Digital marketing for SMEs
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2024 10:52 am
It is quite common for many entrepreneurs not to allocate resources and efforts to developing a good digital marketing strategy for SMEs for two reasons: one due to the mistaken belief that it requires a large investment and another due to the fact that most tools involve long-term strategies that do not provide immediate returns.
Marketing takes time, and promoting a small company that absolutely no one knows about with limited resources in a matter of a couple of months becomes a practically impossible task unless you have some realism and patience and understand that this is a continuous and permanent investment.
involves working differently on the commercial management of the business in terms of the operation, resources and budget used in traditional marketing.
First of all, you must learn how to manage your e-commerce in order to implement the appropriate marketing strategy, since a business managed on the Internet does not require the same actions as if it were on the street. Create the online store that best suits these actions. There are many platforms for this. We recommend Prestashop for its ease of use and because it allows for a higher volume of sales (it is the most used e-commerce platform in Spain).
For all these reasons, something imperative for a marketing strategy to be effective is the prior preparation of a business plan that includes a detailed digital marketing plan for SMEs or startups in question.
5 digital marketing tips for SMEs
The following tips can help you set the digital marketing strategy that best suits your company and that you can implement yourself even if you don't have a high budget. Let's take a look at them!
Start with the simplest and gain presence
Many people want to start from the roof down, and seek a quick return by investing large amounts of money. This is a somewhat misguided digital marketing strategy for SMEs, since there will always be larger companies that invest more. The trick is not in the amount invested, but in the prior planning and meticulous study of the market/sector, the way to enter it and the differentiation.
For example, in SEO positioning, you can work with keywords with high traffic to generate many visits to the website at the beginning. This may not help if we add words with a lot of traffic, since they are quite difficult to position compared to the competition. We recommend working with long-tail keywords (phrases or combinations of words) that will be easier to position. These complementary words will be positioned more quickly, will produce more traffic in the short term and will greatly help to position the main keyword.
Let yourself be advised or counseled by the professionals you hire
Another aspect in which many entrepreneurs fail is excessive suspicion, lack of complicity and failure to follow the advice provided by professionals and companies they hire as service and product providers in relation to these products.
Just as you do when selling your knowledge and/or products, you need to let others work and be open-minded to any changes and suggestions that they may suggest to you.
It is normal to initially distrust any company or professional you work with until they demonstrate a certain level of results and a good operation and way of working. To do this, you must make a correct prior selection of suppliers, which will save you many problems in the future and, above all, let them do their thing and not put obstacles or impediments if you do not know much about the subject matter of the contract.
People analyzing digital marketing data for SMEs
Create a large network of contacts and generate profitable relationships with clients
Something fundamental in digital marketing for SMEs is the need to create an extensive network of contacts of various kinds in order to:
Create commercial and professional relationships (suppliers, intermediaries, clients…).
Create social relationships (PR, promotion of CSR actions, etc.)
Generate branding and increase the cachet of your personal brand as a recognized professional in the sector.
To do this, it is necessary to maintain a certain consistency and coherence in all the brand's communications to the outside world (through blogs and social networks), provide added and differential value to stakeholders (to capture their attention and make them the ones who go to the company and not the company that goes after them). Likewise, you must demonstrate good management and corporate governance of the business (to generate trust), promote the company's good practices and actions related to corporate social responsibility and company culture.
Invest wisely
Just because a competitor is having success with a particular strategy doesn' telemarketing leadsusa telephone number data t necessarily mean it can be applied directly to your business, as there may be insurmountable differences that make your plan a tremendous failure. It is necessary to study in detail what your competition is like and why they use that type of strategy before applying it to your brand. Paying attention to your competition is good for improving what they do, standing out and not making the same mistakes, not for copying strategies to the letter.
People analyzing digital marketing data for SMEs
Use all the resources at your disposal
Even today, there are many people who still do not use or manage social networks, and what is worse, corporate brands that do not take advantage of them to make themselves known and contribute something different to both their clients and their followers.
