Few people on the team, lack of time, tight budgets...I'm sure you can relate.
Small businesses need to pick the digital marketing channels that do the most work for them.
You want to get results relatively quickly without spending a fortune...And possibly outsource the management of your marketing campaigns so you can focus on your biz.
At our Boutique Marketing Agency, most clients are SMBs. So, I'll show you the 4 types of digital marketing that work best for small businesses.
We'll talk about how to reach your target audience relying on:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Content Marketing (CM)
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
My name is Evan Ernst, and I'm the founder of Ernst Media. Before we dive into each marketing strategy, let me answer the two questions I get from almost every owner.
Does Digital Marketing Work for a Small Business?
Yes. And it's the one kind of advertising where a small business doesn't lose automatically to a bigger one.
Think about how you buy things now. You research online, read reviews, and compare prices before you spend a dollar. Your customers do the same. By the time they call you, they've already formed an opinion from whatever they could find...about you, or about the competitor they found instead.
That's the entire argument. Having the better product doesn't help if nobody can see you. It's the usual reason owners outsource digital marketing in the first place.
Our colleagues at the KB agency put it well:
"Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone"
Online advertising also levels the field, and not because you'll outspend the big companies...you won't. It's because you can optimize better than they do. With TV, the biggest spender takes prime time. In an ad auction, the business with tighter targeting and a better landing page buys the same click for less.
How This Compares to Traditional Marketing
Some traditional methods still work. But they're losing impact while the costs stay put. I don't remember buying anything after seeing a TV ad in the last five years...have you?
Geography is the other limit. Our boutique agency is in Spokane, WA. If I advertise in a local newspaper, only locals see it. Online, we work with businesses across the country.
Here's the short comparison, and I'm talking about paid digital marketing channels rather than owned media.
With traditional advertising:
- You reach a large audience, but you can't target it precisely
- You pay up front for production and placement
- You can't measure the return on what you spent
- You talk at customers instead of with them
- You have nothing to base the next campaign on
With a digital marketing campaign:
- You target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors
- You can start small...our minimum ad spend is $500/month
- You can measure ad performance and return on ad spend
- You can hold a two-way conversation and build loyalty
- You have KPIs to optimize against
Two more practical differences. Online campaigns run around the clock, or only during the hours you can answer the phone. And they scale...you turn them up in your busy season and down in a slow month, which is not something a printed insert lets you do.
Why These 4 Types of Digital Marketing for Small Businesses?
SEO, SEM, CM, and SMM are the ideal digital marketing channels for small businesses because they complement each other.
They create an interconnected ecosystem that increases online visibility and customer engagement in all digital marketing funnel stages.
Each one also does a different job for the business:
- SEM puts you in front of people who need what you sell right now and are ready to pay. That's the quickest way to cash flow.
- SEO and content marketing put you in front of people who are still gathering information. That's how you build credibility.
- Social media lets you interact with those people and shows you who they actually are. That's how you get to know your customers.
And in case you wonder...Yes, I have them in this particular order for a reason. Reading through the article, you'll find out why. Let's get right into it.
Basic Search Engine Optimization
If you're going to do digital marketing, you need a website. But great design and content don't mean a thing if your site can't appear in search results.
That's why SEO is important, but you need to start with the basics...the foundation of your future digital marketing efforts that will grow your small business.
Like Darren Varndell said:
"The time spent building a solid foundation will pay for itself ten-fold"
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is needed for your website's backend structure. It helps search engines crawl, index, and understand your content.
This involves improving site speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, creating an XML sitemap, and enhancing site security with HTTPS.
The end result will be good site visibility and ranking potential, which will help your small business reap more SEO benefits later on...And, of course, a seamless user experience for your potential customers.
We've had clients who neglected this part and regret it. If you think you can do it later, don't...It's going to hurt your marketing budget.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO means optimizing individual pages and blog posts.
You need to understand the different types of keywords and how to find them. Then, add those in title tags, headings, and meta descriptions of each page.
Each one of your product/service pages should be optimized for a specific keyword related to your business. Then, internally link the relevant pages.
Another critical ranking factor is what Google calls EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
The first thing I say to every small business owner opting for our SEO services is...
You need to prove that you're a real business.
