In the digital era that we currently live in, often called the Industrial Revolution 4.0, online marketing has become a crucial part of promotion, even for physical, local businesses. Consumers search for and learn about products online, people spend vast amounts of time on the internet (mainly viewing social media), and the importance of traditional channels, such as TV or newspapers, is slowly diminishing. As a small business owner, you are also affected by these trends. Therefore, we have prepared a guide, a list of 3 online marketing strategies that will help you expand your business. Do you wish to learn them? Then read this article.

How to Create and Improve Your Online Marketing Strategy?

Before we proceed with enlisting the strategies that we believe will be the key to your success, we need to discuss a few basic principles: how to create and improve your online marketing strategy.

  • Analyze the data – Any effective strategy has to have its roots in data. You need to understand who your customers are, what are their pain points, which communication channels resonate with them, and how you can improve their lives with your products or services. For this sake, we recommend creating detailed marketing personas.
  • Set realistic, measurable goals – Small business owners frequently make one critical error – they introduce the strategies without a set goal. Yet, if you wish to improve your marketing efforts, you need to be able to evaluate the performance of the already-introduced tactics. For this, we recommend setting KPIs – key performance indicators, such as the number of leads or a certain level of conversion rates.
  • Introduce the online marketing strategies/improvements – Now, you may launch your strategies or adjust the existing ones. For this step, we suggest implementing one of the strategies proposed later in this article.

online marketing strategy

The 3 Best Online Marketing Strategies for a Small Business

Finally, we may proceed to the core of this article – our list of effective online marketing strategies for small businesses. What exactly should you do? Here are our suggestions:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – As we have mentioned before, people spend most of their time online. This leads to millions of websites and businesses operating in this digital setting. How do you stand out? By investing in SEO. This is a set of efforts aimed at achieving higher website visibility and rankings in search engine results pages that should absolutely be included in your marketing strategy plan. If you run a small store, you may even opt for local SEO, which will be effective in attracting new, local customers for an affordable price.
  • Social Media Advertising – Facebook or Instagram ad campaigns, running your profiles on the most popular social media platforms – these are an absolute must. According to Statista (via weforum.org), an average US citizen spends 2 hours and 14 minutes per day on social networks. According to the Datareportal, this is even higher globally, with 2 hours 31 minutes on average! Therefore, your online marketing strategy should include efforts on these platforms.
  • Influencers – Influencer marketing strategy is among the most effective ones. Yet, it is not that easy to put into practice. You need to find an influencer whose target group matches your audience and provide them with something that they can truly advertise – they don’t want to disappoint their viewers and propose goods or services below a certain quality level. What about the costs? There are many different influencers – from major celebrities to niche ones, so you can choose an option fitting your budget.

The Takeaway

With these three online marketing strategies, you will be able to attract many more new customers. Remember to constantly evaluate your efforts and to react when their effectiveness drops – with your business’s growth, you might need to readjust your tactics. And, if you are looking for an effective tool to promote your store or restaurant, check our social mapping app, YouMap. It offers a wide range of features which can not only help you advertise your business but also streamline your daily operations, engage your customers, and collaborate with other small business owners!

Sources:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/social-media-internet-connectivity/
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-deep-dive-time-spent-on-social-media