by Kelly Hunter, Marketing Program Manager

MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE WORLD IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE DIGITAL. SMALL BUSINESSES THESE DAYS MUST HAVE A DIGITAL PRESENCE IN ORDER TO COMPETE WITH LARGER PLAYERS AND ON A GLOBAL SCALE.

Here are 3 things you must do as you prepare to launch digital marketing for your small business:

1) ESTABLISH KEY DIGITAL BUSINESS CHANNELS

• Create a website. This is your digital storefront and your homepage is your digital window display. There are many free and paid options out there with user-friendly drag-and-drop style templates (no coding required). Having a website allows customers to more easily find you online. Psst! Start Small has a partnership with GoDaddy to offer you 2 years of free website hosting and building, among other benefits. Contact us for more information!

• Create business pages and profiles on Social Media, focusing specifically on channels where your target audiences are most likely to be. By the way, do not use a personal page for your business, as it can hurt your brand and most importantly, you miss out on the tools and analytics available through business pages. Remember that over 3 billion people use Social Media—it can be a doorway to your brand and website.

2) COMPLETE YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PAGE

• Over 90% of online searches are done on Google, so make sure that your business has a dominant presence there by creating a Google My Business page - it’s free. Start here. It’s best to include as much information as possible, including photos and reviews to better help customers decide whether your business is right for them.

   

3) SIGN UP FOR AN EMAIL MARKETING PLATFORM

• While Social Media continues to grow, more people use and rely on email daily to communicate. Most consumers prefer this method of communication for permission-based promotional messages. There are many free and paid email marketing platforms with user-friendly design templates and themes available.

• Create a business-specific email account to distinguish your business from personal communication. If you don’t know where to start once you’re ready to create an email, take a look at your own inbox for creative inspiration. Note what headlines grab your attention, what type of content draws you in and what calls-to-action get you to take action—and then start testing!

We hope these tips have been helpful! Feeling stuck? Take a moment to do some competitor and market research. See what other successful brands in your industry are doing (this can work by looking at their website, looking at their social media channels, signing up for their newsletters and emails) and see if they can inspire your next move or piece of content. At the end of the day, it’s all about finding the right channels and content that will connect with your target audience.

As always, remember that Start Small is here to help with these, and other challenging parts of being an entrepreneur. Be sure to apply for our free services to get the help you need.