Apart from all the legal pages, you need to create:
- About Page - Tell a story about your background, education, skills, experience, etc. (use keywords)
- Team Page - Write a bio for each member and link to a social media profile that proves their expertise
- Contact Page - Your company, email, phone number, and address linking to a Google business profile
Once you've completed that, your business website is ready for visitors. It's time for a paid digital marketing strategy...the mighty PPC advertising.
Search Engine Marketing for Instant Visibility
Completing the basic SEO tasks won't get you any website traffic, but...It will help you utilize the advantages of SEM. I'm sure you don't mind having new customers find you every day, right?
As a small business owner, advertising on Google is your best option for generating quick results.
You already have primary keywords used for your main web pages. Now, target the same ones with your paid ads.
When your landing pages and ads are optimized for the same keywords, your ad quality score improves...And a higher quality score means lower cost per click.
As I mentioned, these 4 types of digital marketing are best because they create synergies.
Search ads for B2B, Shopping campaigns for e-commerce, LSAs or Google Maps ads for those targeting a local market...I discuss those options to promote your business on Google in this article.
Bidding on a Competitor's Name
Here's one way a small business borrows a bigger one's recognition. When we run Google Ads for a business nobody has heard of yet, we often bid on a competitor's company name.
Say you run a small family Italian restaurant, and there's a Buca di Beppo in your area. I'm visiting town and want Italian for dinner. I know Buca di Beppo, so I search for it to see if there's one nearby. Then I see your ad, with good photos and reviews from real customers.
Chances are I'll think..."that's a nice-looking local Italian place. Let's eat there."
It works, but it takes care. The right bids, ad copy worth clicking, and the rest of the small mechanics of search engine marketing.
Read the Search Terms Report
Most underperforming ad accounts we take over have the same two problems, and both are visible in the data on day one.
The first is in the search terms report. A large share of the clicks come from queries that have nothing to do with the target market...a commercial security company paying for people shopping for home security systems, say. Those clicks cost the same as the good ones.
The second is a gap between the ad and the page behind it. The ad promises one thing, the landing page talks about another, and the visitor leaves. Google notices too. Quality scores slide, and every click gets more expensive.
The fix for both is the same. Narrow your ad copy to the language your best-performing queries actually use, then rewrite the landing page so it makes the same promise the ad did.
Bottom line is that as a small business, you want sales now.
Instead of trying to sell to people scrolling through their social media feeds...Use search engine marketing to show up in front of those looking for what you offer.
Search engines are used by 81% of people looking for information on the internet (SmartInsights)
Content Marketing to Educate and Build Trust
Now that you have ads running, you need to focus your digital marketing efforts on organic traffic.
The goal is to establish yourself as an expert and your brand as an authority. You achieve that by creating educational blog content. And no, you don't do that for prestige...it leads to more sales down the road.
As Josh Kaufman explains in his book "The Personal MBA"
"Education-Based Selling is the process of making your prospects better and more informed customers"
You Can Outrank Much Bigger Companies Here
This is the part of digital marketing where being small is an advantage.
Most large companies have a blog and publish plenty. But the topics are scattered, there's no keyword research behind them, and half of it reads like advertising with paragraph breaks. There's a line often attributed to Seth Godin:
"Real Content Marketing Isn't Repurposed Advertising"
Go the other way. Drill into your industry, find the sub-niche closest to what you actually sell, and cover it properly. That's how we build topical authority for clients against sites with far more pages than they have...and it lowers Google Ads costs on the same terms while it's at it.
But How Do You Get Article Ideas?
Revisit your existing keywords and find related (long-tail) terms with informational intent. These are search queries that people type in Google when looking for solutions, instructions, comparisons, pricing, etc.
Your own ads are the second source, and most owners never look. Read the comments and questions under your social posts and ads. On one account selling home gym equipment, the comments were full of people asking which workouts you can do with the machines. We put those questions into our keyword tools, found the search terms carrying the same intent, and built a content calendar out of them.
Depending on what stage of the marketing funnel you'll capture them, you can either:
Point people to another article for more information or send them to your business pages.
Not everyone will spend money with you right away as they aren't at this stage of the customer journey. However, when you prove yourself as an expert, they'll remember your brand...that's one of the correlations between branding and SEO.
I have our logo on each image for the same reason.
Even if you don't do remarketing, those folks are more likely to click on one of your existing ads in the future. Once they're ready to make informed decisions, they'll use transactional keywords in Google.
In case you're a small business offering B2B services and looking for leads, do this:
In your articles, include a call to action, asking potential customers to leave their email in exchange for something valuable...Guides, E-books, free software trials, etc.
