Katherine Haine, Special to The Chatham Voice
Digital Marketing is getting more confusing for most businesses – not less. There are so many options to consider, including many that start off as free (at least initially), such as many options on Facebook and Search.
The good news is there are tremendous opportunities for smaller businesses to promote themselves online. But with increased choice and competition, this also means more complexity and more options.
Digital is dynamic – there are no clear-cut road maps to success. What may have worked yesterday may not work today. There is a need to be willing to play and experiment with new ideas to see what will work based on your business goals.
But who has time for that? Many companies with smaller marketing departments quickly become overwhelmed. In fact, 20% of the market will do nothing because it feels like too much work. The majority of the businesses don’t follow through or don’t stick to their strategy long enough to be successful.
Doing nothing isn’t a good option. This is a decision to scale back your business and let it slowly decline. Even if you have a solid customer base now – if you don’t leverage digital to retain your customers, they will eventually go away. Many business owners make this mistake but research shows if your business isn’t easy to find online (as a start) then you are losing customers.
So where to begin? Understanding your business goals and how digital can support that will be crucial to your success in 2016. A new report from Infusionsoft, a leader in digital practices, surveyed more than 1,000 small business owners to find out their digital goals for 2016.
More than half of businesses in this latest research said driving sales is a key goal for their digital marketing in 2016.
There is no doubt digital can drive sales and sometimes change a business by opening a new niche of clients online. But it takes a thoughtful process to develop a strategy that makes sense.
Having a clear goal like driving sales is a good start. But it really helps to get more specific. What are you selling? How will your customers buy it online? Do they need to talk to you first? If so, maybe you are looking for lead generation?
Now go online and see how your business stacks up with your competitors. Start by “Googling” your business to see who is competing with you and what they are offering. Pretend you’re a customer and try to follow a logical process from search to sale. Can you complete the process? If not, it may be time to rethink either your strategy or digital objectives.
Marketing is about growing your business and bringing new customers in the door. Digital is a tool that can help you do that and yes it can definitely help you drive sales.
- Katherine Haine is a Digital Media specialist and founder of City Media and ShopLocalNow.ca. Learn more at learn.citymedia.ca
