How did Digital Marketing become the need of every local business or brand? Are you taking care of all parameters of digital marketing to get better ROI?
What could be the digital marketing strategies for local business?
These queries often disturb the marketers, business owners, and brands. To simplify your marketing efforts, you must know the basics, tools, and feasibility of digital marketing for your local business/brand.
BEGIN WITH…
What is Digital Marketing?
In Short, Digital Marketing, a part of Marketing emphasizes the use of digital technology to promote any brand/business. You often use two terms i.e. Internet Marketing and Digital Marketing. Both are thought to be synonymous but they are not. Internet Marketing is a subset of Digital Marketing i.e
Digital marketing includes more channels than Internet marketing. Digital Marketing can be done both online and offline whereas Internet Marketing includes online channels only. You are not supposed to use all the offline and online marketing plans in one go. You can use as per suitability and compatibility of your business.
Categories of Digital Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization( SEO)
- PPC|Google Adwords|Online Display Advertising
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- E-commerce Marketing
- Content Marketing|Inbound Marketing
- App Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- Radio Marketing
- TV Marketing
- Mobile Marketing
- Electronic Billboards
Merits of Digital Marketing Strategies for Local Business
- Increases pool of customers, as you can reach out to more audience in less time
- Improves Brand Awareness and performance
- Cost effective, if planned well for your niche; generates potential business leads
- Edge over your competitors & takes advantage of competitors’ weak marketing strategies
- Gives you an opportunity to increase your reach from Local to National market
Basic Digital Marketing Strategies for Local Business
First of all, Do Not Waste Money & Time On any Digital Marketing Plan or Marketing Agency until you get a road map and ROI oriented Marketing Strategy. New local business with a lesser budget has its own limitations. BUDGET, PLANNING & EXECUTION become an issue. So it is very important to understand that whether it is B2C or B2B business as the strategy for B2C differs from B2B.
But what comes first to your mind? What is your first thought? A WEBSITE….
A user-friendly website has become mandatory for even local businesses to drive potential customers through digital marketing. You can hire a freelance web developer from UPWORK.COM or can go for website developing agency for simple and SEO friendly website. Then What’s Next?? Let’s start……
Steps to Grow Local Business Locally through Digital Marketing
1) Niche
Track your competitors’ social network, map your target audience and have a better networking over social media. According to Statista, the number of social media users till 2016 was 2.28 Billion and the projected estimation for 2021 is 3.02 Billion. So, Social media has become utmost important for local businesses and brands.
For B2C, the first priority is Facebook & for B2B, LinkedIn is the most ROI generating platform but there is a huge customer base of potential customers on other platforms too.
Try to choose the best platforms in your initial years of business. Major ROI Generating Social Media Platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slideshare, and Snapchat.
Along with this, connect to your offline store visitors via social media, this will help you to get orders & will increase your brand awareness.
Use the Social Media Tools like; Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, HootSuite, Buffer & SocialPilot to get insights.
Know More: Tips & Tricks to Improve Social Media Strategies 2018.
2) Email Marketing
MarketingCharts.com statistics – Response Data for Marketing Tactics Used to Build Emails Lists.
How to build your email lists? No worries, here is your Email Marketing Tips. Start building Email lists from different platforms and marketing activities, it could be through social media, content marketing, local customer lists, and so on.
Free Coupons, discount offers, and knowledge sharing through eBooks, videos, infographics, and webinars can help you out to make email lists of potential customers. You can use Google Sheet, MailChimp & Convert Kit for Email Marketing.
3) Local Business Listing
Get listed on Google, Bing, and Yahoo and on local search engines as well to find customers/clients of your area such as Yelp, Yellow pages, Just dial, etc.
If you are having B2C or B2B business, you need to register your business to online marketplaces where you can find genuine buyers/clients.
If you are dealing with consumer goods, take out the list of online marketplaces and choose the best ones as per your budget. There are many online stores like Amazon & Flipkart to sell your products. So if you are finding it hard to sell your products, choose online options.
4) Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing includes Content Marketing. Your Inbound Marketing Strategy can channelize your content; it can be through guest blogging, video channel, infographics, webinars, online press release, etc.
Tools: Google Trends for topic research; Google Keyword Planner for keyword research; Grammarly for grammar check; Copyscape for plagiarism check; Canva & Piktochart for Infographics; Moovly & GoAnimate for animation videos.
5. Other Strategies
With the growth of your business, you have options to expand your marketing plan like Mobile Marketing, which is a budget-friendly option for local businesses, Pay Per Click, Online Display Advertising, and others. SEO should be started from the beginning as it will not give immediate results but will serve the purpose in long run.
Read more: SEO Step by Step Techniques to Improve Google Ranking
Now I hope you can start your Digital Marketing Plan.
Write to Tarannum Khan at digitaltarannum@gmail.com.
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