The biggest challenges you can face as a small business is to grow your business with digital marketing tools and to cope with the rapid digital changes and modern means of business marketing. Therefore we at Abubble, bring you 22 ways to grow your business in 2022.
In times where the masses are well equipped with resources and have easier access to online information, it is better to understand the importance of infusing fresh marketing techniques to get the attention of your target audience.
According to recent studies a person spends at least 155 minutes online in a day that is five times more than the time an average person spends commuting in a day. Therefore, it is more important to capture your target audience through the right digital marketing strategies as well rather than depending on traditional means of marketing only.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Generally, digital marketing is, “Any form of marketing that makes use of digital technologies to get the promotional message or advertisement across to the target audience.”
However, delving deeper, you will find it to be so much more than that. The world of digital marketing campaigns encompasses the use of different digital platforms provided to get messages across, receive feedback, create personalised campaigns, track the performance of each platform, and revamp your marketing strategy accordingly. Additionally, your message can be of any form like online videos, display advertisements, search engine marketing posts, paid social advertisements, and social media posts.
Why Is It Important?
With the increased accessibility of the internet and online activity, came a change in consumer behaviour that can only be facilitated by digital marketing techniques, making traditional marketing techniques almost obsolete.
Let us look at some of the benefits that incorporating digital marketing can bring to your organisation:
1. Cost-Effectiveness
One of the biggest challenges a business, especially one on a smaller scale, has to face is the management of its marketing budget. One of the biggest advantages of opting for digital marketing methods is that the techniques and modes incorporated are very cost-effective.
With digital marketing, you make use of emails, social media platforms, and SEO-driven content marketing, which costs no more than a tiny fraction of what traditional marketing would cost you.
2. Global Reach
If you are a small business owner targeting local audiences then you might have been inclined towards traditional marketing techniques. However, in today’s digital times, for a business that plans on marketing its product or services to a wider or local audience, a local digital marketing campaign would be the way to go.
3. Targeted Marketing
By making use of traditional marketing channels you would limit the potential of your campaigns by a large margin because let us be honest, how many people can you expect to see your billboards? And out of all the people who do see it, how many will be a part of your target audience that you plan on converting?
The right Digital marketing method helps you remove all these uncertainties and enables you to reach out to your targeted audience on a much larger geographic scale. To do this, you might employ the help of digital platforms’ targeting features to deliver your posts to the right audience. Additionally, you can also incorporate PPC or SEO strategies like retargeting to deliver your intended message to the people who had previously shown interest in your products or services.
4. Brand Awareness
One of the most significant goals for a business is to establish a brand presence, and the best way to do this is by creating brand awareness amongst its target audience. Digital marketing provides you with all the tools and techniques required to develop an online presence and create awareness among your potential customers.
Digital marketing has a wide range of inexpensive techniques such as SEO, content marketing, email marketing, social media, and many more, that you can employ to make your brand name known among potential customers.
5. Increased Customer Retention
Before you think about expanding into new markets, you first need to consider how you plan on retaining customers that already exist for your business. You won’t be able to run a successful business if you are unable to keep your initial customers loyal to your business.
With digital marketing, you can constantly keep in touch with your customers and provide them with services having significant importance for them to stay attached to your brand. With the help of digital marketing channels, such as social media platforms, emails, and promotional advertisements, you can nurture your existing customers, turning them into loyal customers.
Additionally, digital marketing allows you to run remarketing campaigns to address customers who might have been on the lookout for alternatives and bring them back to your brand with the help of personalised marketing and promotions.
How Can Digital Marketing Help Grow Your Business?
When it comes to digital marketing, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that it offers something for every business regardless of its size and nature. That’s the beauty of digital marketing, you won’t ever find yourself in a situation where you would need to think, “ Can digital marketing help my business grow?” Because the answer shall always be yes, you just need to identify which aspect of it you need to apply for it to make a difference. Here are some of the aspects of digital marketing that you should consider:
1. Facebook Ads
Facebook adverts are one of the easiest ways a business can get its message across to its targeted audience with the assistance of Facebook Ad Manager, which allows you to set up target interest groups. Interest groups are technically a group of people that have shown interest in the same industry that you are marketing your products in.
Opting for Facebook’s Advertising will allow you to control the people targeted by your advertisements, cutting down the cost of promoting them to irrelevant people who have no potential for conversion. By creating the correct interest group, you are able to get the most ROI and make the most of your limited budgets.
