Digital Marketing

Technology can open many opportunities for SMEs. Information Technology (IT) does play very important role for SMEs. It helps increase competitiveness of the business. It must adopt latest platforms for effective communication. It can save costs with cloud scalability.

A digital marketing strategy is a channel strategy which means that it should…

• Be informed by research into customer channel behaviour and marketplace activity determined by stakeholders like intermediaries, publishers and competitors
• Based on objectives for future online and offline channel contribution
• Define and communicate the differentials of the channel to encourage customers to use it,
• Manage channel integration

So, put another way, digital marketing strategy defines how companies should:

• Hit channel leads & sales targets
• Budgets for Acquisition, Conversion, Retention & Growth, Service
• Communicate benefits of using the channel and enhance brand equity
• Prioritize audiences targeted through channel
• Prioritize products available through channel

Small businesses have more marketing options than they have ever had before. Low barriers to entry on marketing automation and social media platforms present massive opportunities for smaller businesses, yet it also means increased complexity and more channels to keep on top of. This can be a big problem for smaller marketing departments which can quickly become overwhelmed. Understanding trends across the key marketing techniques for small businesses will be crucial for success.

SMEs goals for digital marketing:

• Driving sales
• Building brand awareness
• Collecting leads
• Retaining customers
• Running promotions
• Gaining efficiency with marketing automation

Major challenges for SMEs:

• Turning leads into customers
• Generating web traffic
• Turning web traffic into leads

This makes it clear that SMEs need a plan that takes in the whole marketing funnel, which helps fill the funnel with traffic, interact with that traffic and then convert it to sale. This is exactly what Mindstone Maven does, helping you plan strategies to increase the ability to Reach (attract web traffic), Interact (turn traffic into leads), Convert and Engage (retain customers).