Inbound Marketing Methodology

5 Web Marketing Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Small Businesses

Table of Contents

Digital Marketing Success is Not Down to Luck

 

 Web Marketing

Being the little guy in the business world isn’t easy especially with stiff competition and the ever-growing costs associated with business upkeep.

 

Developing Your Digital Marketing Strategy

 

Fortunately, the world of web marketing has allowed small businesses and big businesses alike to have fair game advantage when marketing online. Every business now has the idea that creating a web marketing mix of social media, email marketing campaigns, and a business website can encourage consumer engagement and attract new leads.

 

Marketing Trends

 

Since current marketing trends are always evolving quickly, here are 5 marketing hacks that every small business should acknowledge in order to keep ahead of the game.

 
Go Beyond The Social Norm

Social Media Marketing Provides New Possibilities

Along with the standard social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, explore other options and utilize other sharing platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest as well.

 

Influencer Marketing vs Social Media Platforms

 

These types of sites allow the consumer to promote a product or brand for the business through pictures with the usage of #hashtags, tagging, and sharing capabilities.  During the holiday season, small businesses can take advantage of local SEO digital marketing strategies to outcompete their larger brethren.  By designing high-converting landing pages and providing value content, coupled with a strong Call to Action, typically embedded in a related blog, small businesses can compete against the strongest competitors.

 

Content Marketing Will Require Budget

With the ever rising expectations of consumers, ALL businesses, small, medium or large, have to budget for content creation in order to fully leverage the power of digital marketing.  Digital marketing experts, such as those from SAP BW Consulting, Inc. work closely to develop a comprehensive content marketing plan that provides content for all levels of your business.  This content isn't just great for lead generation and sales, it is also designed to promote sharing by raving fans!


What better way to market yourself than to let others do it for you for free?  That's why investment in content creation should be viewed as a long term play.  Well designed, evergreen content, can be leveraged for years, across multiple marketing channels.

 

Spreading the Content Love



Having a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account is good for creating brand awareness but the ability to lure consumers further in is even better. Getting a consumer to go from point A, a social network site, to point B, your website, can be difficult unless the proper content is created to entice consumers to explore beyond what is presented to them.

 

Content Must Be Designed for You Target Audience

 

When you are developing your content strategy, the first step is to understand exactly what you sell, and to whom.  This means you have a thorough understanding of exactly who your 'buyer persona' is more importantly, your content must be designed to provide value to this very narrow range of potential customers.

 

Right Content Lowers Your Bounce Rate

While getting your SEO strategy dialed is a never ending process, one element that indicates whether you're on track with your content is your bounce rate.  What you're looking to achieve is total alignment and relevance between your off-page SEO elements and all of the content on your landing page and the content you're offering to your prospects.

 

A high bounce rate is a good indication that something is not quite right between the searchers intent and your offering, particularly the written text on your landing page.

 

Content Types Must Match Audience Desires

 

While developing a comprehensive content strategy is critical to success, certain types of content have been proven to work better than others.  For instance, interactive content, such as interactive videos, work very well, in the right environment.

 

 

Blogging Can Drive Major Traffic to Your Website

 

Blogging has been the marketing technique used by many businesses to engage with its customers with interesting information along with creating a creative call-to-action that will eventually lead them to their website.

 

Search Engines Love Blogging Quality and Frequency

 

It is a fact that the more a business blogs the more traffic it brings to a business website.  How many blogs?  While there is no hard and fast rule here, most websites that see significant organic traffic can expect to publish at least 200 high quality blogs, while 400 was reported as the number of in-depth blogs needed to achieve lift-off by Hubspot.

 

Reel the Website Visitors Back In



It is common for visitors to come to a website to shop or look for some specific information to download, such a white paper, product catalog, or even to view a training video. Some may add some things to the online shopping or start the process by using a form on a landing page, and neglect to finish what they started.

 

Master the Art of Retargeting Emails

 

Businesses have begun to implement a new email marketing concept which targets these visitors with an automated email reminding them to come back and complete what they started called email remarketing.

 

Search Engine Optimization is Key to Success

Before you can get people to consume one of your pieces of marketing content, you first need for them to find you you.  This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and to make this happen, you first need to install the Google Analytics Tracking Code, and if you also use Google Ad Words and PPC advertising, you will need to set up conversion actions in your Google Ad Words account. 

 

Google Tag Manager is Recommended

Aside from various codes you need to install from Google on your website, you will also likely need to install many other codes, particularly from the various social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and Shopify.  In reality, there can be many, many other pieces of digital marketing relevant information you will want to be tracking.

 

That's why most people need to be using a Tag Manager.  For many businesses, we recommend and implement Google's Tag Manager, which is free and always evolving.  Trust us, you need this.

 

Customer Retargeting

 

By collecting this information, as well as the email addresses, you give the customer another chance to go back and finish what they started as well as developing a relationship that shows that the business is in-tune with its customers behavior.

 

For those who have not yet converted into a customer, you can use the audience retargeting capabilities of Hubspot and Google Ad Words to send target re-engagement advertising messages.

 

Put Those Emails to Work



Creating email campaigns not only establishes relationships with customers but helps with maintaining them as well. There is a reason why a customer has given an email and a business needs to use that contact information to their advantage as much as possible.

Feeding customers with new information about products, services and promotions through email is an easy and affordable way to increase sales and brand awareness.

 

Be Adaptable, Flexible, and Most Importantly, Be Mobile



Every business needs to tailor their marketing to customer needs and current technology. Being mobile savvy is key to today’s marketing efforts.

This includes having a mobile responsive website, constant engagement on social media, localizing your business with geo-targeting and SMS marketing.

Small businesses can often times feel lost on how to approach their marketing plan. With web marketing being a mainstay within the world of marketing, small businesses have a realm of options to engage consumers and convert them into customers.

 

Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000 Businesses

 

Keeping the five points mentioned above in mind can put you on the right track to successfully executing your web marketing ventures.

For more information on how other businesses have used web and inbound marketing, check out real data from our Hubspot guide on Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000 Businesses. 

 

Discover Marketing Benchmarks From 7,000 Businesses

 

Until Next Time...

 

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Cristina Keleshian

Cristina is an Inbound Marketing expert with international experience in a variety of industries

View All Articles by Cristina Keleshian

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