Best digital marketing strategies for small businesses

So you want to build a digital marketing strategy for a small business, but don’t know where to start?

Starting a digital marketing strategy for a small business can be a daunting task. With so many different frameworks and approaches, it can be challenging to know what is the best way to deliver your digital marketing. So here, I will break down some ways that I believe you can start your digital marketing strategy for your small business. 

Do you need a digital marketing strategy for your small business? 

Well, let's first break down what a digital marketing strategy actually is.  A digital marketing strategy is more than just an accumulation of ideas and tactics. It is a comprehensive, long-term plan that outlines the principles and methods your business will use online channels to reach an audience and help achieve your business goals. 

So, really, the answer here is yes. You do need a defined digital marketing strategy, but the reality is that for most small businesses, it is a time-consuming process to develop a strategy, especially if you are a one or two-person band looking to really build your lead list. 

Most small businesses without marketing support tend to come up with some sporadic unguided tactics, a little bit of social media here, some email marketing there and maybe a paid ad now and again, all of them hoping that they'll drive traffic, leads and sales. Invariably, these marketing tactics don’t move the needle, and so it can leave businesses feeling that marketing doesn’t work. 

However, there is a way to build a marketing strategy that can have a real positive impact on your business, and that is the Moonbeam Marketing COMPASS framework. This is a series of steps to build a document that is a clearly defined marketing process to get your business moving in the right direction.  In the following section, if you do have the time to write a full marketing strategy, I will break down what the COMPASS framework is. But if you’re here because you just want to know specific things you should do tactically to get your marketing moving and bring you in leads, then click here, and you can skip the framework. 

The Moonbeam Marketing COMPASS Framework, breaking it down for a digital marketing strategy for small businesses

C - Cause, what is it that your business is trying to change in the world/industry and what contribution your business is pledging to do that. This is the brand story, but it also becomes the leading guiding principle of the strategy. 

O - Observations, this is where you would conduct a series of detailed analyses of the micro and macro-environment, understanding rivals, their approach, their size and the tools they use, as well as analyses like a PESTEL and external SWOTs, among others, I typically conduct. (Now you may be thinking already, this sounds like a lot of work, well, yes, it is. So I again offer you the chance to skip to some tactics you can take right now to improve your lead generation.) As well as doing detailed internal analysis from the delivery of your product and service vs customer expectations, and getting hyper-critical of your own brand and business. 

M - Monetisation (Offers), this is where you break down the value stack that your offering to potential customers. People aren’t just looking for a product or service; they are looking for the whole offer. So, how can you layer value into your offer so that it becomes hard to say no? 

P - Purposeful objectives, by this I don’t mean grow your Instagram followers, which I have seen littered across marketing strategies, but defining real outcomes you want your marketing efforts to achieve that can have a positive impact on your overall business goal. 

A - Approach - this is the guiding principle for the way in which your business goes, and it sells itself online, and defines ways you want to connect with an audience. 

S - Sprints (Campaigns) - These are the specific things you are going to do, SEO, Social Media, Content, Paid Media and more. But in the sprints, you need to break down the critical path of actions that need to be taken to deliver the campaign. 

S - System (Technology to support the marketing and the performance loop) - this is where you are going to define and list out the marketing software and people you need to deliver the sprints, this could be your CMS, funnel software, CRM, Social management tools, and reporting studio. Not only will this give you the platforms you need, but it will also help you control costs on the tools you need; there can be surprising waste in underutilised marketing tools. 

Sprints to implement to supersede your small business digital marketing strategy

More often than not, small businesses struggle with visibility, yet it is often the thing that they avoid spending money on. This is understandable because you need every penny in your marketing budget to push the needle, and there can be fear of waste or concerns from past failures.

The following Sprints are more time-consuming than cost-consuming, so they should help give you a marketing strategy that doesn’t cost as much to run as first thought. 

Digital Marketing Strategy Foundations - Business profile

So, the first marketing sprint I would look at is how and where you are showing up online. You would be surprised to know that numerous small businesses haven’t set up a free Google Business Profile, so firstly, set this up; it’s free and easy to do, and it will add credibility to your business. Then look at where you can be listed, as a business and optimise the listings of your business. Thereafter, set up your social media channels; you don’t need to post yet, but have them set up and ready for a time when you can. 

