As a small business owner, you may find it challenging to figure out how to market your business effectively to generate more customers and grow your company. However, you don’t have to do everything on your own. Digital marketing platforms give you many opportunities to properly position your business in the marketplace and generate a steady flow of customers.
The question is — how do you pick a digital marketing platform perfect for your business? With so many newly developed marketing tools, it may be challenging to decide on the right one.
In this article, we list the five essential areas every online marketing platform should excel in to deliver exceptional results.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization or SEO refers to the strategies implemented to improve the website's position in search engine result pages for higher traffic. When you type a search query, Google uses some factors to decide the websites they'll show you. SEO is applying those deciding factors to your website so that when someone searches for a term related to your business, you can appear on Google page one.
SEO is vital because if you rank on Google page one, you are more likely to get more people coming to your website and buying the products or services you offer.
Considering that 63% of consumers start their search for a product or service online, even if the actual purchase happens offline, you want to appear in search engine results as one of the best services on the internet. Digital marketing platforms can help you optimize your website for search engines by providing keywords related to the services you provide that your business has an opportunity to rank high for. Creating content around those keywords will give you a chance to drive traffic to your website when people use those keywords in their online search.
Social Media
There are lots of reasons your business should leverage social media platforms to connect with existing and potential customers. Using social media marketing in your business allows you to be where your potential customers are and achieve some of the following:
Build brand awareness and recognition. The first stage of marketing is to get people to know you exist. Social media makes it easier for you to get your business in front of potential customers without jumping through the hoops and incurring the expenses you would have with traditional marketing channels. All you need to do is to open a social media account.
Drive traffic to your website. Social media sites allow you to add a link to your website on your profile and posts and reach more prospective customers.
Understand your customers. Engaging with your customers on social media often provides insight into their needs, preferences, and pain points, so you can learn to serve people better.
Provide exceptional customer experience. Social media is an interactive field that allows you to connect with your customers on another level and provide more comprehensive customer service. Delivering excellent customer service is a way to build brand loyalty and get even exposure when satisfied customers talk about your business.
Digital marketing platforms like Sprout Social can help you streamline your social media marketing efforts by allowing you to manage them from one location. They can help you measure your performance, automate, and control all your social media accounts from one place.
Paid Ads
Paid ads are still an effective tool for reaching potential customers fast. For instance, social ads e.g., your Facebook ads or search ads can be approved and start running in less than 24 hours. If you select the right audience, have a compelling marketing campaign message, and make the right offer, you are likely to see positive results immediately.
Paid ads platforms like Google marketing platform or Google ads (formerly Google AdWords) give you access to Google marketing platform products, such as Google Analytics tools, that help you understand your customers at different points of their customer journey. As customers expect brands to understand and reach them with relevant messages and offers these days, most marketing efforts are data-driven and personalized.
Digital marketing platforms can help you discover the paid ad platforms you're more likely to succeed in and provide insight into what works across different platforms. These would help you make data-driven decisions that can help you increase your ROI.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an inbound marketing strategy effective at engaging current and potential customers. Inbound marketing aims to generate sales and grow business by building meaningful connections with customers and prospects.
There are several reasons email marketing should be part of your digital marketing strategy.
Email marketing is great for nurturing leads and getting conversion
Email marketing is great for nurturing leads and converting them to paying customers. Consider the following statistics:
Email marketing gives $36 for every $1 spent on average
64% of small business owners use email marketing to contact customers
59% of B2B marketers say email gives them the highest ROI
87% of digital marketers use email marketing to nurture their audiences
Your email marketing audience expects to hear from you
One reason email marketing works is that you’re sending messages to people who have explicitly given you consent to contact them. Unlike in several marketing channels, your audience in email marketing expects to hear from your business.
Email marketing helps with content distribution
Email marketing is a great way to distribute your content and drive traffic to your website. When you publish new, helpful content on your blog, you can send an email blast to your list and get readers in minutes. So, it should be part of your content marketing strategy.
Email marketing offers advanced personalization
Email marketing also offers an opportunity to leverage marketing automation and send highly personalized messages tailored to where your customers are on their buying journey and their behavior. You can create different content based on your audience segments, so you send the right email to the right persons every time.
Digital marketing platforms can give you detailed data analysis of how your audience interacts with your emails. You can measure and track important metrics, such as open rates, clickthrough rates, and conversation rates.
Lead Management
Lead management is a set of methodologies you can use to guide prospects from their initial contact with your business until they become customers. Lead management usually involves the following processes:
- Lead generation to capture the leads
- Lead tracking to understand leads better by looking at their activities on your website
- Lead qualification to assign value to the lead based on your scoring criteria
- Lead distribution among sales reps
- Lead nurturing to provide your leads with the resources they need to make the purchase decision
Proper lead management will help you weed out the leads not likely to convert to customers and focus on real prospects. Effective lead management requires you to communicate strategically at every touchpoint, which is why you are likely to have better results by outsourcing it to experts that can devote the necessary time and skill.
Digital marketing platforms help you to manage your leads more efficiently by providing you with a single platform where you can track and view your leads' contact details and interactions. Also, they can help you qualify and score your leads automatically so you can move faster in your lead management.
Powerful Marketing for Small Businesses
Digital marketing platforms provide vital tools that help you adopt proven marketing strategies that will provide meaningful results in your marketing efforts. However, effective marketing demands time and marketing expertise you may not have, which is why you'll likely have faster results by partnering with a digital marketing agency like Scorpion.
Scorpion helps small businesses generate a steady flow of clients to meet revenue goals. Contact us to see how we can aid your business in attracting ideal clients.
