Does your online business need an Ecommerce Website?
July 28, 2020All small businesses facing issues with this always-changing digital marketing algorithm and rules. It is so frustrating when you are running your business alone or with a small team. About 40-60% of people are talking about it on regular basis in different communities and want to sort this thing out!
And why would not they want it? It generates millions in revenues IF it’s done rightly! I am not a social media expert but running my digital marketing agency and working with many small businesses closely has enabled me to direct them into the best possible plan of action.
You see, all small businesses have the same challenges; small teams, limited budgets and too many things to do as it is – it gets overwhelming for them to fit in all shoes. And on top of that finding, a reliable marketing resource/team is a challenge.
Because it’s difficult to comprehend the technicalities of digital marketing if a business owner is not techy savvy or even if he/she is then they may not have enough time to cross-check things.
Just another day, I was scrolling through a Facebook community and someone asked this question :
I responded to my brief plan of action and it gave her so much clarity that she hooped in my inbox and we chatted for a while to discuss in detail. And you know what she said?
Anyhow, thanks to this girl who inspired me to write this plan of action for all of YOU to read and sort out your marketing outsourcing plan)
SMEs Plan of Action for Digital Marketing
Based on several factors (also mentioned in the first paragraph of the blog), I have built this plan for the home-based, women-led businesses but it obvious fits anyone with similar businesses.
If you are going to invest in digital marketing you HAVE to have this plan figure it out yourself by understanding the maximum possible technicalities – even if you are not techy savvy.
Also, If you are using technology to build your business then you should not use the card of we are not tech-savvy. Because You have to upgrade yourself to trust and then evaluate your technical team. Otherwise, it’s going to exhausting and very dissatisfying experience for your business.
My recommended digital marketing action plan for growing SMEs is as follows:
1 – Build a Website & Sustain It (crucial step for digital marketing)
Do not delay investing your profits into building your ecommerce store because your digital marketing can not perform without data collection and without an ecommerce store it’s not possible to have meaningful data to design digital campaigns.
Having said that, a launched website is not work done- website needs should be updated in various aspects to optimize the maximum possible sales. Slow speed, poor product description, improper information hierarchy can kill the sales instead of increasing it. Make sure to avoid such mistakes.
2 – Strong Social Media Presence
I know you must already have a proper social media presence if you are a small business. But why am I repeating it as a second step? It’s because so many businesses invest in websites and Facebook ads beyond their capacity to handle comments and queries on social media hence it becomes chaotic and as a result, customers receive bad support.
Timely responding to customers not only make you a brand with strong values but increase your reach as well. Hence I highly recommend businesses to work on this before you spend on paid advertisement. It is cheaper and mostly doable by the internal team so should be a high priority if you have some serious revenue goals.
3 – Identify your budget
Set the maximum possible budget for marketing and invest in FB and Instagram ads initially. You can decide to budget yourself or ask your marketing partner to suggest based on your goals and current business standing. The resource should work around that and be able to tell you what can be done left and right!
Do not invest all possible budgets altogether instead increase in chunks so your team can optimize the ad spend as much as possible and you will get the clarity if your current team is a good fit for you.
4 -PR & Influencer Marketing
Probably take PR Managment more seriously at the stage. It could be a last or skipped completely. It depends on how much time and money you can spend.
Don’t rush into PR marketing. Do your research and plan this at least 5-6 months in advance, follow the plan and evaluate your results! Improvise and repeat!
5- Time for Google Ads
By now, you may have increased enough revenue to invest in google ads. I recommend Google at this stage specifically because Google Ad spend budget should be a good figure to achieve great results.
Any marketing needs consistency so you need enough constant revenue to invest here and if you follow this plan your Facebook ads may be able to help you generate it!
6- SEO is the last way to go!
By this stage, in my experience, most businesses generate enough revenue to invest in SEO. SEO is expensive and takes 6-12 or sometimes or more to start giving you some results/sales hence should be the last step if you are a small growing business.
Please note this plan of action is not hardcore and should be adjusted according to your business needs. You can do PR as a first step and Facebook ads as the third, totally up to your business capabilities!
Last but not least If you are hiring an Agency or a Freelancer – Make sure they have a good reputation and relevant work experience. Trustworthy and Reliability are not buzz words so make sure you do your math! Good luck!
