If you run a business, it’s important to engage in online marketing to grow your customer base. Many companies don’t realize the power of effective digital marketing; consequently, they find it excessively difficult to survive the competition. Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut when it comes down to successfully running a business with a limited budget. If you want to make it easy and simple to experience real-time growth, don’t forget to explore and use online marketing.
In 2019 and beyond, every entrepreneur must understand that strategic online marketing is vital to success. Surprisingly, most companies either don’t have a digital marketing strategy or their web presence is too weak to produce considerable results.
Digital marketing keeps evolving over time. Sometimes it gets complicated for a business to keep up with all the latest marketing techniques and technologies. As a business owner, you don’t have any control over the pace at which marketing technologies evolve, so it’s important to focus on what you can control.
Digital marketing is a set of various platforms that enable you to design campaigns and connect with your audience in a very streamlined and efficient manner. Let’s take a look at how you can use the following 4 proven digital marketing tactics to grow your business:
1. Analyze your current SEO situation
2. Create converting and valuable content
3. Develop a healthy presence on social media
4. Pay-per-click (PPC)
Digital Marketing
Marketing your business using digital (or online) tools has become important as people are increasingly using their mobile phones or tablets to browse products and services on the internet.
You can market and grow your business online via:
- a website
- email marketing
- social media
- search engine optimization (SEO)
- search engine marketing (SEM)
Creating a website
Most businesses have, or should have, a website to promote their products or services. A website is a digital shopfront allowing you to always be open for business.
Most customers will undertake online research before making a decision to purchase products and services. If you don’t have a website or other online presence you may be missing out on customers.
Your website should:
- outline your products and services
- include content and images that are engaging and relevant to your target audience
- enable people to contact you
It is important to plan before creating a website, ask yourself:
- What is the purpose of the website?
- Do I intend to sell products or services online?
- What do I want people to do after they have visited my website?
- How much can I afford to spend on the website?
- How will I keep the information on the website up to date?
Creating a website generally involves the following steps:
- Register your website address or domain name
- Build your website using a template or custom-built design
- Create content for your website
- Determine how you would like the website to look and feel (branding)
- Set up hosting services to connect your website to the internet.
Read our publication on selecting a website professional if you decide that you need help creating your website. Our Build a Website booklet can also be used to let a website professional know what you are looking for from your website or help you build your own.
TIP: Attend our Website Planning and Digital Marketing Essentials workshops to help you get started.