The Small Business Digital Marketing Checklist

Digital marketing uses digital technologies such as websites, social media, blogs, email, and mobile apps to attract new consumers and interact with existing customers. Digital marketing methods are made up of a number of parts depending on the sort of company you run and how you engage with your consumers, but most strategies should include the following five areas to be effective.

Small businesses may not have the staff to manage large volumes of digital marketing, and this job could be too time-consuming or complex for a single person. If you're unfamiliar with these topics, consider outsourcing some or all of it to give yourself more time to focus on expanding your business.

Website

A website is the basis of a digital marketing strategy. It's where you'll send people, gather leads, and provide useful information about your company. According to a 2018 Clutch poll, only one-third of small business owners are currently online.If you're in this category, now is the ideal opportunity to launch your digital marketing campaign by creating a website. Consider these key steps as you begin:

• Create a distinctive look for your business: Make use of typefaces, colors, and tones in your website's content to help promote your brand.
• Write an engaging about page: An interesting about page draws customers.
• Create a blog: You may use your website to boost traffic and establish credibility by starting a business blog.
• Make your site mobile-friendly: Create a responsive website that adjusts to the screen size of various devices, such as desktop PCs, tablets, and smartphones for a consistent user experience.
• Allow visitors to share content via social media: Display prominent social sharing buttons so that people may share material with their friends.
• Keep track of the metrics: It will be tough to improve your website over time if you can't measure how people use it. Make intelligent changes to your site's performance using an analytics tool like Google Analytics.

Content Marketing

Create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and keep a clearly-defined audience while also encouraging profitable customer action. Because digital marketing and content marketing sometimes overlap (although not always), it's critical to have a well-planned approach that incorporates many components:

• Create a content calendar: Without a strategy, creating content for marketing is likely to be time-consuming. Make a monthly schedule that outlines what material you'll produce and how you'll distribute it.
• Share on social media: If you can't get your target audience's attention on your content frequently, it will be useless. Make a strategy for how you'll share your material on your various social media sites.
• Use your content to its full potential: you may take advantage of (and recycle) your material in a variety of ways to get more usage out of each piece. Make, for example, a ebook by linking together a series of blog entries on related topics.
• Consider guest posting on other blogs: Guest posting on other people's blogs and creating original content for others' websites is a wonderful method to broaden your visibility and increase website traffic.

Social Media

You may use your website and blog as an effective distribution platform for information that you would like to share with your target audience. Using social media, you can connect directly with consumers and potential customers by posting links to material on your channels. Follow these simple guidelines when developing a social media strategy:

• Choose one to begin with: Don't attempt to establish a presence on every social media platform at the same time. Examine each for its benefits before deciding which is best for your company and consumers.
• Claim your business name on all platforms: To avoid anybody else using your brand name, register it on each network. While you're at it, claim your company on Google.
• Maintain consistency: Use the same profile image, bio, banners, and colors on all of your social media profiles to build your brand presence.
• Focus on discussion and interaction: The goal of social media is to have a lively conversation. Instead of drowning your audience with advertisements, try to build a thriving community on each social network.
• Make a social media posting schedule: Insert a social media posting plan into the content calendar you already made, or start fresh and create a new one that details exactly what you'll be sharing, where, and when.
• Collect and analyze metrics: To learn what kinds of postings work the best, examine the analytics tools accessible on various social media platforms.

Email Marketing

interesting communications at the same time on a regular basis. It takes some effort to develop a good email list, but it's well worth the time and energy invested. Follow these steps to start using email marketing:

• Choose an appropriate platform: Choose the email marketing platform that offers the features you want at a price that is affordable for your company. Some platforms concentrate on reaching a wider audience, while others give greater design capabilities.
• Create a newsletter template: Most email marketing platforms provide ready-to-use templates you can customize easily with your logo and company information. Take the time to do this initially and you can reuse the template every time you send a newsletter.
• Encourage people to sign up: Increase the size of your email list by promoting it on your website, on social media, and in your email signature. Consider offering a reward, such as a free download or a discount, for joining up.
• Collect and evaluate metrics: To see how many people opened your message and which links they clicked on, use the analytics tools offered by the email marketing platform you chose.

Search Engine Optimization

By ensuring that your business is well positioned in Google searches and other online searches, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) contributes significantly to digital marketing. If the material you produce isn't optimized, you won't be able to attract the right people to see it at the right time. Take a look at these first steps:

• Do some research: Understand how well your website and the websites of your rivals are performing before you start. Look at where you stand with Google and other search engines to get an idea.
• Choose the most appropriate keywords: Choose the best keywords for your website, blog articles, and other material according to your study.
• Use SEO tools: There are several free SEO tools accessible that may assist you in improving your content. Choose the ones that are most relevant to your company.
• Create a plan for optimizing your content: Create a strategy for optimizing your content. Set up Google Analytics, the other SEO tools you've chosen, and quarterly or monthly reports to track how well optimized material performs over time so you can continuously improve it.

Conclusion

Digital marketing can be summarized as the use of digital technologies to reach and engage customers. It is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of online marketing activities, such as search engine optimization, email marketing, and social media marketing.

Digital marketing requires a strategic approach that encompasses all aspects of your company's online presence. By taking the time to understand your audience, you can create content and communications that resonate with them. Additionally, using the appropriate digital marketing tools will help you improve the visibility and reach of your content.