While digital marketing has been around for some time, a lot of small business have never required it as most have relied on word of mouth or foot traffic. But COVID changed that for a lot of business which relied on older marketing tactics. Now small businesses are trying to compete with bigger chains as they try to stay up-float.
Digital Marketing is a means of getting your brand noticed by individuals who use digital platforms like search engines or social media. There are a lot of methods that can be used in digital marketing and a lot can be expensive. Most small businesses also have never had a marketing budget. So what digital marketing service should your small business consider and what should you budget be?
Top Digital Marketing Services
There are plenty of digital marketing services a small business can consider. But the top ones that we recommend are Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing. If you have a limited budget, you could always focus on just one service, but we recommend trying at least two because customers don’t tend to convert with just one medium.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC is a method of paid advertising where an advertiser displays an ad in search results and only pays when a potential customer clicks on their ad. PPC is a great method of driving paid traffic because you get to choose what keywords trigger your ads. Your ads are also shown above organic results which is great if your website isn’t ranking high enough for certain keywords.
For example in the image below, the advertisers are showing their ad when the search term “lawyers near me” is entered. It’s a higher intent keyword and it shows that the user is ready to find a lawyer. Of course you can get even more detailed since there are many different types of law. If you are a lawyer that only handles car accidents, you could tell Google to only show your ad when someone searches for “car accident lawyers near me”.
Cost of PPC Advertising for Small Business
The cost of pay per click advertising for your small business can vary based on your industry. The nice thing is that you can set your own budget. The way Google Ads works is that you choose a daily budget and Google try’s to spend close to that amount. At times it can be less or slightly above your daily amount. But they will not exceed the monthly budget. The cost per click (CPC) will also play a role in deciding on your budget. The CPC is determined by your competitors and how much they are willing to bid to get a click.
Looking back at our example above, the keyword “lawyers near me” can cost anywhere from $5.19 to $29.73 a click. Let’s assume that out of 10 website visitors we can get 1 individual who will take action and contact us. So we are trying to get at least 10 individuals to visit our website. Second assumption is that this term is very competitive so to show in the top results, we need to bid the highest amount of $29.73 per click. We can already estimate that our daily cost will be $297.30. And to determine your monthly budget, you would multiple that by 30.4 for a total of $9,037.92 per month.
The cost per click can vary from keyword to keyword and also industry. You can see CPC as low as $1 to upwards of $100. Google also uses other factors in determining ad placement and the winning bid. You can actually bid lower than the top competitor and if other factors like ad relevance and landing page experience are better, you can actually be the winning bid.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website to increase its position in search engines like Google. This drives what we call organic traffic to your website.
Over the years search engines like Google have become smarter. Constantly updating their algorithms and using Artificial Intelligence, they have become human like. They understand the searchers intent and only want to show the user relevant content that will help answer their question. There are many other factors outside of just content that optimizing for search engines is needed, like technical SEO, local SEO, and backlinks to just name a few.
Cost of SEO for Small Business
SEO can be the most cost effective option for digital marketing for small business. As long as your can write compelling content that answers the searchers question, then you have the ability to rank for particular keywords. Now most businesses would rather outsource those tasks as they don’t have the time to write content themselves. You can either hire an in-house content writer or use an SEO agency who will not only write hight intent content but also conduct keywords research and ensure that the website is also optimized for search engines.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media is another great platform to grow your brand. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok attract billions of users every day searching through videos, images and other content. But unlike SEO and PPC where the user is searching for a specific service or product, social media requires a bit more convincing to attract a buyer.
There are three methods of branding with social media that we recommend. One is organic, the other is paid and the final one is influencer marketing.
Most of you already have a social presence. Staying active on those platforms by providing users images, videos and content to help understand your business is key. Let’s use an example of a local restaurant. What they can do is take pictures and videos of their food. Using certain hashtags, they can draw attention to new clientele as showoff their food. These normally get shared among friends and you can continue growing your base.
The second method is paid advertising. While you can’t target a user by search terms, you have an assortment of characteristics and interests that you can use to attract new clients. For example a real-estate company can target individuals who had recently shown an interest to websites like Zillow which tells an advertiser that they might be in the market for a home. Then having compelling ad copy will help attract that individual to take action. While the targeting is not exact, the plus is that you will pay way less in most instances compared to PPC.
Final method is Influencer Marketing. By finding the right influencer that has a following that fits your key demographic, you can advertise your product and service directly to their users. Instagram has tons of makeup artists who spend time showing their audience the best products and how to apply them. If you are a makeup manufacturer, this might be the best way to get your brand noticed. Certain influencers offer a review of a product and give their honest opinion, some charge a few or do what is called revenue share and others partner up with the brands.
Cost of Social Media Marketing for Small Business
The cost can vary with social media, depending on the approach you take. Organic can be the cheapest, but will require dedication to taking pics and videos and constantly posting it. Most companies are also doing this just using their iPhone or Android, no real need to go invest a lot in a new camera unless you see a need for it.
With paid marketing, we have seen costs as little as $.10 per engagement. Depending on the industry you can do well with just a small budget of $25 a day. You also have multiple campaign objectives for targeting you can choose from. Things like engaging with your ad, visiting your website, liking your page and more.
The cost of influencer marketing varies a lot. You can have someone share a post of your product or service to an audience as little as $50 to as much as $1.2 million dollars by influencers like Kylie Jenner. Revenue share or partnerships will vary between the business and influencer.
Which Digital Marketing Service Should Your Small Business Use?
From the three methods we have discussed today, our recommendation is to use a combination of all three. 73% of shoppers use multiple digital channels during their purchasing journey. Making sure that you are showing up within all of these channels provides a user a feeling of trust as well. In addition it prevents a competitor from capturing your potential customer if you are not visible in one of the mentioned medias. If you need a free assessment, contact us today and we would be happy to help.