October 9, 2023
5 Digital Marketing Tips that Small Businesses Should Know
In today's digital landscape, new tools are constantly being created to help small businesses connect with their audience, establish their brand reputation, and improve their ability to compete with larger companies. The best news for small business owners? Digital marketing doesn't have to be time-consuming or overwhelming!
In this article, we'll break down five digital marketing tips that small business owners can implement to help drive growth and succeed in a competitive online marketplace.
1. Register your business on Google
One of the simplest things you can do as a small business owner is to register your business on Google with a Google Business Profile. Making sure you have a complete, detailed, up-to-date Business Profile will help people find your business on Google’s local search results. You may already have a Business Profile even if you didn’t set it up yourself; anyone can create a Google Profile for your business, even a customer. however, you must create a free Google My Business account to claim your business, update and maintain the information displayed, and manage the reviews.
In addition to adding your address, phone number, hours of operation, business category, and website to your Google listing, ensure that it matches the information across all online platforms where your business can set up a presence. Your prospective customers are likely looking for you on all the platforms and apps where they spend time online. Make it simple for them to find the information to contact you, including things like your phone number, physical address, email address, and other important information.
2. Invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool
A CRM tool helps businesses manage their relationships and interactions with customers and leads. It's a centralized location to record customer information, track recent activity, identify sales opportunities, and evaluate marketing campaigns. Many CRM tools integrate with other apps so you can consolidate things like invoices, surveys, social media dashboards, and more together into one "source of truth," or point of information, for your business.
As a small business owner, you're likely wearing multiple hats and overseeing several departments. A CRM can help you automate tasks to free up your time so you can focus on the most important aspects of your business. You could spend the time to customize your CRM not only to fit your sales stages but also your selling style. Create fields to capture the right information about the right people at the right time, and you can keep track of all the important details about your sales prospects and customer relationships, all in one place. More importantly, you can create a system employees (current and future) can follow as your business grows.
3. Embrace the power of AI
One of the best ways to free up more of your time for high-value tasks is by removing lower-value tasks from your day. We are fortunate to be living at a time when many tasks can be automated through Artificial Intelligence, or AI.
As a small business owner, you may not be able to hire a full-time social media manager, blog writer, or website designer. However, you may be able to use AI tools and plug-ins to help save yourself time and money. Are these services perfect? Of course not. But editing a 1,500-word blog post is much easier than writing one from scratch. Some of the platforms you use already may already have AI functions, and more are launching all the time.
4. Collect online reviews
Online reviews can help inform a potential customer's purchasing decisions. A strong online reputation can help your small business build trust with new customers.
In addition to credibility, online reviews influence your SEO. Google and other search engines consider the quantity and quality of reviews when ranking businesses in local search results. A high number of positive reviews can help your business appear more prominently in search engine listings, which may drive more organic traffic to your website.
With a system in place to collect and manage online reviews, small businesses could increase their exposure, attract new customers, foster trust, and continually improve their offerings.
5. Provide valuable content to your customers
Creating high-quality, relevant content establishes your authority within your industry and could attract organic traffic to your website. When you regularly share valuable resources, you may be more likely to stay top of mind with your customers.
Fortunately, producing high-quality content doesn't have to mean spending lots of time, energy, or money. You don't even need to be a professional creator! Standing out online can be as simple as recording a few answers to frequently asked questions and pinning them to the top of your social profiles, or using pre-existing templates to generate professional-looking graphics that will appeal to your customers.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, small businesses must remain adaptable and proactive in their approach to digital marketing. By optimizing your online presence, implementing a CRM, embracing AI tools, collecting reviews, and creating valuable content for your customers, you can help drive business growth and set yourself apart from competitors.
This content was written by a freelance author and commissioned and paid for by American Express. This article contains general information and is not intended to provide information that is specific to American Express products and services.
