Overwhelmed with the cost of a digital marketing strategy? Not to worry! These DIY tactics will help you enhance your online presence without spending a lot of money.
Growing a small business means always counting pennies and trying to do a lot with very little. Ideas to grow and develop your business are in healthy supply. The cash needed to implement them? Well, that’s another story.
If you are a small business owner, you are probably all too familiar with the tensions inherent in digital marketing. You most likely struggle with how to balance your excitement about promoting your product or service and the costs required to make it happen.
Take heart! Fortunately, digital marketing doesn’t have to break the bank. There are a variety of ways to promote your brand – to amplify your business online – that don’t have to be expensive. They simply involve some good, old-fashioned, DIY digital marketing elbow grease and a little creativity to get the results you’re after.
Check out these five simple methods to enhance and promote your business’s online profile:
1. Start a blog
It’s important to understand that the one thing that has remained consistent over the years of Google algorithm changes is content remains king. Google still scans for consistently updated, fresh website content when it comes to search ranking placement. Blog posting is integral to your website SEO. Not sure what to write? Consider answering a question about your product or service to get the creative ball rolling. Make that question the title of your post and answer it in-depth in the body of your content. Blog posts deliver interesting and valuable information to your potential customers, while at the same time validating your authority and building trust in your brand.
2. Learn the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
If your website can’t be found on the internet, what value or purpose does it serve? Potential customers have to be able to search for your product and service and find YOU. To ensure that you can be found in a search query, it’s important to understand and implement the basics of SEO. Indeed, you can pay an SEO company big bucks to achieve the results you need, but there are a number of tools and resources available to help you familiarize yourself with a few essentials so you can do it pretty effectively yourself. For starters, you can review (for free!) The Beginner’s Guide to SEO from Moz and apply the information as it fits with your business and goals. If you have a WordPress website, the first thing you should do is install the Yoast SEO plugin and configure it as recommended. Ensure that each of your pages and blog posts includes the keywords and phrases you’ve identified as most relevant for your business. We know, doing it yourself won’t yield the rapid or sure results of paying a professional, but it’s far better than doing nothing at all, and, with diligence, you will see improvement.
3. Grow an email list
Regardless of what you may read or hear about the effectiveness of email in relation to your digital marketing efforts, one thing’s for sure – it is most certainly NOT DEAD! In fact, with a possible return on investment of up to 4400%, marketing through email continues to be the most effective way to attract and retain customers. Make it easy for people to sign up – a simple pop-up on your website requesting basic information can do the trick. Make it worth their while to sign up: a freebie, an exclusive link to valuable information, or an ebook. Wondering what to write about in your emails? Try including links to your most recent blog posts, an entertaining GIF, or a short, informative video. Why not try perusing your competitors’ emails and see what’s working for them?
4. Create videos
Video is, without a doubt, one of the most effective tools to engage your existing audience. Video can also help you increase your audience. Afterall, we all love to watch videos! In fact, 54% of us want to see more video content from the brands we follow. It should absolutely be part of your digital marketing strategy, but some believe that it’s hard to do. It can be an intimidating medium for small businesses to embrace and, chances are, your competitors haven’t jumped aboard yet either. That’s exactly why you should try it. As with your first blog post, to get started, simply ask a question, or questions, pertaining to your business and provide the answer in real time. Upload to YouTube and deliver it across all social media channels. Don’t forget to post it to your website or as a blog post. Include video as an integral part of your strategy, and you’re sure to get results. Need some inspiration? Take a look at Bestar’s latest home office videos!
5. Use Facebook advertising
Yes, this will cost you money, but compared to conventional advertising costs, and more importantly, the ROI (return on investment) on that advertising, Facebook simply can’t be beaten. The Facebook platform allows you to target your ads to specific audiences that you identify through geography, interests, and demographics. If you have an existing email list, you can create a Facebook Lookalike Audience. For example, if you have a list of 1000 existing customers, upload it to Facebook. Facebook will match the profiles with corresponding email addresses, analyze the profiles, and create an audience of tens or hundreds of thousands of similar individuals that you can then target with your advertising. It works very well, and not only will you see higher conversion rates from these ads, but you won’t be spending a whole lot of money on people who aren’t likely to become your customers.
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