How could digital marketing help a small business owner improve revenues?

Digital marketing is not a magical pill – you take it according to the recipe and all your problems are solved. But digital marketing is a complex process. It is a magical tool that transforms birds to Angry birds, clouds to iClouds and a single apple becomes… bitten Apple for billions.

                                                                          Digital marketing is not a magic pill

Following this line of thinking it is not difficult to realize that the world is becoming more and more digitalized – in almost every area of development. Manufacturing, services, products, even experiences. No matter if you like it or not – it’s a fact. Fact that is developing more and more with time.

Now close your eyes and try to remind yourself how things were 3-5-7 years ago. How advertisement and communication looked like. Where were you at this changing environment? Open your eyes. At this sublime moment see where you are now. How did you change and develop? Do you have digital version?

Some of you will be proud of the reality. Others – won’t. Let’s try to see this through the eyes of an owner of an Italian restaurant. He has the perfect product and service, and his restaurant is located at a main street. The meals are so freshly made and so delicious that the customers are happy and satisfied. And their loyalty is remarkable. The crucial moment is that this small-sized business owner is not following the latest trends in digital marketing. He knows about the importance of digital activities, but doesn’t find the need of making more efforts on this direction. His facebook fan page exists like a traffic sign – only with the idea to guide visitors to the restaurant.

He is very good at what he is doing. The quality is a must for him. But the digital aspect of his work is… something that could be presented much better and make his business more profitable.
How can he survive in the digital environment and for how long? Even if the environment doesn’t affect his sales, could he improve his revenues by using the tools that digital marketing provides?

Here are the 10 digital marketing steps for small business owners, which could help you to improve your revenues

Or in other words – the steps which could help your business not to die. Or at least not digitally.

1) Set goals

Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve. Why you have to do it? To increase the awareness of your business? To increase the sales? To engage the clients… or altogether.
Many of you are not specialists in digital marketing. You don’t have the knowledge of what you can achieve and how far you can get. Research. Ask. Read. Be informed. List your goals and start working on crystallizing your idea.

2) Set budget

The budget is related with the goals and also with the size of your company. The good news is – if you are with limited budget you don’t need to invest tons of money to achieve good results. Most of the communication channels for basic use like facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, are free. You only need to know which ones are most appropriate to present your business.

3) Spy the competitors

Do you know your competition? Try to create a list with their names, activities and profile. Then find them in the digital environment and make a list with what they are doing. And how are they doing it. Do they have website, facebook/twitter accounts. How many fans/ followers do they have? Do they have blog? What are they saying? Are they paying for digital advertising? What do you like of their activities. What you don’t like. Find companies that you like. See what they do. Pay attention to every detail – texts, visual elements, tone of communication with the audience, offers. Include everything in a list. This will help you a lot for the next step.

4) Create strategy

If you are not experienced in creating strategies for development, the research from the previous step will give you a general idea of what is happening in your field. Then think again about what you want to achieve and start implementing it in your strategy.

5) What you can offer

Compare your goals with the tools that digital marketing offers you for achieving them. If you are an Italian restaurant with delicious food then you have a lot to show – pictures of your food, secret recipes, traditions, service, emotions.

Select the right social media channel to express yourself. Learn in more details about each media. If you are small, don’t put too many efforts to communicate on all channels. It’s pointless. Focus on 1 or 2 that are the most relevant for you. Just to get the idea – more visual elements – Pinterest, facebook, Google+. More texts – blog, LinkedIn (if you are business oriented).

6) Act

You already know what you want, so – action!

One of the main advantages of digital marketing is that the results of your actions come almost immediately. So the customers’ feedback does. You have to know that when you don’t spend money for advertising the only thing that you can do is to work smart and hard to attract your target audience’s attention. They usually are people who seek and need your product, but you have to find the best way to keep them interested.
If you have budget for advertising then the opportunities for you are more – AdWords in Google; paid ads, sponsored posts, games and applications in facebook and twitter and on relevant websites. Even money for campaigns with small digital agency.

The tricky moments:
- The beginnings are hard. If you are small and without budget for advertising how do you attract followers or create successful campaigns? Be creative. Use all the potential and resources that you have. Combine offline + online activities and communication. Include your facebook page address in the signature of your email. Put stickers with the logo of facebook, twitter, or other on the windows of the restaurant. On the menu. Give instructions to the waitresses to promote your profiles. They can even “catch” the clients with current campaigns like: “visit our facebook page to receive a code for 10% discount”.
- The winning formula of communication – don’t cross the line of your fans’ acceptance and don’t overexpose them with information. You will need testing period which in the different cases could last from a few weeks to a few months. During this period check which strategy is working for you. What content leads to reaction of your fans.

7) Measure the results

Facebook gives you reports every week – because things are changing extremely fast – with every post. And you have to act fast. So measure the results weekly and take the appropriate actions to react on those results.

8) Continue acting

Digital marketing, as we said before, is not a magical pill. You have to be consistent. Once you start communicating with people don’t forget or ignore them. It is like relation with friends. Once they call you – you don’t answer or you are moody. Second time – the same. The third time they will think before they call you. And, admit it – they have to be very, but very good friends to receive fourth call from them. So – be social and don’t forget the people that trusted you.

9) Measure the results

You don’t need solid background to start measuring the results of your digital activities for longer periods – like per month – so start doing it. This will give you broader picture of what is happening. Depending on your goals you will see that the physical clients of the restaurant are increasing – thanks to the new fans that you attracted with your last campaign. The number of the fans is becoming higher. People easily recognize the name of your restaurant. All this says one thing – with digital activities you can reach your customers in a cost-effective manner, which will bring profit to your business. You only need to be smart and to act wisely.

10) Create your success story

Remember – digital marketing is not a magical pill. It cannot create your successful story, but you can.