What is a Digital Marketing Strategy? Plus 8 Popular Digital Marketing Methods For Small and Medium Businesses

A digital marketing strategy is essential for every small and medium business in today’s mobile-first world. The majority of customers are searching online to find and research a business before they decide to purchase a product or service. Your business must have an online presence to reach a majority of customers and remain competitive.

In addition, during the current Covid-19 crisis, as people stay home, a digital marketing strategy becomes essential for every small and medium business. Digital marketing methods may be the only way that your business can continue to reach customers to promote your products and services.

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

A digital marketing strategy is a marketing plan that enables your business to meet its goals through the use of internet marketing methods.

A successful digital marketing strategy will help your business reach its target customers through a combination of online marketing methods. It will help your business achieve its business goals and key performance indicators. It will also help to increase your website traffic, leads, conversions and sales.

A digital marketing strategy will consist of several digital marketing campaigns across several online marketing channels to help your business reach its goals.

Why does my business need a digital marketing strategy?

Every small and medium business needs to have a digital marketing strategy to stay competitive in today’s mobile environment. A majority of customers are using mobile devices to search the internet for business information before they decide to purchase. Most customers also search online for local store information before they decide to visit a store.

According to Google,

  • In 2015, the number of search queries on mobile devices on Google in the USA exceeded those on desktops.
  • 4 out of 5 customers use search engines to search for local information including store address, hours, directions and product availability.
  • 50% of people who did a local search on a smartphone, and 34% of those who searched on a computer, visited a store in one day.
  • 59% of shoppers said they research online before they purchase.
  • Mobile searches for “best place to buy” have grown by 70% in the past 2 years.

8 Popular Methods of Digital Marketing For Small and Medium Businesses

The digital marketing strategy for your small or medium business should include a combination of online marketing strategies to reach your target customers.

Your internet marketing strategy begins with a mobile-friendly and responsive website. Your website is the foundation of your internet marketing strategy and needs to impress your customers. It should look great and perform well on any device that your customer chooses to browse the internet including smartphones, tablets, desktops, and laptops.

In addition to a mobile-friendly website, a digital marketing strategy includes several online marketing methods including Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search or Pay-per-Click marketing, Content marketing, Social Media marketing and more.

For additional details on digital marketing strategies, read our blog post on the 5 essentials of an Effective Internet Marketing Strategy.

Here are some common online marketing strategies for a small or medium business.

1. A mobile-friendly and responsive business website

Your website is the foundation of your marketing campaign so it needs to perform well and impress your customers.

Your business website must be

  • Mobile-friendly – The majority of online users use mobile devices to browse the internet. Your website must perform well on mobile devices.
  • Have Responsive Design – The website should scale in size to provide a great user experience on devices of all sizes from smartphones, desktops, laptops to tablets.
  • Load Fast – Your website pages must load fast. All images must be small in size and compressed.

According to Google: 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Most online searches take place on Google which is the largest search engine. Your website content must be optimized with SEO to improve search rankings and help your website to rank in the top pages of Google, Bing and other search engines. SEO helps your website to be found in competitive search engine listings. SEO helps to increase the quality and quantity of organic (free) traffic that your website receives from the search engines.

SEO optimization includes

  • SEO optimization of your website content and blog posts.
  • SEO optimization of your Title tags and meta descriptions.
  • SEO optimization of your images.
  • Technical SEO to increase web page speed and optimization.
  • Incoming links to your website of high quality.

For more details on SEO, read our blog post on What is SEO and Why is it Important?

3. Local SEO

Local SEO optimization helps your website to be found by local customers in your area when they search for products and services like yours. Local SEO is very important for local businesses like doctors, dentists, lawyers and retail stores.

Local SEO includes

  • Google My Business Listing –Create a business profile for your business on Google My Business and optimize it. Google is the largest search engine.
  • Bing Places Listing – List your business on Microsoft Bing. Bing is the third largest search engine today.
  • Online directory listings and citations – List your business on online directories like Apple Maps, Yellowpages, Yelp, Foursquare, Yahoo LocalWorks, TripAdvisor, and others that are relevant to your business.
  • SEO optimization of all website content and images.
  • Online customer reviews.