2. YouTube Ads
YouTube Advertisement is another excellent way of expanding into newer markets. Some marketers even go as far as to consider it amongst the top ones as it has its own algorithms and delivers your ads to an audience that has warmed up to your industry.
YouTube makes use of the customers’ search history and Google AI to deliver your advertisement to a set demographic. This allows you to target an audience who is very likely to be interested in your product or service without hurting your budget.
3. Messaging Strategies
Our mobile devices have become an integral part of our lives and there has been a significant increase in the number of times a person checks their phone during the day. The few seconds a person gazes at the screen of their phones is the opportunity a lot of marketers look forward to as it provides them with a chance to capture their attention.
Setting up a robust messaging strategy to get a hold of your potential customers in those moments can be the deciding factor between a successful or failed marketing campaign. To ensure an effective messaging strategy, make sure your resources are clutter-free, engrossing, and spoken in simple language
4. Leverage SEO
Creating a good website and setting up an online presence is only the beginning when it comes to digital marketing. Regardless of your awesome website and informational posts, if people are unable to find them, what value do they bring?
That’s where SEO comes in! The optimisation of your website, and content in such a way that it shows up in the search results of your prospective customers based on their search intent. This allows for your product and services to be presented to people that have an interest in what you are offering to them.
5. Content Excellence
Content is the essence of digital marketing. Making use of a digital medium might not be the only solution and can be utilised better through effective content marketing to bridge any gaps.
Effective content marketing allows you to convey meaningful messages and helpful information through easy to understand words. Content marketing not only helps you get your message across but also provides a helping hand with SEO rankings as you can incorporate keywords to address particular search queries. This also allows you to design your SEO strategies for specific geographic locations if you plan on running a local business (explained further below).
6. Personalised Landing Pages
You’ve directed traffic to your website, awesome! How are you planning on greeting them, and letting them know that you are the one holding all the solutions to their problems? To do this, you would need to design a set of landing pages.
A landing page is a standalone web page designed specifically to welcome visitors that have been coming from a specific link or platform and provide them information regarding the search intent which has gotten them to this point while capturing their attention leading them to take your desired actions.
7. Proactive Social Media
For a business to only have a measly Facebook page or presence on a singular platform is not clearly enough. With the emergence of multiple platforms, the audience that used to be concentrated on a single platform like Facebook a decade ago has now dispersed over multiple channels and it is imperative for a business to target all of them.
Having a proactive social media presence will allow you to keep up with the demands of the market and help you better understand your target audience. This enables you to provide them with a personalised shopping experience adding to their loyalties and urging them to use word of mouth in your favour.
8. Incentivise Referrals
Never be afraid to pull your existing customer base to increase your market share. Getting referrals is an amazing opportunity that is easy and can work wonders depending on the industry of your business. This can be done by incentivising referrals and providing your existing customers with rewards if they bring in someone new to your business. The rewards could be in the form of store credit, bundle deals, or even discounts.
9. Collaborate
One of the best ways to grow your business is to partner up with businesses that are looking to make their mark on the industry as well and provide products that complement yours. This would allow you to offer your clients value-added bundles and deals from which you and the partnered businesses can benefit without undermining each other.
10. Be Accessible & Pay Attention
If you have been running a business for a considerable amount of time you would know that there are countless others that would be willing to take your position and steal away your customer base.
It is critical that you make yourself available for your customers and listen to what they have to say. This will not only allow you to build a deeper relationship with your customers but also let you understand what the general public has been demanding and how you can provide it so you can take on even more customers. Besides, having an effective customer relationship strategy will help you retain your customers for a longer period.
11. Work With Professionals
And finally, one of the most underrated yet effective ways of increasing your market share is to work with a professional marketing agency that understands the complexities of digital marketing and how to overcome any challenges.
An innovative digital marketing agency like Abubble will not only help you make the most of the opportunities presented to you but will also help you identify and eliminate any shortcomings that might exist in your current marketing team or strategies. We also help clients address the damages that have been caused by the use of ineffective marketing and mitigate the long-lasting effects that it may have brought.
12. Prepare Yourself For Metaverse
If you want to grow your business in 2022 and beyond, then you must prepare yourself and your business for the new trends and opportunities and one such opportunity is Metaverse that is taking the world by storm and it would increase user engagement and business revenues tremendously.
