SMEs' guide to digital marketing

Digital marketing is defined as all the business activities a company does online to promote its products or services. This includes everything from SEO, social media advertising, email marketing to the use of other websites to connect with potential and current customers. There are, thus, a lot of different disciplines that fall under the umbrella of "digital marketing."

A significant advantage of digital marketing is that you can target your efforts to a clearly defined target group and then use tools to measure the effect. This allows you to monitor whether you're achieving your goals and ROI for your campaigns.

Despite the clear benefits of digital marketing, it can also be overwhelming for many companies to start with it. Determining how best to allocate your resources and which initiatives to launch can be challenging. But one thing is sure: If you want to set your sights on running a successful business, you can't avoid digital marketing.

One of the most critical tasks is assessing and evaluating which digital channels are the most profitable for your business - which can be very challenging. We have therefore prepared a simple guide for you and other SMEs, so you can get a better insight into the most popular channels within digital marketing and how to increase the likelihood of success with the activities.

Ads on social media

If your company still needs to get a profile on various social media, it's just a matter of setting it up. Social media allows you to communicate directly with current and potential customers. If it may seem like a big mouthful to start getting into several different social media, then Facebook is an excellent place to start. With around 66% of the Danish population as users on Facebook, it is a prominent medium for a company to market itself to its target group.

Facebook advertising is an incredibly effective way to generate traffic and leads. Compared to other platforms, advertising on Facebook is also relatively cheap. This makes it a strong channel for creating interest and introducing your products to your target audience. Facebook also offers a wide range of opportunities to track the effect of your advertising and receive relevant data so that you can optimize and increase the profitability of marketing. It, therefore, also requires that you have insight into the many options you can use through Facebook advertising to achieve the best results.

Email Marketing

Email is one of the oldest forms of digital communication, but it's also one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. Email marketing is a strategy where companies mainly send promotional messages to a large target audience. It is typically used to generate sales by sharing promotional offers, strengthening the relationship with its customers, or expanding the effect of content marketing efforts.

An advantage of email marketing is that you can automate a large part of the communication so that your customers automatically receive your emails. For example, you can create a welcome flow when people sign up for your newsletter or set up other automated mail flows based on the specific actions that visitors have taken on your company's website.

If you run a webshop, it is especially obvious to focus on email marketing, as you have a lot of opportunities to automate and personalize every email, which will most likely increase your conversion rate. However, you need to invest a lot of time if you want to be successful with your email marketing, but once the automated flows are set up, it can free up more time for other tasks that create value for your company's future.

Google ads

Google ads is a relatively simple but, at the same time, very effective channel that allows you to use keywords to reach your entire target audience. On this marketing channel, you pay per click, which can be costly, but in return, the consumer asks for it himself via a search on Google. The potential customers you reach are typically a lot more ready to buy than other channels. With the right strategy for Google advertising, you will become visible to your target audience when they search for the products or skills your company offers and can help with.

If you choose to use Google Ads in your company's digital marketing, you must thoroughly select keywords to advertise. If you have chosen too many irrelevant to your business, you can quickly spend a lot of money. To create the best results, you must have a few relevant keywords.

SEO

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization", translated in English as "search engine optimization". SEO is about optimizing your website so that you rank as high as possible in the search results, such as Google and others. This is done through work with text, technology, and links, which must be used and utilized concerning the search engines' algorithms to achieve a better ranking and exposure. SEO is, therefore, about creating the right content for the right people and making your website as relevant as possible.

There are many reasons why SEO is important for your business. Several studies have shown that it can be used, for example, to create increased credibility with your customers, as top rankings on Google on your most essential keywords via organic search results create greater credibility than those at the top due to paid advertising. In addition, SEO is basically free, as you do not pay for the traffic you get to your website due to your SEO efforts. However, an SEO-optimized website takes a long time to build, and you should, therefore, also regard SEO as a discipline that you must constantly work on to achieve good rankings on Google.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to create valuable and relevant content to capture or retain one specific target group of customers. It can be content that gives them new insights, answers questions, or helps them with a particular challenge.

Content marketing aims to create profitable and long-term customer relationships through content that is so good that your customers actively choose to engage with it. It is, therefore, also a marketing tool that, with the proper handling, can influence your potential customers throughout the customer journey - and no matter which digital channels you choose to market on, content marketing plays a crucial role.

Where and how should you start?

It can be challenging to assess which channels and marketing efforts should be given the highest priority. Each channel has advantages and disadvantages, and no definitive conclusion about which will work best for your business exists. In addition to this, several studies have shown that the companies that have the most tremendous success with their digital marketing use several different channels simultaneously, thus achieving a strong synergy effect and an optimal marketing mix.

However, it is essential to point out that you can create the most fantastic content and use the correct channels, but you need to know your target audience to get positive results with your digital marketing. You'll need insight into who you're communicating to to see if you will be successful with your marketing initiatives.

No matter what discipline in digital marketing you intend to initiate, you will quickly find that achieving results requires a lot of time and knowledge. Therefore, it often makes more sense for many small and medium-sized enterprises to get assistance from a digital marketing agency.

On kompasbank navigator, both nimble and Aveo can help you with everything from sparring and prioritizing your marketing efforts to setting up and optimizing your campaigns so you can focus on what you do best.

At Aveo, you can, as a user on kompasbank navigator, also get a 15% discount on their services within web and marketing, which can help your company strengthen its digital presence and marketing. As an experienced web and marketing agency, they offer professional website and webshop solutions, hosting and support, and online marketing across most digital channels.