Best Internet Marketing Services To Pivot Your Local Business Today
More owners are permanently shutting their doors after new lockdown orders, realizing that there may be no end in sight to the crisis.
Nearly 66,000 businesses have folded since March 1, according to data from Yelp, which provides a platform for local businesses to advertise their services and has been tracking announcements of closings posted on its site.
If your business has been impacted by the COVID-19 and you’re considering pivoting by launching generating business online, keep reading.
We’ve compiled highlights from digital marketing strategies that we have prepared over the last 90 days.
Online Marketing Strategies for Small Business in 2020
With the current lack of physical options and more reliance on the digital landscape, digital marketing continues to provide value to small businesses looking to expand their reach and revenue.
At the start of 2020, it was reported that businesses would spend $1.3 trillion on digital marketing this year. The impact of the coronavirus makes this likely to change, however, because businesses are cutting costs.
During this downtime, small businesses have the opportunity to figure out what works with their marketing strategies and channels.
7 Best Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses in 2020
- Narrow your audience and identify a niche
- Find opportunities to humanize your brand
- Don’t treat your social media channels like a one size fits all
- Take your website to a health check
- Start planning your holiday campaigns
- Implement an effective content marketing strategy
- Start a brand ambassador program
1- Narrow Your Audience And Identify A Niche
Niche marketing is a form of marketing that is geared toward a very specific population, or niche.
Niche marketing is possible when a business specializes in a particular service, or serves a particular demographic within its target audience. If the business forms its marketing endeavors around this subgroup, this business would be in the practice of niche marketing.
Why is niche marketing successful?
A small customer base has its benefits. When you are engaging with fewer people, you can focus on the quality of those engagements and on nurturing your relationships.
Identify niche markets who are already passionate about a product or service you offer. Keisha Davis, owner of Shining Star Hair Salon in New York launched a subscription with her best haircare products she was selling at her 2 locations. Using niche marketing, Keisha narrowed her product selection and ignited a brand new stream of income for her business.
Niche marketing is a profitable strategy
Niche marketing reduces marketing costs.
When you know who you’re targeting, you don’t have to spread as wide of a net.
Niche marketing makes social media advertising (Facebook ads and Instagram ads) more effective, as you can let the platform know exactly who you want to target. This allows your message to only reach those who will be interested so you’re only going to be spending money on good potential leads.
2- Find Opportunities To Humanize Your Brand
People respond to people – it’s that simple. Steer away from the robotic marketing tactics and instead focus on being relatable, interesting, and most importantly, HUMAN.
Have you ever received an email from “info” or “admin” or “customer service”? How did it feel? In my opinion, it feels mysterious and unless I know the company, most likely I will delete it right away.
If you consider yourself a private person, as a business owner, share with your audience the “why” behind what your brand is doing. Your audience wants to see who is behind your product or services.
The more real and authentic you can be, the better.
For our latest book launch, Your Social Visibility Blueprint: A Solopreneur’s Guide To Personal Brand Marketing, we wanted to turn this event into an unforgettable story.
We reached out to a famous cake artist in Austin, Cakes Rock, as seen in the Netflix Show, Sugar Rush, and she prepared a cake of our book!
I turned my book into a cake and my brand became edible! Click here to watch the video.
3- Make Custom Content For Your Social Media Channels
Now that you want to stand out from the crowd, keep in mind that your goals are to personalize experiences and deliver more personalized content.
Personalized Content Examples
Personalized content means that you’re considering your users preferences. Instead of just sharing the same content to all the social channels at the same time, take some time to consider the following:
- What content do they appreciate?
- What is your goal from your content? Get engagement? Get sales?
- Optimize your content for conversions
Facebook Groups are a great place to get brand visibility.
Our Austin Business Networking Group grows by 25% each month and it’s because we share personalized content.
4- Take Your Website To A Health Check
Website performance is incredibly important because customers generally think load times are slower than they actually are. This means you need to be doing all you can to make your website load as fast as possible.
What are the qualities of a good website?
A good website is not all about style. Some of the important qualities of a good website are:
- It needs to work
- It should function by device: desktop, mobile, and tablet
- It should have relevant content
- Speed is critical
- Secure
If you want to take your business online, your website is your main asset.
