As a small business ourselves, we completely understand our clients uncertainty behind long term investments such as digital marketing. We’re often asked whether we believe every business needs digital marketing or if some companies are simply too small for it. One of our core values is to always be honest and transparent with both existing and prospective clients, therefore whilst we believe everyone should market their business online, we do believe in being open minded when considering which option is best for you and your business.
In particular, the past year goes to show how crucial having an open mind about moving your business online can be to being there for your customers and keeping your business afloat. Whilst your website quickly becomes your lifeline, opting to market your business digitally is where you work towards your website being found by new customers online. Working to bring in a steady flow of enquiries and orders, as well as an opportunity to grow when the number of enquiries and orders are too many for your existing team to keep up with.
Although the last year definitely sped up the process for many companies who have recently moved their business online, this shift has been chipping away in the background for years now. Most consumers, whatever they’re looking for, prefer the ease of enquiring about a service once they’ve found their preferred company online, buying online or even finding the company that sells the product they’re looking for online first before going into the shop to view it.
If you’re not yet geared up for the digital world, then it’s definitely time to start considering it, having an online presence is undoubtedly a key focus for any business in 2021. Find out which types of digital marketing we can offer your business and why this would benefit you.
Types of digital marketing
The first hurdle is finding the right type(s) of digital marketing for your business. In a previous blog, we discussed PPC vs SEO and concluded that actually if you can afford to, having both forms of marketing as part of your digital strategy is most beneficial. Which is why it’s not to say that only one type of digital marketing fits all, it depends on your goal and time allowance to achieve that goal.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is the process of increasing where your website sits organically in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and we optimise websites for Google with it being the most widely used search engine. This form of digital marketing is definitely a long-term commitment but entirely worth the investment. Read on to fully understand the benefits of SEO and why the majority of our digital marketing clients opt for this over the other types of digital marketing options.
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC allows you to set up Google Ads for your chosen search terms, which if done correctly, should hopefully sit in the top three ad results at the top of the first page of Google. This is a great way to get more traffic to your website quickly whilst you don’t currently sit in the top positions for the organic search results. A common misconception is that you should bid highly for your ads to appear at the top of the SERPs, when in actual fact they run through an ad auction, therefore your bid amount is important but the quality of your ad is rated with an amalgamation of different criteria – such as ad relevance and landing page experience – to generate a score and determine where you should sit in the ad results.
- Paid Social
Paid Social is the running of ads on Facebook and Instagram to your target demographic. A great way to advertise your services, products, promotions and unique selling points. Paid Social enables you to get in front of a wider audience who may not have heard of the company before but fall into your target demographic and share similar interests, increasing brand awareness and familiarising interested users with your business.
Benefits of each digital marketing type
Ultimately, digital marketing allows you to market to and reach any number of people depending on where you can logistically offer your services and products; locally, regionally, nationally, and even globally.
- Be the #1 choice for your users
It’s evident that sitting in the top position of the organic SERPs is the marketing strategy which will see you gain the biggest results at the most affordable rate, with up to 30% of users clicking on the first organic result and the only fee you pay is to your SEO experts (hopefully us!) as opposed to paying for every click with PPC and Paid Social. With the correct keyword targeting, you can have peace of mind that you’re appearing before users who are at a point in their user journey where they’re looking for a service/product that you provide and are just searching for the best option available to them, this traffic is extremely valuable as there’s a high chance they’ll convert.
For example, Inspiration Teacher Training has recently trusted us with carrying out SEO for their website. Knowing that they provide quality services to the education sector, users finding what they need when on the website and converting wasn’t the issue, this fell down to the fact that they weren’t being found in the search results by anyone who didn’t already know their name, particularly when studies made by the Search Engine Journal show that “A result in position #1 earns a CTR over ten times higher than a ranking at position #10” and the second page sees a click-through rate (CTR) of less than 1%.
- Get more enquiries and orders quickly
The biggest benefit of PPC is that once the ads are running, you should start to get more enquiries/orders almost immediately, this is appealing to clients who are at the start of their SEO journey and know there is a little way to go before they’ll be appearing in the top results organically to see any change in traffic. However, we have many clients who run PPC alongside SEO, even when their website appears in the top positions for both the organic results and in the ads. The biggest benefit to this is that companies can dominate the first half of the Google search results, making it near impossible for a user to click on a site other than yours and reinforcing trustworthiness and quality in your brand.
An example of using PPC alongside SEO is City Locks Norwich, as emergency locksmiths they wanted their 24/7 service is always visible and readily available to anyone who might require their services. To ensure this, we’re running PPC alongside carrying out SEO to ensure maximum visibility in the SERPs.
- Build a strong brand
Paid Social is a great way to build brand awareness, whilst you may not get as many direct conversions through this, social often assists with conversions you receive directly, or through organic and PPC. Either relevant users will have seen your ads on social media and when they are ready for what you offer they’ll recognise your brand encouraging more trust, or it could work the other way and users may have been on your site before but it wasn’t the right time to convert and by remarketing to them via social media it could draw them back to convert now. There’s research to suggest that “a prospect needs to “hear” the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they’ll take action to buy that product or service.”
After building a website for The Fine Curtain Company, as a new brand they wanted to increase brand awareness and connect with users who have shown an interest in The Fine Curtain Company in the past or similar products. With highly visual products, Paid Social allows The Fine Curtain Company to show off their curtains and blinds in different properties and interiors, and how real people style them in their homes. They are able to capture a wider audience and target key demographics through Paid Social, therefore increasing brand awareness as a result.
On top of all of the above, the likelihood of your biggest competitors already marketing their businesses online is very high, meaning you could be losing potential customers to your competitors because of this.
Overall, we firmly believe that every business should be marketing themselves online. Be it to increase your chances of being found in the SERPs to increase the number of enquiries and orders you receive, or to build brand awareness and improve the appeal of your business as a way of increasing footfall to your shop. Whatever the goal, a large percentage of your customers first introduction to your business will occur online.
If you’re interested in any of our comprehensive digital marketing services or if you’re unsure which option would be best for your business, get in touch with a friendly member of our team today on 01603 859007 or use our contact form below and we’ll be more than happy to help.
Social Media Management