How Can SMEs Use Digital Marketing To Boost Business

Research undertaken at the Business Show in 2013* has shown that:

• 79% of SMEs state that their website is very important or critical to their business.
• However, only 28% are happy with their businesses' rankings on Google.
• It also transpired that only 43% of the SMEs interviewed are investing in marketing their website to improve their visibility on the web.
• Finally, out of the businesses that do invest in digital marketing, the most satisfied with their on-line visibility were those who used external expertise (rather than internal resources).

So how can SMEs make the most of the digital marketing and where should they start?

With digital marketing, bigger is not necessarily better

• You can build a great company authority on-line with good quality and credible content. Big brands are often concerned about loosing control of their reputation built over many years with huge budgets, so they hesitate to communicate with their audiences on-line. SMEs on the other hand have a lot more flexibility.
• All you need is a well built and search engine friendly website, choose between 2 to 4 social platforms that fit with your business and an on-site blog. These will enable you to build relationships with your audiences on the web in many ways. Your size is your biggest advantage. It'll allow you to manage and control on-line communication more effectively than a large organization with a complex structure and who is wary about their reputation.
• Email is a popular medium for SMEs and should be used, not only to acquire new customers, but also to regularly communicate with your existing clients. Today, there are many great value email applications that allow to manage and track email communications very effectively. SMEs have the flexibility to implement new email marketing ideas fairly quickly, which is not so easy to do for large firms.
• A well-defined search strategy that fits with your objectives and budget, will allow you to target potential customers on search engines in specific locations or with very targeted keywords. This means that even small budgets or campaigns can bring in high-quality leads, which could make a real difference to your bottom line.

Get a personality!

• Your blog and social platforms are great to test new ideas and get feedback from your audiences. Big brands with inflexible communication guidelines are often limited in what they can convey on-line.
• SMEs are flexible enough to try innovative strategies and ideas that can boost customer acquisition. Decide on what you wish your company to be known for: problem solving, fun, quirky, etc. and stick to a personality across your platforms for all your content.
• A big personality will boost recognition, which will in turn promote trust with new and existing customers.

* Source: Browser Media

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