Why small businesses should invest in digital marketing!

Around a decade ago, getting closer to your needs and wants was always a mission and often very inconvenient. People would often spend hours and days just to complete one task, like say…depositing money at the bank or just opening a bank account including getting all your documents in order. Standing in lines to shop at your local supermarket or going to the airport to book a flight. Until digital started to put its footprint all over the globe, or at least most of the globe, and started making marketing better and more accurate, for the user and the business. With that came the availability of data and modern technologies such as AI has just made things easier for people. This was the open window for digital marketing.

This has brought a fantastic opportunity for consumers, but I think an even greater opportunity for small businesses. Let’s face it, one of the biggest challenges small businesses face is marketing. Getting your product to the world and the reason most small businesses never reach their intended peak is that they often cannot afford marketing. Pamphlets, posters, advertisers, etc. costs lots of money and this leaves a mountainous challenge to already struggling small businesses. 

So, how does the digitalization of everything influence small businesses? What if this is the answer small businesses have been waiting for?

Why small businesses need to invest in digital marketing!

According to Hubspot, with regards to marketing technologies, which they define as “Marketing technology impacts the way you reach your audience, how they consume your content, and how they interact with your brand. Marketing technology statistics and trends highlight the best ways to connect with your audience and customers through various applications, software, and mobile channels”

• As of April 2020, two billion users were accessing WhatsApp messenger monthly.
• 28% of customers resolve issues with a company via messaging. (Zendesk, 2020) 
• The number of messaging app users worldwide is expected to reach 2.48 billion by 2021. (Statista, 2020)
• As of April 2020, WhatsApp was the top messaging app in terms of monthly active users globally. (Statista, 2020) 
• Facebook and WeChat were the second and third (respectively) most popular messaging apps globally as of April 2020. (Statista, 2020)
• Augmented Reality In 2021, 35% of marketers were leveraging AR or VR in their strategies. Of those marketers, 42% plan to increase their investment in 2022.
• (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021) 58% of marketers who currently leverage experiential marketing call it an effective strategy.

So, the question begs, what must SMEs do? What are the channels and types of marketing that SMEs can take advantage of while the whole world is on the internet every day?

• SEO

The process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. … SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine when websites rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP)

• Email Marketing

 When using email to promote your business’s products or services. It can help make your customers aware of your latest items or offers by integrating them into your marketing automation efforts.

• Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service

• Blogs

Blog marketing is the process of reaching your home business’ target market through the use of a blog. Initially, business owners had a blog separate from their websites, but today, you can easily integrate the two to make it easier for you to manage, as well as easier for visitors to access. Many business owners use a blogging platform, such as WordPress, for both their website and blog.

• Content Marketing

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online

• Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. 

What now?

This list is in no way exhaustive, as more marketing types can work for many different businesses. The aim is always to use channels and platforms that reach your targets best and is best manageable, based on the size of the business.

Before the digitization of many things, it was very hard for SMEs to compete with larger businesses or businesses with greater capital. Now the opportunity has come for new products and ideas to flood the marketing. Instead of just repetitive advertising of limited products by big brands, now there is a chance for the creativity of minorities to reach the globe one click at a time!

This opportunity also allows SMEs to build their brands the way they wanted and build a portfolio for their business. They can manage their data better and get clearer and better ways to get the analytics of how their business is performing! What a time to have a small business!

Building a brand and a customer base has never been easier, this is one of the best investments SMEs can do to make sure they get in on the fun but also take the time and patience to build a lasting brand that can change with the times. Digital Marketing is important, as “it is a great tool to your company’s success since it aids in the development of an authoritative online presence”, according to Abacus Digital.

After all, in around 10 or 15 years, someone else will write another blog on how marketing has changed again!

Around a decade ago, getting closer to your needs and wants was always a mission and often very inconvenient. People would often spend hours and days just to complete one task, like say…depositing money at the bank or just opening a bank account including getting all your documents in order. Standing in lines to shop…

Around a decade ago, getting closer to your needs and wants was always a mission and often very inconvenient. People would often spend hours and days just to complete one task, like say…depositing money at the bank or just opening a bank account including getting all your documents in order. Standing in lines to shop…