How to grow a small business online?

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It can be tough for a small business to gain attention in an industry with established big brands. With resource-constraint, it becomes even tougher to market their products or services as aggressively as big brands do. But it isn’t impossible! With the power of the internet and social media, a small business can reach millions of people out there. All you need is a good digital marketing strategy and plan and you’re ready to conquer the online world.

To grow your small business online, you can get started with the following tips:

1. Who are you selling to?

You must first understand your target audience before developing a marketing strategy for your business. A business’s target audience is a group of customers (current and prospective) that you want to sell your products/services.

Creating a customer persona will help you gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. A customer persona is a detailed and thorough profile of a customer from your target audience. It includes details such as:

• Demographic Information: Name, age, gender, location, education, etc.

• Career and Income: Job title, income, average spending, etc.

• Interests: Hobbies, lifestyle, etc.

2. Making use of social media

58.4 per cent of the world's population spends an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes every day on social media. It is reasonable to expect your target audience to be on social media sites. Social media is one of those ways to reach your customers without spending a penny. All you need to do is post relevant and engaging content and target it to the right people. Start with building a social media strategy. The social media strategy would include

Create a content calendar to plan content in advance to save time. Decide the type of content, post frequency, content formats, etc. Planning your content will also help you in determining the right social media platforms for your small business. Content and consistency are the keys to building a social media community. The content you post must relate to your audience and reflect your brand.

In addition to this, social media can be an effective way to drive traffic to your website and increase conversions.

3. Creating a website

What do you do when you want to learn more about a brand? You use a search engine to look for that brand's website. As a result, a website is essential for a brand's online visibility. To begin with, a business needs to make a website that is easy to find. A website should also be user-friendly and visually appealing.

You've created your website, but the work doesn’t end here!

For a website to appear in search results, it must contain relevant content that will attract visitors. A website's blog, where you write about industry developments and your products or services, is beneficial. Make sure you have a responsive website that is optimized for mobile, as half of the website visitors use mobile devices.

4. Getting your business on search engines (SEO)

Your website is ready, now it’s time to show search engines that you’ve got some worthy content to rank. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the organic way to boost website traffic and improve the visibility of the website’s pages in search results.

Some of the SEO practices for small businesses include:

• Choosing the right keywords: You need to include words on your website that people research for.

• Optimizing the website design to make it appealing to the search engine.

• Having a blog on the website that’ll help in generating useful content.

• If you’ve local customers, a business registration like Google My Business registration helps your customers to find you.

5. Creating content that relates to your audience

You’ve got an excellent product/service, an attractive website, and social media accounts. But, if you don’t provide useful content to your audience, none of these would be useful. In today’s time where content formats have changed radically, this quote fits well: "Content is the king."

Content can be in the form of images, videos, blogs, infographics, quizzes, ebooks, whitepapers, podcasts, etc. You need to choose the right mix of different formats for your business.

6. Collaborate with influencers

Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to build brand awareness. You can reach another set of audiences apart from your followers. A user may skip a post or an ad from your business and barely notice your brand. But when it comes from someone they resonate and trust with, they’ll see it.

Create an influencer marketing plan, entailing influencers, terms, etc. Research influencers in your niche. Don’t just look at their following, see how engaged their followers are. An influencer with a large following but a less engaged audience won’t get you any traction. Connect with them through social media platforms or email. Set the terms and conditions and start your influencer marketing campaign.

Since small business owners have a lot of functions to perform on their plate like sales, accounts, marketing, etc. Creating a digital marketing strategy will help small business owner streamline their processes and make it easier for them to manage.

We hope these tips were helpful. Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

In case you need some help in creating the right digital marketing strategy for your business, connect with our experts who’ll guide you and help you in growing your business online.

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