If you are like most small business owners, probably, you constantly think about how to acquire new customers, increase revenue and retain customers. That is the pressure when it comes to owning a small business — you will greatly enjoy the flexibility and being your own boss, but you are on the 24/7 clock.
Whether you are running a restaurant, hotel, plumbing business or insurance agency, it doesn’t matter! but every business goal is to convert new customers into repeat customers and increase word of mouth. This process makes comfortable for SMB owners — after all, getting new customer acquisition every time quite difficult for most businesses because it requires marketing and advertising, which has become extremely complex in recent years.
The old way of purchasing a Newspaper/Yellow Pages ad and sponsor a little league team days gone. Commercial rents have risen and posing new threats to small businesses. Today! Even Main Street businesses in high foot traffic areas must now take up digital marketing as it is flexible for everyone to survive. The future of small business marketing is not getting any easier, and business owners going to face more challenges than ever. The constantly changing digital environment paving the way to tech-savvy millennials entering the market. So, it is time for SMB owners to consider digital marketing.
In a recent study, 66% of millennials said they would like to start their own business. In another poll, 46% of small business owners said they don’t have a website. That is surprising! — the internet changed the lives of consumers and they are pulling up phones for every information. GoDaddy survey shows that SMB owner’s second-biggest concern is “attracting new customers”.
Small business owners need to recognize this and optimize their marketing and customer acquisition process to compete in the near future.
Here are three things small businesses can do to improve their marketing:
1. Design your website. Engage with your customers for the information they need to make a purchase or inquiry. Your website needs to be alive, greeting and guiding new visitors. Your website must take up optimization on mobile display and contain several call-to-action points.
2. Understand local SEO. If your business provides a service to a local area, then the local SEO gets you higher visibility in Google when people search for your products/services or business. Gaining ownership of your Google Maps listing on Google My Business is a must.
3. Don’t just take anyone to run advertising campaigns. Both Google and Facebook advertising platforms have gone through major changes in the last few years and making extremely complex for even the most experienced users. It is too difficult to get a favorable ROI on your ad spend unless you are an expert. We see so many mistakes being made in ad campaigns from new clients that greatly exceed their budget with no reward.
As we talked about google, it makes thousands of changes to its algorithm each year, which impacts every aspect of online activity. It is no longer possible to ask your webmaster to learn SEO on the fly and expect results and It is no longer wise to ask an admin in your office to learn social media in their spare time. Small businesses should strongly consider working with a quality digital marketing partner to manage their online activities. Start your digital marketing journey today! for the future of small business marketing. Learn more