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Why an Online Marketing Strategy is Important for a Small Business
7 min read
SOMO
20.12.2022
As a small business, you probably do not have a massive marketing budget or team behind you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use online marketing to your advantage and grow your business and increase revenue.
To help you get your head around what an online marketing strategy is, we’ve broken down everything you need to know about an online marketing strategy.
To help you get your head around what an online marketing strategy is, we’ve broken down everything you need to know about an online marketing strategy.
What is an online marketing strategy?
At its core, an online marketing strategy is a part of what helps a brand grow through online channels. To be more specific, an online marketing strategy is the first step in developing a plan for your online marketing to assist in achieving business goals and objectives.
An online marketing strategy is the building block of any successful digital advertising initiative. Without an online marketing strategy, you’re shooting in the dark and will have to go back later to course-correct your digital marketing. It’s a chance to research your market, create a plan, assess the market, solidify your customer profiles, and set marketing goals.
What are the benefits of an online marketing strategy?
An online marketing strategy is a vital tool in any brand’s toolbelt. Here’s an overview of why you should have one.
An online marketing strategy;
- Ensures that your online presence is aligned with the business goals
- Helps a brand to build a marketing plan that has clear and measurable goals
- Identifies your target customer, market segmentation, and value proposition
What are the different parts of an online marketing strategy?
Audit
The audit is point 1 on the list for any online marketing strategy. The audit process is a chance for you to take stock of your brand’s current online marketing.
The audit phase is an opportunity to review how you present your brand to your audience. During the audit process, you will identify any bottlenecks or issues that exist in the marketing funnel and assess how you can remove them. At its core, an audit is a chance for you to ask what is stopping our audience from converting and how we can remove those blockers.
A Growth Plan
Creating a plan is vital for any online marketing strategy. Your plan should identify your target market, goals, and areas for growth. It should also outline your value proposition (what you offer that will make the customer choose you) and customer profiles (demographics about your customer, for example, age, gender, location, relationship status).
Choice of online channels
There’s more than one way to reach your customers, each with its own pros and cons. To have a successful online marketing strategy, you need to choose what online channels make sense for your brand.
The online channels are:
- Google ads
- Social media ads
- Email & SMS marketing, push notifications
- Blogs
- Social media
- The website itself
- SEO – organic search results (where you sit in google when a customer searches for a specific product)
Market segmentation
Market segmentation is the process of splitting your target market into 3 groups and creating marketing materials that are aimed at each group. Market segmentation puts people into 3 buckets, top of funnel (a new audience that doesn’t necessarily know the company), middle of funnel (an audience that has shown interest in the brand), and bottom of funnel (an audience that is in the final decision stage).
Where do you start with an online marketing strategy?
Like most things, starting an online marketing strategy can feel overwhelming, but don’t worry we’ve put together a list of what you need to start developing your online marketing strategy.
- Start off with what you already know. You might’ve already identified your target customer or tracked their buying habits. You might even have customer profiles and market segmentation. If you do, that’s great, if not then these are things that you’ll need to look into before you start.
- Assess what skills your team already has and what skills are missing. As a small business, you probably don’t have a digital marketing agency at your disposal. Don’t worry if you don’t, you can always outsource to an agency, like the team of experts at SOMO.
- Identify how and by how much you want to grow. Growth doesn’t just have to be that you sell more. Growth can happen in a variety of ways for your brand. It could be that you want to grow an online presence or have more press. It could even be that you want to grow an email subscriber list.
- Lastly, establish your desired return on investment (ROI)
SOMO’s Takeaway
Nick, Digital Marketing Specialist
An online marketing strategy sets your marketing campaign up for success. While it’s tempting to hit the ground running with online marketing, it’s imperative to your brand’s success that you take the time to establish an online marketing strategy. This strategy acts as a guide for your marketing efforts. Without it, you are going in blind and making guesses along the way rather than using a strategy with clear metrics and goals.
In your audit, don’t neglect the retention phase. Often forgotten, the retention phase is one of the most vital phases in the funnel and is key to increasing the lifetime value of your customers. It is cheaper and more effective to have returning customers rather than constantly acquiring new customers. Not only do they already know the brand, meaning that they don’t require education campaigns, but they can also act as a form of advertising for your brand. Loyal customers will refer the brand to their friends and family and are more likely to leave product reviews.
Want to know more about how SOMO can help you grow your business revenue? Why not set up a free strategy call with us today.
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