According to a study of small business owners, the use of small business digital marketing is increasing rapidly. And, as we all are aware, the digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, providing more opportunities and platforms to engage customers and prospects.
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/18236/small-business-marketing-tactics/
From the same study: “About 60 percent said that small and medium sized enterprises do not have dedicated marketing staff, with a majority of SMEs spending roughly two hours per week on marketing”.
Website engagement, performance, and security
Social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, and now Tik Tok
Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
Google and other business listings;
Reviews from Google, Yelp, Facebook and TripAdvisor
Paid Advertising; PPC and Social Media Ads
PR and Industry websites
Newsletters, email programs, and local events.
Linkedin engagement and connections
Webstores: Website, Amazon, Etsy, Ebay
Posting and checking reviews for a couple of hours a week is no longer sufficient when your consumers are engaging with your business online daily.
Check out these results from a recent study conducted by SCORE on the impact of Covid-19 in regard to digital marketing and small businesses.
These two studies highlight a significant challenge – small businesses with their limited marketing resources, paired with intensified consumer expectations of constant online presence and instant engagement, put a lot of pressure on the average small business owner to establish and maintain a competitive online presence. Even as brick and mortar rebounds, consumers use online resources to find the store that they want to visit, check out reviews, get directions, and compare products.
As each platform attempts to be the small business owner’s preferred tool of choice, their use-model and metrics become more complex.
Small business owners need an owner’s view of all their data in a format that is quick to consume, and easily actionable. Whether by their own hands, a freelancer or agency, your data should be easy to use. The owner’s view, or as the big businesses call it, the executive view, allows the business owner not only to ensure everything is working properly, but to assess performance across channels over time relative to each other providing the insight into where an investment may be warranted. Once a decision is made to hire a freelance or agency for a particular activity, you can easily monitor and manage results. Real-time insights not only give the business owner more confidence where to invest, but the confidence in changing direction if things are not going as planned.
Setting up and managing all the separate digital marketing platforms is a key step, but can feel daunting at times. Fortunately, most of these must-have tools and platforms are free. Google provides Google Analytics for your website, Google My Business for local businesses,and Google Search Console for SEO insights. Facebook is rolling out their Business Suite, and Instagram for Business is very easy to set up.
Getting your Digital Profile setup and organized is easier than ever with Cruxdata. Cruxdata provides step by step instructions, recommendations and creates the owner’s executive view into a powerful real time insights dashboard.
Check out our short-to-the-point articles in everyday language on digital marketing in Crux IQ.
Our goal is to enable the small business owners to have the same marketing insights and capabilities as large companies.
For more on how to make a killer small business website: 8 attributes That Make A Website Effective For Small Businesses
