With the start of the pandemic and digitalization, people are spending more and more time on the internet. It is estimated that Google processes more than 63 thousand search queries every second, translating to 5.6 billion a day.
Likewise, businesses today are coming up with different ways to utilize the internet to promote their company and services. As such, digital marketing has become more prominent to companies – from startups to enterprise-scale organizations.
This article will tackle the importance of digital marketing for small businesses and how you can start your digital marketing campaign.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is a promotion method, brand, or product using the internet or other digital platforms. It could be through social media, websites, email, or search engines. Below are the most popular digital marketing campaigns for startups:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Pay-per-click (PPC)
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
Top 5 reasons why digital marketing is crucial to startups
When starting a new company, you could often find yourself competing with established businesses. Most of these companies already have a brand and a reputation that carries them. Likewise, you need to promote your company in a different and better way from the others.
However, as a startup, you have little to no resources for marketing. In this case, digital marketing could help you. It is cost-effective, easy, and efficient.
Here are the top 5 advantages of digital marketing for startups:
1. Helps in establishing your brand
One of the top reasons digital marketing for a startup is essential nowadays is branding. Since startups have limited to zero exposure, digital marketing can help create a reputation for the company.
Since most individuals now devote their time to the internet, companies need to be present on these various platforms to build a reputation and recognition. You can use digital marketing to promote your company’s products and services through multiple means such as content creation, email campaigns, search engine optimization, or paid advertising.
Moreover, you can try content aggregation (e.g., RSS feeds), e-commerce promotion, affiliate programs, and online brand awareness campaigns.
Check out this startup branding guide for more information.
2. Cheaper than traditional marketing methods
Startups are often short on time and resources. As such, digital marketing for startups is more affordable than traditional marketing. Digital marketing is cheaper than conventional marketing. It has been confirmed that digital marketing is more cost-effective than traditional marketing.
In addition to this, digital marketing spends are more accessible to track than traditional marketing. Most paid advertising platform online lets you manage and handle the budget of your advertisements per month.
3. Potentially reach your audience anytime, anywhere
Digital marketing for startups is the most powerful way for brands to reach their target audiences anytime and anywhere. It has evolved from a one-way communication network to a two-way conversation with consumers. With new tools like social media, email, and mobile advertising, marketers can now engage in discussions with consumers in real-time, wherever they are located.
Not only that, digital marketing even lets you target more specific audiences. Most social media platform or advertising tools enables you to select a specific target based on demographics, location, or interest.
4. Understand your customers better
Digital marketing for startups is a powerful tool to understand your customers better. Since most platforms provide data and analytics, you can use this information to create a deep understanding of what they need and what they want. It will help you in creating an effective marketing strategy for them.
In addition, this data can also give you a clear idea about who your customers are and how they behave online. You can then use these figures to create targeted campaigns and see which works best.
5. Easily track ROI
Digital marketing can easily track ROI and measure success. Most platforms offer data on audience traffics, clicks, and conversion. Determining your ROI can help improve your strategy and help you learn which tactic or ad campaigns are worth repeating.
How to start your campaign in digital marketing for startups?
Getting the basics right before adding more features and functionality is essential when starting a digital marketing campaign. You need to ensure that you plan it directly or spend time and money on the wrong activities.
Thus, below are essential aspects of a digital marketing campaign:
1. Find the right hosting company for your needs
As a startup, you are probably not that familiar with how marketing works in the industry. Thus, consult a hosting company for your digital marketing needs to get the right results.
Startups should outsource their digital marketing needs to agencies because startups don’t have the budget and human resources for large-scale projects. Agencies are experts in digital marketing, and they can help startups launch their products successfully.
2. Define your target audience
When you are ready to start your campaign, you need to profile your customers and target audience. This step is crucial as most of your content and advertisement will be heavily based on your target audiences and what they need.
In addition, getting to know customers will help you deliver relevant content. It can help you bring good messaging to your customers that will be part of the buying process. It will likely facilitate a robust customer experience.
3. Develop and optimize your website
The website is the storefront of any startup. It tells customers about your company, your products, and your reputation. They can use the website to give information about themselves and their products.
A startup website needs to have an intuitive and interactive design, content, and navigation. In addition, startups should also use SEO techniques to improve their ranking on search engines like Google and Bing so that more people can find out about them online. Do not forget to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile use.
It will help them increase the number of conversions on the site.
4. Create your social media accounts and build a presence
A startup without a social media account is like a person without a voice. Social media accounts are the best way to interact with customers, partners, and other stakeholders.
Social media has become a vital part of any digital marketing strategy for startups. It is not only about acquiring new customers but also about building relationships with existing ones.
5. Run advertisements on google and other social media network
Ads campaigns on google are the most popular and cost-effective way of promoting a startup. It is easy to start, manage, and track, unlike other digital marketing strategies such as SEO. Moreover, an ads campaign provides an instant result – inviting more traffic and conversions to your website.
To start your ads campaign, first, you need o to create a Google AdWords account. The next step is to set up your campaign. You will need to enter your budget and choose a geographic area for your ads campaign. You can also decide how much you want to spend per day and determine how often the ads are shown on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Likewise, for google ads to show up on SERPs, they need to be triggered by a search query that contains keywords matching those in the ad’s text or title tags.
6. Create a content marketing strategy
A content marketing strategy creates and distributes valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain customers. It is a marketing strategy that uses the “three Cs”: content, channels, and creativity.
Content refers to the information you provide in your blog posts or social media updates. Channels are how you distribute your content – for example, on Facebook or through email newsletters. Creativity refers to how you make your content appealing – for example, with pictures or videos.
7. Dive into email marketing
Lastly, email marketing is one of the most significant successful ways to reach out to your customers. It is also one of the inexpensive and most accessible ways. Startups should consider email marketing to reach their customers and potential customers.
Conclusion
There are many ways digital marketing can help improve your company and reach your target audiences. Digital marketing can also help your startup get new client acquisition brand visibility and generate new opportunities to expand your company.
So, make sure that you start your digital marketing campaign when your startup is established. And if you are looking to integrate digital marketing into your startup, Flexilabs provides digital marketing services for startups. Contact us now!