Online Marketing and Small Businesses Today
It’s a very common practice today, that buyers first search the internet to buy products and do their research regarding reviews etc. And if they come across authentic products and online sellers, your buyer will immediately buy those products online.
The pandemic gave online buying an extra push. Since the world was shut down and a lot of us spent time on our phones, a lot of online buying and selling took place. Brick and mortar businesses were shut down and took their operations online to survive this pandemic.
The key for small business owners and entrepreneurs is to adopt a strategy to make their products visible to their targeted audience. And for that purpose, you need to work on your online marketing strategy vigorously.
So for example, you might be running a small translation company in Dubai, but if your business Is not reaching out to your targeted audience, you are missing out on a lot of sales and lead opportunities.
In this article, we will outline a few online marketing techniques that can work well with small businesses.
Tips for Online Marketing for Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
- Have A Strong Social Media Presence
Given the pandemic situation, all businesses have to limit their physical interactions. Which is push enough to take your business to social media platforms. And by that, we do not mean, have an account, we mean to have an active amount.
A lot of small businesses use social media platforms to increase their customer reach, and target audience by looking at the analytics report provide by the social media platforms.
Small businesses not only use social media platforms to have a presence, but they should use these platforms to market their products, talk to their customers, do live sessions to build customer relationships, etc.
The key social media platform your business needs to be on today is; Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc.
Depending on your industry and your target audience you can use these platforms to reach out to your customers. For example, you will find generation Z using Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat a lot. While Facebook has become more of a Millenials or gen y thing.
- Use Email Marketing to build a lasting relationship with customers
Email is an age-old technique, yet you will be amazed to find out that it is still very much in use and effective in 2021. It is in fact considered as one of the main personalized marketing techniques that is used to build a relationship with customers.
Have you ever received emails from big corporations like Sephora and wholefoods, personalizing their emails with your names and special discount offers, which makes you think that they made this email just for you? This is why email marketing is considered a technique that helps to build long-lasting customer relationships.
Why? Because it makes a customer feel that the business made a special effort to email you a special product or discount code. And what person doesn’t love that?
- Invest in Website Marketing
Today, website marketing means setting out a layout, investing in PPC, SEO, or SEM strategies, etc.
Since brick and mortar businesses are closed, the website is your online store where customers can come and buy your products. So you must invest wisely in your website designing and website marketing.
You can invest in search engine optimization techniques to bring organic traffic to your website or invest in paid techniques of search engine marketing, pay per click advertisement, influencer marketing, etc.
Blogging is a technique that is used by website owners to bring traffic to their site. This means either you can blog on your own-site or you can collaborate with other bloggers that can link to your website or give your business a shoutout etc.
All in all, Each technique is structured to bring traffic to your website, however, if your website is not attractive and able to retain customers, you will be missing out on your potential customers.
Therefore invest in website marketing and layout wisely to help grow your small business. Pay extra attention to the layout of your website, call for action tabs, product layout, and description, marketing techniques, etc.
- Video Marketing
The attention span of people today is the size of a peanut. People are genuinely not interested in reading extensive blogs or boring content. This is why video content has proved to be an attention-grabbing marketing technique for small business owners.
However, the key is that the video content can grab the attention of viewers. When making a video about your business or a product, keep a few key elements in mind; is your video able to grab the attention of the viewer? Is it conveying the message to the viewer? Is the video able to tell the viewer, why they need to buy your product? Is there a call-to-action at the end of the video?
A lot of businesses are also doing live video sessions, in which they are telling their viewers about the brands, faces behind the brand, about the products, etc. You can also make these video sessions an interactive question and answer session. So if you want to market your small translation company in Dubai, you can make a small video telling viewers about what services you are offering, etc, and why they need to hire you.
- Use Multiple Channel Approach to Boost Customer Relationship
Don’t just rely on one social media platform, take your business to all the social media sites. This will increase your customer reach and give you more platform to talk to your customers and get sales lead.
Given that most of the buying and selling in 2021 is taking place through an online platform, you might not want to miss your chance by skipping any site that might lead you to potential customers.
Even one or two customers from each platform are important in building lifelong customer relationships for your business.
Author Bio: Hammad Awan is author of the above blog. He is doing computer science from virtual university. He is a professional Guest Blogger at Mediahicon and loves to write blogs on valuable topics.