One of the most efficient ways of growing your business, and showcasing your products and services to the world, is via the use of digital marketing solutions. Digital marketing solutions are marketing tools and strategies that aid the expansion and profitability of your business, using the internet as leverage. 

When small businesses are established, one of the main targets is to attract customers to their products and services. This can be done through several channels such as the use of adverts – print or electronic. Although this can prove effective in the long run, it may however only bring a small percentage of the desired result and in bits.

Considering the fact that there are several prospective customers in today’s enormous online marketplace, small businesses must leverage on the digitalization of marketing techniques. Transforming a business from offline to online provides a level playing field for small businesses all around the world. 

If you are a small business owner with a desire to compete with the big companies, you’ll need to employ the use of smart digital marketing solutions and tools.

Digital marketing can be expensive for the majority of small businesses as a result of the other expenses they have to settle. Hence, it is essential for small business owners to have a digital marketing strategy in place. 

There are free, efficient, and low-cost digital marketing solutions available to small businesses to utilize. 

Here’s a list of digital marketing solutions and strategies to help small businesses achieve maximum success. 

  1. Email Marketing

Regardless of the size of your business, the importance of email marketing cannot be overemphasized. Email marketing as a digital marketing solution is one of the top strategies for lead generation, especially for small businesses. It helps you develop and maintain a close relationship with customers. With regular use of email marketing strategy, you can make your customers feel emotionally attached and loyal to your brand. It is also a great tool to introduce new products and services to customers.

As one of the oldest digital solutions, email marketing provides a higher ROI compared to any other marketing tool. For effectiveness, you should use the services of professional marketing automation software like Mailchimp.

  1. Content Marketing

Having an online presence for your products and services involves good content. Content marketing helps small businesses to enlighten their audiences about the products or services offered. Every small business should have an online office, in the form of a website or blog. Your website should be responsive, appealing, and interactive to allow users to easily navigate and get detailed information about your products, services, and business. 

There are several content types that can be employed to drive home your brand message to potential customers. This includes blogs, articles, videos, and infographics. As you turn out new high-quality content from time to time, you will be able to persuade the audience of the expertise of your brand, while also gaining the trust of your customers. Your customers and page visitors are able to interact with the content by reading, sharing, liking, and commenting. 

  1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Marketing your products or services online without a positive result is a waste of time and resources. Therefore, you must ensure that your actions and efforts online bring in traffic and conversion. This can be achieved with the integration of search engine optimization into your content. SEO increases the ranking of your content on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This will invariably increase traffic and conversion to your website.

A good SEO generates organic traffic to a website, making it rank among the top results on search engine results pages (SERPs). Organic SEO involves certain factors, such as Keywords, Titles, Tags, Contents, inbound and outbound links, and more. 

  1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) 

Getting increased traffic from search engines is not limited to SEO. Your business can also benefit from search engine marketing techniques. Small businesses can advertise their products or services on search engines. These ads will be displayed among paid search results. 

Search engine marketing (SEM) helps small businesses to grow their brands and products in a competitive market. SEM involves the use of paid advertisements, which are displayed above organic results on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEM provides an avenue for advertisers to put their Ads at the forefront to motivate customers. These Ads can be in the form of text, visuals, product offers, and more. 

  1. Social Media Marketing (SMM) 

Social media marketing involves the use of social media platforms and website to promote your products or services to a target audience. A good number of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more, can help you promote your business to your followers through quality content. Social media increases brand visibility and awareness of small businesses. It can help a business foster direct interaction with customers and prospective clients. Read this post on what a social media manager does and how they can help your business

  1. Pay Per Click (PPC) 

Advertisement is one of the driving forces of sales. Paid advertising, known as pay per click advertising is a digital strategy for creating quality leads. It helps to promote products and services. The great thing about PPC is the opportunity to advertise based on your budget. For most PPC, no budget is too small. Most start from $1 a day. PPC is available on most online platforms. However, some of the most popular include Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can take it a step further by advertising on forums related to your business niche.

  1. Classified Ads

This is a form of advertisement on the World Wide Web. Small businesses can display banners, logo, or Ads on other websites related to their niche. A good place to start is on Classifieds.

  1. Affiliate Marketing

Small businesses can outsource their marketing tasks to external service providers. As a result, affiliate marketers perform all the tasks related to marketing the products or services, including banner placement, in exchange for commission on sales. 

  1. Smartphone Marketing

You can also use Smartphone digital marketing to promote your business online. You can engage a wide audience through text messages and free Mobile Apps on Android or iOS devices. 

  1. Influencer Marketing 

Small businesses can take advantage of the popularity of influencers, whose followers trust their expertise and judgment. As a business owner, you can give out free products or offer free services to an influencer, who will in exchange endorse your products or brand after confirming its genuineness. 

  1. Landing Page Marketing

A landing page is the first webpage that website visitors interact with, on a website. Landing pages are in most cases linked to Ads designed for marketing campaigns. A landing page will help you capture users’ data during a paid campaign so you can easily remarket to them via email or any other contact means.

  1. Video Content

Another digital marketing solution is the use of unique video content to promote your business. A lot of people spend several hours on platforms like YouTube daily. An engaging video can help you reach a wide variety of customers on YouTube and other media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram. 

  1. Facebook Advertising

Facebook is unarguably the most popular social network, having over two billion users. No wonder it’s used by over 2 million small to medium-sized businesses to advertise their brands. You can create Facebook Ads, using an eye-catching headline, image, and unique links to promote your business to a specific audience, based on gender, age, location, and more. 

  1. Google Adwords

Adwords is a digital marketing channel that can be paired with other marketing strategies for maximum output. You can integrate keyword research and Google Analytics to rank higher than your competitors. 

  1. Google My Business

You can gain a large number of leads daily without spending on Ads. Google My Business gives small businesses the credibility and visibility that they crave. Ranking your Google My Business listing helps to promote your brand in its local community. 

  1. Google Analytics

This digital powerful solution provides valuable insight about visitors to your website and their activities on the page. When paired with Google Search Console, it can optimize your website traffic, Ad campaigns, and understand the target audience to focus on. 

  1. Facebook Group

You can create or join an existing Facebook group in a niche related to your products or services. Membership of a Facebook group can range from 1000 to 100,000. It is a public forum of people with similar interests. As a business owner, you can share valuable content to promote your brand. 

  1. Online Forums 

Small businesses can also use online forums, such as Reddit, Quora, and Tumblr to engage in discussions and promote their brands. The goal should be to offer value not just to sell. 

  1. eCommerce Platforms

You can also leverage on already established eCommerce platforms such as eBay and Amazon, especially for product marketing and sales. Amazon FBA is pretty popular and is used by many businesses to sell to an already established audience. 

  1. Online Reviews 

Reviews are powerful tools that can make or mar a business or product. A lot of people check online reviews. These reviews show the type of service a business offers to its customers. A positive review can drive thousands of visitors or potential customers to you, while a negative review can hurt your business.