About 97% of customers search for a business or its products online before making a purchase. 

If your business is not online, you may lose your potential customers to your competitors with a high online presence. No matter what small business you own, digital marketing is the best solution to attract the target audience to your business and retain them. Digital marketing for small businesses can help them find and connect with potential customers. 

Building a solid digital presence for your business requires time and careful strategies. When done right, it can help build meaningful connections with your audience, improve brand visibility, and generate more sales. 

Regardless of the business size, digital marketing is no longer an option but a necessity to stay in the competition and reach your audience. It is the right time to begin if you haven’t started using digital marketing for your business. 

Here are some tips for small businesses to help you build an effective online presence:

1. Create a Google Business listing for your business 

Have you ever searched for “____ near me” on Google? If you have, you must have seen a list of business listings related to the search term. Google business listing helps your business appear in these searches. 

• 86% of people look at the location of a business on Google maps. 
• Mobile queries with “near me” and “where to buy” keywords have increased by 200% 

With your customers already looking for businesses similar to yours on Google, your business cannot afford to miss the benefits of Google Business listing. It lets you list your business name, location, products or services, website, contact, and other details. So, when local customers search for a product or service that you offer, your business listing will appear in the search results along with other similar businesses. 

Tips to optimize your Google business page:

• Create/claim and update your Google Business listing with location, business category, contact details, and timings
• Add a short, compelling business description
• Add quality photos to your listing 
• Ask customers to post their reviews and feedback on your business listing and respond to them.
• Use the update section of your listing to provide regular updates to your audience. 

2. Use SEO to improve your brand visibility

How often have you looked on the second page when searching for something on Google? If you don’t look beyond the first page, how can you expect your customers to find you if your business website is not ranked on the first page? 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help small businesses rank their websites higher in the search engine result pages (SERP) and improve brand visibility. SEO aims to optimize your business website to appear higher on the search results page. Here are a few stats to help you understand the value of SEO for your business website:

• The first result on the organic search result page of Google has an average click-through rate of 27.6%. 
• The #1 result is ten times more likely to get a click than a result on #10
• The top 3 results on the organic search result page of Google get 54.5% of total clicks.

Search engines use factors like the use of relevant keywords, website loading speed, ease of navigation, website reputation, and the number of backlinks to your website to decide the rank of your website in the SERPs. 

Here are some benefits of SEO for your business website: 

• Improves visibility
• Builds trust 
• Keeps you ahead of the competition
• Helps find new customers
• Improves conversion rate

SEO is a complex and long-term process that requires the right skills and expertise to rank your website higher. If you are unfamiliar with SEO strategies, you can hire a reputed digital marketing company that can help you optimize your website for search engines and rank it higher in SERPs. 

3. Use email marketing 

Email marketing is an effective digital marketing strategy that involves sending emails to customers and prospects. It is a cost-effective tool for small businesses to attract new customers and stay connected with previous customers. Use email marketing to convert your prospects into customers and one-time customers into loyal customers. 

• 64% of small businesses use email marketing as an important part of their marketing strategy.
• Email marketing offers the best ROI of 3600%. 

Personalizing your email campaigns provides a one-on-one experience for the customers and improves the email opening rate. Furthermore, personalization can increase revenue by up to 760% as businesses will be sharing more relevant and customized content with each customer. 

“Email marketing is paramount to the retention of your customer base. There’s much more room for personalization and customization in an email, as you’re communicating directly with your own customers.” 

                   Ryan Masten, founder Earn2Trade

Create a strong email marketing strategy that aims to improve customer retention and build brand loyalty. Start by creating a powerful email list and segment it according to customers’ behavior and where they are in your sales funnel. 

4. Build a strong presence on social media 

There are many social media channels, and a business should only choose those related to the industry and the target audience. Social media is an important part of the marketing strategy of most businesses. Over 88% of businesses invest in social media. 

When used effectively, social media is the best way for a small business to create brand awareness and improve customer acquisition. Moreover, social media can also be used to share news and updates with the audience and engage with them. It can also strengthen the customer base of a business and increase customer retention rates. 

 Here are a few tips to help small businesses optimize their social media pages:

• Create your business pages/accounts on social media platforms where the majority of the audience is already present and engaging with businesses similar to yours
• Update your profile with precise details like the product/services you deal in, your business website, contact information, and other details.
• Post regularly on these platforms. 
• Engage with your audience actively.

As a small business, you might not have the necessary skills and resources to create a strong social media presence. Moreover, with a reduced attention span and an increasing number of social media platforms, it is becoming even harder for businesses to reach their audience. 

Hence, to stay ahead of the competition, small businesses should consider hiring a professional digital marketing agency to manage all social media accounts. A professional social media agency can help you develop a strong social media strategy for your business. 

5. Use Pay per click advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online advertising strategy in which advertisers pay every time someone clicks on an ad. Small businesses can advertise on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Bing, and other platforms to reach their target audience. Each platform has its own pros and cons, so choose the platform that best fits your business needs. 

When advertising on these platforms, be specific about your target demographics. For better reach and results from your PPC ads, include additional details like the age, behavior, and interests of your target customers. 

How to optimize your PPC advertising:

• Create a compelling call-to-action ad campaign
• Your ad should target the areas where you serve.
• Add more details to your targeting to reach only your potential customers. 
• Evaluate your ad results and customize the ad to improve the reachability and conversion rate. 
• You can start low and increase your budget as you get better ad campaign results.

An effective digital marketing strategy allows small businesses to reach the audience, build brand awareness, and boost conversions. Small businesses require digital marketing to stay in the competition. 

A digital marketing strategy is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Businesses can experiment with different things to check what works best for their business. The above-mentioned tips are the pillars of any effective digital marketing strategy and form a strong digital marketing strategy foundation for your business. Have any questions related to digital marketing for your business or want to hire a digital marketing agency in UAE? Reach out to Techies Infotech, and we will be happy to help.