Digital Marketing: The Pocket Guide for Small Businesses

A decade ago, purchasing a refrigerator would have involved checking with friends and family, a couple of stops at the nearest electronic showrooms, and a series of contemplation.

Today, it’s a lot easier. Thanks to digital technology where one can not only look for refrigerators based on budget and needs, one can compare models and check reviews for each of them as well.

The internet has long breached the line of ease and has emerged as a lifeline. It touches every aspect of our lives today. No wonder it has revolutionised how we live, work, and communicate and has made every task more accessible, efficient, and convenient.

With 5.3 billion internet users worldwide, the digital space has the world in its fingers — literally.

In a scenario like this, traditional marketing methods become less effective. Sticking to older methods is not the preferred way, and businesses must adapt to the changing landscape.

This is where digital marketing comes in — a powerful tool that enables businesses to connect with their target audience in a more personalised and impactful way.

What is digital marketing?

Say, you want to buy a smartphone. You fire up your phone, navigate to a search engine, and type for instance 'best smartphones in 2023'. Now you have a list of sites with that information on the latest smartphones.

Someone has placed that information out there for you to look at and make a purchase. That 'someone' is the individual or brand responsible for digital marketing.  

In other words, the use of digital channels such as search engines, social media, emails, websites, etc., to promote products & services to a target audience, with the intention of influencing their purchase decision.

With an in-depth study of the target segment and the knowledge of digital marketing, businesses can drive traffic, generate leads, and, ultimately, increase sales and revenue. It is a crucial component of modern marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes and industries.

While the principles of marketing are more or less the same as traditional marketing, digital marketing is a renewed, targeted, and consumer-centric form of marketing that, in many ways, outshines traditional marketing.

Why is digital marketing crucial?

Because that's where your audience is, aka money.

Today your market is influenced more by what they consume online than by older traditional marketing methods. This is because things have moved much further. People expect a digital presence today.

People want to know and feel a brand. Not having a digital presence is no longer an option — it is a must. And there is nothing to fret about it as a seller because it has HUGE upsides:

• More cost-effective than traditional marketing with higher ROI (yay!)

• Measurable results that enable businesses to make changes in their strategies and, increase effectiveness & reach
• A better and more effective way to reach the target audience resulting in better conversion rates
• Level playing ground for smaller businesses to compete with the more prominent players

As a seller, digital marketing is a powerful tool to reach better markets.  

Types of digital marketing

Let's list them out.

Search Engine Optimisation

A method to rank your website 'high' on the search engine pages for the intended people to find you faster. Remember the smartphone example?

Content marketing

Creating dedicated information-based content around your products to create brand awareness, funnel sales, and acquire customers—examples: blog posts, webinars, ebooks, etc.

Affiliate Marketing

In this, someone else promotes your product among their audience and earns a pre-determined commission. Also known popularly as influencer marketing. The bigger the influencer's followership, the larger the reach (and higher the commission.)  

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

Paid advertising that places ads at the top of search engine results or on other websites, with businesses paying each time a user clicks on their ad. Watch out for the word 'Sponsored.'

Email Marketing

Sending commercial messages or newsletters to a group of people through email to promote products or services. The ones that you get every day in your inbox.

Mobile Marketing

Marketing to a target audience through mobile devices, including text messages, mobile applications, and mobile-optimised websites.

Social Media Marketing

The significant chunk of marketing happens here because of the rising consumption levels. The objective is to create content that is engaging and shareable, with the intention of it spreading organically through social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Digital marketing is the broad spectrum under which inbound marketing is one such marketing strategy.

While digital marketing encompasses all marketing done using digital communications, inbound marketing is a specific approach focused on creating valuable content optimised for search engines and social media to attract potential customers.

The advantages of inbound marketing vs. digital marketing:

• Since it attracts potential customers, it has a higher conversion rate than other forms of marketing
• Provides measurable results through analytics and data tracking
• Generates higher quality leads by attracting individuals who are more likely to convert
• And because of the higher conversion rate and high-quality leads, it is a very cost-effective marketing strategy

Is my business suitable for digital marketing?

Irrespective of the business, industry, product, service, or geography, digital marketing is like a one-size-fits-all solution.

Worry not! If your buyer sets foot in the online arena, digital marketing is for you.

The question is how to implement digital marketing so that it scales your business.

While in a B2B environment, the digital marketing efforts would be centered around building connections with decision-makers and stakeholders, in B2C companies, the marketing strategy would be to create more awareness among individual consumers.