The same applies to mass emails with newsletters, sponsored posts and guest posts, promotional items for companies or promotional merchandising with your brand, content aggregators, advertising banners, among other options. For this reason, it is best to continually research in search of new improvements and ways to carry out your promotional actions and make your brand known.
Marketing takes time, and promoting a small company that absolutely no one knows about with limited resources in a matter of a couple of months becomes a practically impossible task unless you have some realism and patience and understand that this is a continuous and permanent investment.
involves working differently on the commercial management of the business in terms of the operation, resources and budget used in traditional marketing.
First of all, you must learn how to manage your e-commerce in order to implement the appropriate marketing strategy, since a business managed on the Internet does not require the same actions as if it were on the street. Create the online store that best suits these actions. There are many platforms for this. We recommend Prestashop for its ease of use and because it allows for a higher volume of sales (it is the most used e-commerce platform in Spain).
For all these reasons, something imperative for a marketing strategy to be effective is the prior preparation of a business plan that includes a detailed digital marketing plan for SMEs or startups in question.
5 digital marketing tips for SMEs
The following tips can help you set the digital marketing strategy that best suits your company and that you can implement yourself even if you don't have a high budget. Let's take a look at them!
Start with the simplest and gain presence
Many people want to start from the roof down, and seek a quick return by investing large amounts of money. This is a somewhat misguided digital marketing strategy for SMEs, since there will always be larger companies that invest more. The trick is not in the amount invested, but in the prior planning and meticulous study of the market/sector, the way to enter it and the differentiation.
For example, in SEO positioning, you can work with keywords with high traffic to generate many visits to the website at the beginning. This may not help if we add words with a lot of traffic, since they are quite difficult to position compared to the competition. We recommend working with long-tail keywords (phrases or combinations of words) that will be easier to position. These complementary words will be positioned more quickly, will produce more traffic in the short term and will greatly help to position the main keyword.
Let yourself be advised or counseled by the professionals you hire
Another aspect in which many entrepreneurs fail is excessive suspicion, lack of complicity and failure to follow the advice provided by professionals and companies they hire as service and product providers in relation to these products.
Just as you do when selling your knowledge and/or products, you need to let others work and be open-minded to any changes and suggestions that they may suggest to you.
It is normal to initially distrust any company or professional you work with until they demonstrate a certain level of results and a good operation and way of working. To do this, you must make a correct prior selection of suppliers, which will save you many problems in the future and, above all, let them do their thing and not put obstacles or impediments if you do not know much about the subject matter of the contract.
People analyzing digital marketing data for SMEs
Create a large network of contacts and generate profitable relationships with clients
Something fundamental in digital marketing for SMEs is the need to create an extensive network of contacts of various kinds in order to:
Create commercial and professional relationships (suppliers, intermediaries, clients…).
Create social relationships (PR, promotion of CSR actions, etc.)
Generate branding and increase the cachet of your personal brand as a recognized professional in the sector.
To do this, it is necessary to maintain a certain consistency and coherence in all the brand's communications to the outside world (through blogs and social networks), provide added and differential value to stakeholders (to capture their attention and make them the ones who go to the company and not the company that goes after them). Likewise, you must demonstrate good management and corporate governance of the business (to generate trust), promote the company's good practices and actions related to corporate social responsibility and company culture.
Invest wisely
Just because a competitor is having success with a particular strategy doesn' telemarketing leadsusa telephone number data t necessarily mean it can be applied directly to your business, as there may be insurmountable differences that make your plan a tremendous failure. It is necessary to study in detail what your competition is like and why they use that type of strategy before applying it to your brand. Paying attention to your competition is good for improving what they do, standing out and not making the same mistakes, not for copying strategies to the letter.
People analyzing digital marketing data for SMEs
Use all the resources at your disposal
Even today, there are many people who still do not use or manage social networks, and what is worse, corporate brands that do not take advantage of them to make themselves known and contribute something different to both their clients and their followers.
The same applies to mass emails with newsletters, sponsored posts and guest posts, promotional items for companies or promotional merchandising with your brand, content aggregators, advertising banners, among other options. For this reason, it is best to continually research in search of new improvements and ways to carry out your promotional actions and make your brand known.