketing services designed to drive your business to the next level.

Contact us today to put our professional, full-service digital marketing experts to work for you to create the captivating content that you need to engage your customers.