Written by: Nick Patrick, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Since its inception, digital marketing created an even playing field for owners to promote their brands without feeling left out due to expensive advertising fees. In the past, to advertise your business effectively, a company would have to purchase ad space through radio, newspapers, magazines, or television. Networks would charge expensive fees based on media markets, time slots, and programs. This advertising method would cost businesses thousands of dollars just to run a single ad for a few seconds of air time with more expensive tools to track your ad's effectiveness.
Small business owners look to do everything possible to maximize their profits but often miss opportunities to be successful because of a lack of understanding of how advertising online works. Through digital marketing, many startups have excelled thanks to the opportunity to generate tons of sales at a fraction of traditional radio and television advertising costs. The only caveat is that you must have systems in place to keep up with new technology and trends, which brings forth multiple challenges for a small business owner.
Conversion Tracking
The first issue most business owners overlook is whether they have tracking systems in place for their website or offline conversions. Ensuring your website's conversion goals are set up correctly is vital to your online marketing. Many small business owners are not working with a marketer through the development of their website, unaware of what requirements to ask of their website developer. One thing business owners should remember, if your marketer can’t track it, they can’t get you the results you seek.
Developing A Full Strategy
For most business owners, Facebook ads are a great way to get your business in front of thousands of people at a time for a reasonably low cost. If you have identified your target audience, hopefully building user personas, you can reach these potential customers through two of the biggest social media platforms online, Facebook and Instagram. However, running ads without a clear vision and strategy can lead to losing money instead of gaining new customers. An effective marketing plan will include whom you are targeting, your company’s value proposition, messaging, and budget broken down daily.
Budget
The lack of budget is the biggest challenge small businesses face in digital marketing. Speaking about finances with potential clients can be uncomfortable; we never enjoy telling prospective clients that they can’t afford to market their business. Our theory is that every business can afford marketing and advertising. It just requires planning and being very honest about what you would like to accomplish. Five hundred dollars might not get you very far with search ads, but you might be able to reach 30,000 people online through programmatic advertising or social media.
You could drive new users to your website and get them to subscribe to your newsletter. Then set up email marketing campaigns for these users and segment them by their interests. These initial customers can be loyal to you for years to come, and if you have the proper reporting in place, you will be able to create a budget that identifies how much you can afford to spend to accumulate a customer based on their lifetime value.
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Nick Patrick, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Nick Patrick is a seasoned advertising professional with more than a decade of experience. He has worked on marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes and has driven more than $25 million in e-commerce sales and generated over 30,000 leads for businesses in the legal, health, and automotive industries. Nick has assisted dozens of small businesses with their marketing strategy and continues to do so today.