For more details on local SEO, read our post on 10 Local SEO tips to Boost Local Search Rankings.

4. Content Marketing

Content marketing is important to attract and retain customers and provide them with valuable information about your products and services. Returning website visitors may eventually convert to customers.

  • Publish a Business Blog – You should publish a business blog on your website. You can post informative articles and provide valuable information about your products and services. You can also answer questions that customers typically ask your business. A blog helps to increase repeat website traffic as customers return to read new blog posts. As people return to read new posts, they may eventually convert to leads and customers. A blog is also very helpful to improve SEO.
  • Webinars – start a webinar discussing your products and services.
  • Podcasts – start a podcast or get interviewed on a podcast relevant to your business.
  • E-books – offer e-books on your blog. This can be used as incentives to get people to sign up for your newsletter.
  • Infographics – Infographics use charts, graphs and visual methods to convey information quickly.

5. Video Marketing

Publish videos about your products and services on YouTube.

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. It is estimated that there are more than 8 million searches on YouTube every month in the U.S. Publishing informative videos about your products and services on YouTube can help your business reach a large number of customers.

Remember to SEO-optimize your videos before publishing them so that they can be found when people search for them.

6. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an essential part of a digital marketing strategy for any business.

Facebook is the #1 social channel used by marketers, with the highest return on investment. (HubSpot, 2020)

Select a few important social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or others that your target customers use frequently. Create company pages on these social media channels and post on them frequently. This helps to build a community of followers for your business.

You can also run paid Ads on social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others.

Your social media accounts should be linked to your website so that website users can directly visit your social media channels.

7. Paid Search Marketing

You can run paid search ads or Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on Google using Google Ads to attract more customers. Pay-per-click ads are the ads you see featured on the top and bottom of the Google search results page when you search for a product or service. Customers searching for a product or service can click on the ads to go directly to your website.

In addition to Google, you can also run paid search ads on Bing, YouTube and other search engines.

For more information, read our post on What is Google Ads PPC Marketing and How it Helps Your Business

8. Email Marketing

Email marketing is very effective for online marketing.

Build a list of newsletter subscribers. You can add a newsletter subscription box on your blog pages and on key pages of your website to have subscribers sign up.

Send out a newsletter to all your customers regularly and keep them engaged with your business. You can share links to new blog posts, information about your products and services and company news. This helps to build a relationship with your subscribers so that they return to become customers.

How can I create a digital marketing strategy for my business?

A digital marketing strategy for a small or medium business has to be customized to your business and its goals. It will require a detailed analysis of your target customers, your business, your marketing goals and an audit of your existing digital marketing channels.

The creation of a digital marketing strategy is fairly intensive and requires,

  • Detailed buyer personas of your ideal customers.
  • Customer Demographics including location, age, income, interests and challenges.
  • Analysis of your business and competitive environment.
  • Analysis of your business goals.
  • An audit of your existing digital marketing methods to identify areas of improvement.
  • A detailed plan for the addition of new internet marketing campaigns to reach your target customers.

A digital marketing consultant can help you with creating a digital marketing strategy customized for your business. Contact us at Gold Mango Design if you need help with digital marketing services.

Summary

A successful digital marketing strategy for a small or medium business employs a combination of online marketing methods to help your business reach its goals and increase leads, conversions and sales. A digital marketing strategy has to be focused on your ideal customers and business goals and may be different for each type of business.

A mobile responsive website, search engine optimization, social media marketing, content marketing and paid search advertising are just a few of the many online marketing strategies that will help to attract targeted customers to your business and increase leads and conversions.

We hope you find this article helpful for your business. If you need help with digital marketing or website development, please contact us.

Article first published: Oct 7, 2015. Updated: May 4, 2020.

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Need Help With Digital Marketing?

Gold Mango Design LLC. is a web development and digital marketing company in Plano near Dallas, TX. We help small and medium businesses build a strong online brand and increase leads with professional websites and digital marketing services. Our digital marketing services include Mobile-Friendly & Responsive Web Design and Development, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Google Ads PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing, Digital Marketing consulting services and more. Contact us at Gold Mango Design LLC, Plano, TX for help with digital marketing services for your business.