With time, you'll generate leads that will help your email marketing efforts.
To wrap up this section, I'll say this...Educational content doesn't deliver quick results but plays a key role in your digital marketing strategy:
- It helps you build a strong online presence
- It boosts your SEO by attracting backlinks
- It improves the ad relevance of SEM campaigns
Social Media Marketing for Brand Awareness (Not Only)
With SMM, you tie everything together by distributing your content across social media platforms.
That's why I have it as number 4 in the types of digital marketing for small businesses...Not because it's less important...Social media has become more important than ever.
Many marketers suggest the main purpose is to build a community around your brand, but I disagree. You can do a lot more than that...In fact, SEO and Social Media can work great together.
There are many examples of small businesses achieving explosive growth when using the right social platform. I share a few in this blog post.
Here are some ideas based on what works for our clients at Ernst Media:
- You can invest a portion of your digital marketing budget in building a Facebook page. Then, start sharing your articles to drive website traffic.
- You can grow a LinkedIn profile by connecting with people who match your target audience. Then, start a newsletter, use bites of your educational content, and send folks to read the full version on your site.
As a small business, it's impossible to be present on all social media channels. To succeed with your digital marketing strategy, find out where your target audience hangs out and focus there.
In an interview for Business and Tech, Gary Vee said the following:
"If it’s a B2B small business, it’s LinkedIn - pictures and videos, but then spend media behind it. If it’s a consumer product, YouTube and Facebook are where to go"
Each social media platform has advertising options to speed up the process. We run Facebook ads for 90% of our clients' social media marketing campaigns.
And yes, when properly set up, FB ads still work. The digital marketing KPIs we track prove it.
Influencer marketing also works for some industries. But to be honest, lately, we haven't focused too much on influencers, as we don't see the same results.
As I mentioned in my small business social media tips...User-generated content has become more effective.
Let me end this section with a valuable piece of advice:
Regardless of the social media platform you choose, pay close attention to the engagement and insights. They'll tell you a lot about your target customers.
When managing SMM for clients, we use this data to make each digital marketing campaign more effective.
Let the Data Make the Decisions
That last point applies to all 4 channels, so it deserves its own section.
Traditional marketing is mostly a guessing game built on broad demographics and general trends. Everything we've discussed here produces numbers instead. On a small budget that matters more, not less...every dollar has to be able to explain itself.
You don't need a data team. You need a habit, and it goes like this.
Set one clear goal. More brand awareness, more sales, or a stronger relationship with the customers you already have. Pick one. A campaign built to do all three does none of them.
Decide which data answers it. Website analytics, the ad platforms, your sales records, your CRM. Not all of it...the part that speaks to the goal you just set.
Gather it and look for patterns. Which queries convert, which pages people leave, which posts get replies rather than likes.
Segment your audience. Group people by behavior and past interactions, not just age and zip code, then write to each group differently.
Measure and adjust. Track the digital marketing KPIs tied to your goal and change the campaign while it's running. That's the advantage a newspaper ad can't give you.
The Hard Parts
I'll be honest about where this gets difficult, because most owners hit the same four walls.
The first is volume. Data arrives from every direction, and the skill is deciding what to ignore. Second is quality...stale or wrong data sends good campaigns in the wrong direction, so clean and audit it on a schedule. Third is silos: the numbers in your ad account, your email tool, and your point of sale describe the same customer, and until you put them side by side you only see thirds of a person.
The fourth is privacy. State privacy laws keep changing, and targeting keeps getting harder because of them. Be careful about what you collect and how you use it...partly to stay legal, mostly to keep your customers' trust.
Need Help with Your Digital Marketing Plan?
The Summary
These are the ideal 4 digital marketing strategies for a small business. At Ernst Media, we use those together to help SMBs boost visibility, engagement, and growth.
SEO optimizes your website for organic search, while SEM uses paid ads to ensure a solid search engine presence. CM enhances SEO and SEM efforts with relevant content, and SMM promotes it to build a community and generate more leads.
Behind all 4, the data tells you where to put the next dollar.
Try utilizing at least two of the channels we discussed from the get-go, and you'll see results. One of the most common mistakes of small businesses is thinking that focusing on one platform will do.
Founder of Ernst Media. Fifteen years running paid search and paid social for small and mid-size businesses, and still the person who builds the audits by hand. Writes here about what actually moves accounts.