While both businesses need an online presence, based on this diverse model, some of the marketing strategies would be different for both:

• The content strategy for B2B would need to be more informational and statistical, while the B2C content structure would be engaging and visually compelling.
• The social media platforms are again strategically decided, depending on the model. For example, while most of the prospective clients for B2B businesses are on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and B2C companies, they are on Instagram, Facebook, etc.
• In the case of B2B, the ultimate focus is on the ROI/bottom line of the intended customer, while for B2C, it is more of an emotional bonding that is created.
• B2B marketing strategies focus more on building relationships and establishing trust over a long sales cycle. In contrast, B2C marketing strategies focus on building brand awareness and making quick, emotionally-driven purchasing decisions.

How do I create my digital marketing content?

Okay, so now we come to the crux of the matter.

There are various stages of a buyer making a purchase — in marketing language, we call it a sales funnel. It's called a "funnel" because the number of potential customers decreases as they move through each stage of the buying process, similar to how a funnel works.

It has three tiers:

Awareness: This is the stage where potential customers become aware of your brand, product, or service. They may have discovered you through social media, advertising, or search engines.

The content types created are blogs, infographics, and short videos.

Interest: At this stage, potential customers are showing an active interest in your product or service. They may visit your website, read your content, or sign up for your email list.

An excellent way to address this funnel is through ebooks, webinars, and research.

Decision: In this stage, potential customers are considering whether or not to make a purchase. They may compare your product or service to competitors, read reviews, or evaluate pricing and features.

Testimonials and case studies are the best content to enable the customer to make the final purchase.

When marketing content planning is done based on a sales funnel, businesses can create targeted content that guides potential customers through each stage of the buying process, ultimately leading to increased conversions and revenue.

Why is digital marketing crucial for small businesses?

Let’s rethink the word ‘small.’ Are businesses qualified to be small today?

Because thanks to digital marketing, the world has shrunk to the size of a phone. If sold right, the whole world is a potential market.

But, when it comes to marketing, larger businesses typically have an advantage in traditional marketing channels, such as print advertisements and signage, due to their greater financial and resource capacities.

Hence, smaller businesses should leverage digital marketing to level the game.

1. Easy on searchability.

Gone are the days of physically searching for a product/service. Or checking with friends and colleagues. Searching for businesses is just a few taps of the fingers on the keyboard. No matter the size, everything is accessible today.

This is not limited to search engines. Even when a visitor lands on your website, if you are not taking proactive measures to greet and guide them, you are missing out a major opportunity to convert the visitor into a paying customer.  

A simple prompt such as, ‘Hi, would you like to know the deals and promos for the day?’ can go a long way in establishing the connect with your website visitor, while also easing their navigating experience on your website. An all-in-one website widget cannot just help you greet and guide your customers, but also help them reach out to your support team on multiple channels such as live chat, web call, and video call, with ease with just a click.

2. Easy on pocket.

This one is huge, especially for businesses with limited resources to invest in marketing. In digital marketing, a myriad of things can be done at an extremely low cost, for example, email campaigns and social media drives. So with the right knowledge of the target audience, the effective ROI can be made much healthier.

3. Easy on changes.

With digital marketing, the performance metrics (cost per lead, cost per acquisition, customer lifetime value, and lead close rate) are trackable, giving the business the flexibility to attune its strategy.

4. Easy to reach customers.

147 minutes. The average time internet users spend on social media per day according to Statista. That’s the marketplace right there. Find out where your target customers are, and boom, there is no easier way to reach them and convert them.

But what if the interaction data from these social media channels is scattered across multiple apps? You’d be left with no way to study the customer’s need, behaviour, preferences as a unified entity. Thankfully, a unified communication solution is capable of converging customer data from multiple channels and app into one interface for your teams to study and derive actionable insight from. When the information is coming directly from the source i.e., the customers, businesses can build personalised experiences to create winning moments.  

5. Easy to build your brand.

Brands are no more things. They have been ‘humanised.’ With emotions and stories. This is possible with and doable because of social platforms. Reviews, recommendations, and success stories are great ways to build a brand.  

Building a brand has a lot to do with how seamless the experience for your customers is on your website. Sometime things such as, the placement of web widget on your website, timely prompts to greet visitors, and the experience delivered through the web widget can go a long way in establishing a rewarding relationship with your customers.  

Final thoughts

The digital space is expanding in multifold. And so also the potential.

With the right digital marketing strategy in place, businesses of all sizes can leverage the power of the internet to connect with their target audience and achieve their marketing goals.

Digital marketing has become an essential component of modern businesses, and its importance will only increase in the future.