16 lockdown 3 digital marketing tips
Digital marketing is still a mystery for a lot of small businesses. It is one of those parts of being a business owner that can be confusing and perplexing. After all you have a trade and customers to serve, taking time out to learn the intricacies of Facebook or Instagram can be a drag, especially for those of us of a certain age. Hopefully our guide to digital marketing in Lockdown 3 will help you overcome your social procrastination
- Make sure you are listed on Google My Business and Bing Places – set up Google My Business first then pull the information through to Bing at the push of a button
- Twitter is the new Costa – if you are business to business get on Twitter to find local businesses to network with and have a chat, people have a bit more time on their hands. Social media is for being social, so look beyond posting and have real conversations.
- Business to consumer – if you are selling to the general public make sure you have a Facebook business page, keep it fed with interesting news articles, what you are up to, photos – show your customers how great you are don’t just tell them.
- If you have a social element to what you provide set up a Facebook group from your business page, great way to build your audience
- If you are Business to Consumer invest in Facebook and Instagram advertising – minimum £100 per month per campaign. Very cost effective because of the laser focused targeting and analytics you get on your ads
- Invest in a website and start to blog to show your authority, particularly if you can’t trade at present, utilise this time to build your brand awareness
- Sponsor local causes – communities come together and there are a lot of initiatives to help communities, are any looking for sponsorship or donations – be a philanthropist
- Public Relations (PR) contact local online newspapers, magazines, community blogs and send them an article about your business, it has to be newsworthy, not just a plain sales ad, what have you done that’s interesting?
- Collaborate with other businesses online that are complimentary to your own, you may be able to join forces and do joint ad campaigns or offer reciprocal referrals. Make an objective to make one new associate a week. Twitter is a great place to network.
- If you already have Google My Business make a schedule to put on one new post every week and update images every week, audit your profile to make sure it’s complete. GMB is very important in your SEO, is your shop window and first impressions count.
- Build up your citations
- Take time to cleanse your Linked In profile, have you set up a Linked In company page? Are you making use of showcase pages? This is best for you if you are business to business.
- Instagram is becoming more of a visual platform – be bold and try posting short videos to bring your brand to life – engage with your audience – carry out product/service research.
- Look at boosting client engagement on your social profiles – run competitions, encourage user generated content (your clients interacting with your product)
- Take learning opportunities, if you have gaps in your skills and knowledge on digital marketing look at online courses
- Offline – it seems a world away before we can go to events and mingle but those days will return, plan your post covid offline strategy – events, expos, fairs, pop up shops.
Many business are booming right now because they keep engaged with their clients and people are sat at home with the same needs but different ways of accessing them. You can even make this Guide to Digital Marketing Lockdown 3 your New Year’s resolution list!
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