Traffic building - Search everywhere optimisation

The next marketing sprint I would recommend is to work on building your SEO, forget about social media and any other digital channel for 90 days. Take time to really research your field and develop a cascading SEO strategy that will allow you to get more site traffic. Now, this is time-consuming; there aren’t the overheads you would get with paid ads, but it is worth investing in building up authority through content. 

The SEO strategy should have multiple components:

1. Website audit - you can do this by putting in page URLs in this link. Fix errors and ensure your mobile website is optimised.

2. Content audit - analyse the content on your website

3. Keyword & prompt audit - Use an SEO tool to research keywords. 

4. Content planning for the company website - plan the content you are going to try and rank for and build the content out

5. Backlinking - Source credible sites with higher domain authority to give you links

6. External content placement - source places to put articles outside of your site for them to link back to you. 

Now, of course, there is a lot more to SEO and how to go about doing the key research and audits, but I can’t just give that away to you. However, if you are interested in learning more about SEO for small and local businesses, I am developing a marketing tips newsletter to give insights to small businesses. Sign up here. And in the coming weeks, content for YouTube. 

Social Media - Creating awareness

Social media marketing is becoming a predominant area of focus for businesses. But how do you go about it? Firstly, if you’re a B2B business, you must remove the notion that you need to be on LinkedIn pushing content, because that’s where your clients are. This is not an effective marketing strategy. It's an assumption, because it seems normal. Find gaps, where are your rivals, what platforms are they not on? There may be an opening for you to corner a market. Moreover, forget the notions that because a business and its staff are on there, don’t assume they are active on there. Instagram and TikTok are hugely viable platforms for B2B businesses, if the content is right. Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Jab, Jab, Right Hook, explains this really well. Take a look at what is on people’s phone homepages; this is where they will get their content. So focus on one platform and create content that is entertaining, educational, interesting and human. Don’t create “promotional” content as an ad; that’s not what people want to see. The best ads are entertaining and fit seamlessly into the medium where they are seen. 

High-value content leads funnels

Funnels are a great way to capture leads for your business. But it isn’t just a case of coming up with a simple report and seeing if people will download it by announcing it on social media. It is far more than that. There are two components to this: a good funnel platform and good advertising that targets your audience. 

You need to get into the psyche of the ICP, really delve into what is bothering them, what is their biggest pain, this is where your services should solve their issues, but with the content, you have to be willing to give away enough information to the help them ease that pain, not absolve it, but solve part or some of the issue for free. 

This helps you to build trust with your ICP, you add value to them by offering something that will help for free. I have seen it many times, businesses want to do funnels to capture, but are too worried about their “IP” that they are not willing to support or help with a free template, guide, or swipefile. 

But the issue I see with this is that customers then see that businesses are really only out for one thing…

Their email address. So that they can bombard them with “promotional emails” and so they actually do the opposite and turn the potential customer off of their business. 

You have to change your mindset here; you need to accept that you are giving something away, and they may not become a customer. But you do have an email, and that leads me to the next sprint. 

Email automations - continue to add value

Look, we all get emails from companies, and the reality is, no one really wants to receive promotional-based emails, unless it is an FMCG product they like and would want the discount. But B2B businesses, especially small ones, need to do email better. 

You see, there are really only two types of emails: promotions, which you can spot a mile off, because they have been over-designed, and they have branding at the top and everywhere. Then there is the personal type of email, which comes from friends, family, colleagues; these are the emails that people open and read. 

So, emails should feel personal, not promotional. You want to send emails that read and look as though you typed them out and hit send to that one person, and you want to make it entertaining so people read. You should be striving to give insights through stories rather than getting them to click links every other line. Continue to solve the problem through lead funnels, and you will start to see people engage with your brand, because they have built trust with you. 

The digital marketing strategy for small businesses - closing

Ultimately, there are several ways to reach an audience, but these are tactical implementations, not strategy. For a lot of small businesses, it is really about blocking out the noise and picking a small number of platforms that are manageable, and sticking with them for three to six months and really succeeding through repetition and consistency. That is the simplest digital marketing strategy for small businesses: pick one digital channel and consistently focus on that for a period of time, and don’t get distracted by gurus' advice on Instagram or the latest meme. 

If you want a little bit of marketing clarity, then I am offering 30 minutes (worth £300) for free to help small businesses get clear on what they need to do. Book here.