Our website health check tool is amazing! You should see it on the right panel (from desktop) or at the end of this blog (from mobile).
5- Start Planning Your Holiday Campaigns
Business seasonality can bring great opportunities. How big is your Holiday season?
American Express has a Shop Small event every year. New data released today found U.S. shoppers who shopped at independent retailers and restaurants on Small Business Saturday reported spending a record high total of an estimated $19.6 billion, according to the 2019 Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey from American Express (NYSE:AXP) and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
Partner with strong brands to ignite visibility faster.
Picture from Instagram/shopsmall
Carolina Villareal, the founder of Mint Event Design, has pivoted her events styling business by creating unique party decoration kits. She has also partnered with other local vendors to offer unique experiences.
6- Implement An Effective Content Marketing Strategy
Data can come from anywhere. Insights come from intelligence.
Ok … That makes sense … But what is content or content marketing anyway?
The main difference between content and content marketing is the destination you will use to attract and build an audience.
Just remember this part: Effective content marketing equals money!
Content marketing is simply the creation, publishing, and distribution of great content to attract and build an audience. Sounds simple! But … What kind of audience? I’m sure you don’t want to get emails asking for your banking account to deposit your inheritance of $20,000,000! Of course not. Therefore it’s important to define the audience that you want to attract and a map to reach your goal.
In other words … content marketing + defined audience + map = revenue
The image below is from our content planner. Before getting into content writing and content production, we encourage you to take the following steps first:
- Define clear avatars
- Perform a deeper analysis of what content users want to consume, which format, and which platform
- Use SEO tools to gain more visibility
- Develop content for the 3 main purchasing decision stages: awareness, consideration, purchase
If content marketing is the journey toward brand success, content strategy is the blueprint that directs it. It takes just one content strategy session with an experienced content marketing specialist to plan your next amazing project!
When we help business owners, we strategize, plan, and write content based on SEO best practices to help generate organic traffic to your site.
If you don’t have a content marketing strategy for your business, request a content marketing demo today!
7- Start A Brand Ambassador Program
Brand ambassadors act as cheerleaders for your business and represent the culture of your company to the public.
How do ambassador programs work?
A brand ambassador program is very similar to a customer loyalty program. It rewards loyal customers that frequently engage with a brand.
Brand ambassadors are very popular, thanks to the boom of Instagram influencers. Ambassadors are people who agree to distribute your content. If they are loyal customers, having an ambassador badge makes them feel very special.
Do you have raven fans? Cheerleaders? If so, they are your ambassadors! Recognize them and
Do brand ambassadors get paid?
Brand ambassadors have different categories, depending on factors such as:
- Status
- Trusted partners
- Domain authority
- Proven record
Most new ambassadors are open to collaborate in exchange for free produce. However, keep in mind, you can also incentivize your loyal clients and it’s even better.
Now that you’re open to innovative ways to spread the word, consider adding ambassadors to your brand, but also becoming one!
How to start a brand ambassador program?
Starting your ambassador program is as easy as reaching out existing clients and existing brands you love.
April Hill, founder of Yoga Studio 90 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has done an amazing job at featuring brand partners like K-deer in her social media posts. By doing that, not only she’s turning herself in as an ambassador for a brand she trusts, but is collaborating with a trusted brand, which gives her the opportunity to expand awareness around her latest YS90-On-Demand membership.
Starting a brand ambassador program doesn’t have to be complex.
How to find local influencers in Austin, Texas?
Check out this list of local influencers in Austin.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services
Except for search engine optimization (SEO) services, the marketing tips discussed above can be implemented easily.
How does SEO help?
Search Engine Optimization services can be very complex. Sadly, most SEO agencies can’t perform at the speed and budget that a small business owner needs.
What is good SEO and bad SEO?
In the SEO world, there are practices that have been banned by Google, which are considered “bad SEO”.
Is listing my business in Yelp SEO?
Listing your business in Yelp or in any other local listing will increase visibility. While Yelp is a very robust listing service, we encourage business owners to focus on Google My Business Listing first.
How to start Google My Business Listing?
Click here to read all the steps to open your GMBL.
We Want to Feature Business Stories!
Share your resilience story with us at jessica@marketingforgreatness.com.
By: Jessica Campos