Metaverse is simply a fusion of physical and digital world experiences that overlap and integrate seamlessly to bring a new experience to your clients. Through adapting metaverse in your business will help you generate a completely unique experience. Therefore, it is high time that you start preparing your business for Metaverse
How To Outrank Your Competition On The Local Sphere Through Digital Marketing?
I can understand that the concept of limiting your own business to a specific geographical area can sound absurd especially when it comes to digital marketing that allows you to reach the farthest corners of the world but trust me when I say this, sometimes the best order of business for your company can be to limit yourself.
Expanding too quickly is just as dangerous for the survival of the business as not expanding at all, and the best thing to do when starting out is to stick to a specific market and try to cater to the needs of that specific market. The same is the case when it comes to digital marketing and here is how you can ensure that your business target local audience as well as global audiences.
13. Local Business Directories
One of the best ways to ensure that your business reaches the eye of local customers is to get registered on the local business directories. Research and Shortlist the top local directories covering the geographical area where your business exist and try to add your business to their listings. Having your customers reviewed at these directories if possible will increase your chances of getting more leads and clients.
14. Google Business Listings
Before anything else, get a Google my Business listing for your business as it provides your customers with better visibility of your business and therefore it should be your first priority if you haven’t done it yet. Google My Business allows your target audience to view your online website or listing when they search for high volume keywords including “near me”, “around me”, or similar queries.
15. Get Reviews From The Locals
Who wouldn’t trust reviews by locals and clients? Get reviews from customers in your target area to give an overview of the personalised experience to your prospective customers. Do not indulge in getting fake reviews as it will only get you unwanted results. Try to get reviews from real customers and respond to any bad reviews to present your positive and attentive attitude to the potential audience.
16. Target Local SEO
When you get started with the implementation of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in your content and website, make sure to address keywords such as the location name, area, or other landmarks to keep the SEO local and targeted. An expert SEO agency can help you identify and target such keywords for better audience reach, high rankings on search engines, and an improved conversion rate.
17. Collaborate With Other Local Businesses
Similar to larger businesses, local businesses should also collaborate with each other to develop a presence in their local market. This is a great way of growing your business at the local level as it allows you to increase your market share and build relationships with businesses while creating value-added opportunities for your customers.
18. Localised Hashtags
Using localised hashtags on your social media allows you to engage only local customers with your posts. You can also join local business meetups held on Twitter and other such platforms to further enhance your network and promote your businesses.
19. Social Media Groups And Pages
Similar to local business meetups on Twitter, there are quite a few pages and groups on other social media that cater to a localised audience. Identify these communities and become a part of them to familiarise yourself with the local markets, demands, and how to fill any gaps.
20. Google Adwords And Social Media Ads
As the name suggests, Adwords refers to any ads that you can trigger against a query that is when a user searches for a certain keyword. By targeting those keywords and audiences through a custom parameter around the location of your business, you can easily capture more local leads, more local customers, and ultimately more business.
21. Local Digital Media
Nowadays, every locality has its own mode of digital media. Making use of such media channels can be very beneficial in marketing your business to a local audience and making sure that your product or services are only directed to local audiences. The local media is not limited to local newspapers or magazines but can also be a local community social media page or group.
22. Work With Local Marketing Agencies
Working with local marketing agencies is another great option you can opt for. This isn’t because they only operate in a said geographical area, however, if located in that area, it would be the market they are most familiar with. This allows them to make innovative marketing strategies, personalised to the needs of your business while keeping in mind the market trends, structures, and requirements of that particular geographical location.
Key Takeaways
Putting this entire piece in a nutshell if you want to market your business digitally, and want to do it effectively, you would need to:
- Focus on SEO heavily as it is the most cost-effective method of generating traffic.
- Amplify social media marketing for your business.
- Identify partnership opportunities with other businesses.
- Optimise your digital presence through websites, digital applications, or blogs, to cater to the largest audience possible.
- Outsource your digital marketing services to target maximum business growth potential.
About The Author
Rizwan is a Senior Marketing Associate at Abubble. One thing he loves about Digital Marketing is the instant results it delivers- starting from nothing to become a brand in no time. He has specialised knowledge in SEO Content Curation & Link Building which enabled him to help clients stand out even in heavily saturated business markets. In his spare time, Rizwan can usually be found doing e-gaming & entertaining through his quick wits - he’s great at everything!
