By For your business to succeed in 2017 and beyond, you must recognize the importance of digital marketing. And if you have a small business, the pressure is on you to outsmart larger companies who can seriously outspend you.
Digital marketing is made up of many key components, including web design, online advertising, social media and email marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO). Today, let's discuss a few great tips your small business can follow to succeed online.
Create a Digital Marketing Budget
Before you can start strategizing, you'll have to know exactly what you can afford.
Then, as is often the case, you'll have to spend money to make money. No business gets off the ground without funding, and neither will your digital marketing strategy.
All you need to do is decide first how much you can spend -- then you can determine where to allocate those funds. Whether it's a website redesign, paid advertisements across social media platforms, or otherwise, you'll need a budget first.
Own a Responsive, Original Website
The glue that holds together your entire digital marketing strategy is a quality website for your small business. When your customers see your posts, ads, and interact with your products, there should be a great place online for them to learn more.
And that means your website must be intuitive enough to present that information no matter what device your potential customers use to view it. That means you'll need quality web design from the ground up.
For more information, check out this recent blog on the GroupM7 web design process!
Master Social Media
Regardless of what sort of product or service your small business provides, you'll undeniably find a huge percentage of your customer base on social networks.
Your best bet with social media is to cover as many bases as possible. Then, once you figure out which platforms work the best for your needs (or get the most attention for your company from the beginning), you can hone your social media strategy down to an exact science.
Keep Up Your Email Marketing
If you can collect email addresses from your current and potential customers, you can engage them with your business consistently, effectively, and relatively cheaply.
Write a weekly newsletter that humanizes your business to your audience. Make announcements about events and special days like employee birthdays, marriages, new babies, and more.
Then, when you release new products and services or announce deals, your audience will be far more likely to pay close attention.
Research SEO Keywords
One of the best ways to compete with larger companies is to maximize your SEO.
Practically everyone uses search engines like Google to find products, so if your small business understands what SEO terms rank highest for your industry and includes them regularly on your website, there's a great chance you'll turn up at the top of search results pages.
Simply populate your site with content that's both relevant to your industry and valuable to your visitors. You can do this through solid copywriting, or maybe even a business blog.
Stand Out from the Rest
Keep track of the trends in your local community, and regularly reach out to locals to ask for their input on your business. Through surveys and requests for feedback, you can not only learn from your customers but also endear your business to them when they learn how much you care about their input.
When you focus hard on impressing your potential customers, they'll take notice. And there's nothing that impresses more than demonstrating a commitment to constant improvement.
If you feel like your digital marketing strategies have room to improve, contact GroupM7 today. We'd love to discuss all the ways you can help your small business compete with the big guys and succeed on the World Wide Web.
Aaron Dunn
Aaron is a writer by trade with several years of professional experience under his belt. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. Before joining the Group, he worked as a freelancer and tech reviewer in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Aaron currently lives in Pittsburg, TX. 
