Dominate the Downturn: Keep Revenue Flowing With Digital Marketing

Since the dawn of the digital age, businesses and organizations have been skeptical about the Internet. In 1998, American economist Paul Krugman said Internet growth would “slow dramatically,” and compared it to the fax machine.

It’s safe to say Krugman’s prediction didn’t age well.

The Internet prevailed, and despite any trepidations, brands have consistently and increasingly decided to invest time, money, and resources into their online efforts, especially digital marketing.

Sorry fax machines.

In fact, it’s strange to imagine a company that doesn’t have a digital presence of some kind these days. The Internet has been instrumental in giving rise to some of the largest companies in human history, including Google, Amazon, Apple, and MyPillow.

Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch, but have you tried those fluffy pillows? Our necks have collectively been saved thanks to the Internet!

The point is, when a business executes an online strategy well, nothing can hold it back — not even a recession.

The question is, is your brand ready for the next economic downturn?

Because whether you’re ready or not, it’s coming.

When Will the Next Recession Come?

Mirror, mirror on the wall, when will the economy fall?

Thanks to pullbacks in corporate investment, rising oil prices, and international warfare, a recession could be imminent. 

Joel Prakken, chief U.S. economist for S&P Global Market Intelligence says “Are we in a recession? We don’t think so yet. Are we going to be in one? It’s a high risk.”

Either way, if it’s not here now, it’s looking likely.

So it’s not a matter of if, but when. And when it does happen, it will impact every business in every industry.

But things are not all doom and gloom.

Just as has been the case since the dawn of digital time, the savviest will prevail.

What Will Happen in a Recession and Why Should You Care

What exactly constitutes a “recession” is up for debate. The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.”

A few months? That doesn’t sound so bad, right?

Think again.

Even the shortest of economic recessions can cause businesses — both large and small — to lose earnings and market share. This all comes in no small part to a drop in consumer spending habits, the impact of which lasts well beyond any defined downturn period.

Just imagine what would happen if people stopped visiting your site, buying your products, and engaging with your brand for an entire month. That’s an incredibly long time on a business calendar, especially when it occurs during, say, December. Rankings would drop, bottom lines would fall, and lead generation would stagnate.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Worst of all, most companies tend to believe that this is the time to start cutting costs, only to find that they emerge from the economic downturn much less profitable and weaker than they were pre-recession.

So we find ourselves back where we started, left with a single question: How will your brand survive the impending recession?

The answer is digital marketing.

Why Digital Marketing Can Save Your Ass(ets) During a Recession

While spending more on marketing during a recession might sound counterintuitive, it can be one of the smartest decisions a company can make.

Businesses and organizations must rethink their strategies in a recession.

Just because an organization has high visibility on the Internet today doesn’t mean it will last forever – or even a couple of months. No rank is safe, or ROI immune to volatile change.

Companies that understand this better than others have made the wise decision to reinvest even further in their online activity.

Why?

Because despite all the bubble bursts and downturns over the years, the Internet has continued to surge forward.

Despite the fact the entire country (and likely world) is on the brink of recession, there are a lot of burgeoning opportunities to leverage online. Those who take advantage of them with a well-executed digital marketing strategy will undoubtedly thrive, no matter the economic circumstances.

Let’s examine the reasons why digital marketing during a recession is crucial.

1.   The Best Defense is a Cost-Effective Offense

Certain digital marketing strategies pay off exponentially because of their cost-effective, creative approach to a specific niche or subject.

One notable example of this is the Dollar Shave Club’s launch video.

 

The video went viral in 2012, smack dab in the middle of a growth recession.

While the video is not solely responsible for the company’s success, its role was significant. Since launch, it’s been viewed over 26 million times. Over 12,000 people signed up for the subscription service within just 48 hours of the video’s debut. Just as valuable, the video’s charm and tone set it apart from the competition.

And yet the video only cost about $4,500 to make. To say the least, the strategy paid off.

Dollar Shave Club eventually boasted hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Unilever, one of the largest companies in Europe, eventually acquired them for $1 billion.

Dollar Shave Club was able to utilize a cost-effective marketing campaign to achieve what many larger organizations would not have been able to accomplish, at a fraction of the price.

It’s reasons like this that will make video marketing one of the most profitable strategies over the next decade. Not to mention a very cost-effective way to keep revenue flowing during a downturn.

The savings don’t end there. Consider also the rise of the micro-influencer.

It is no secret celebrities can charge massive amounts to promote products or services online. For example, Kylie Jenner, who boasts over 147 million Instagram followers, charges over $1 million per promotional Instagram post.

Of course, many small businesses don’t have the marketing budget to approach these top-tier influencers about a potential collaboration. But there is still an opportunity: micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers are a cost-effective way to generate massive awareness (and sales) via social media. They are usually categorized as influencers with between 1,000 and 100,000 followers.

And it’s not just about saving money, either.

Micro-influencers often have a closer relationship with their followers and are viewed as more of a “trusted source.” There is even evidence to suggest marketing with micro-influencers might be a smarter investment when it comes to engagement.

Of course, the success of any influencer campaign depends on what metrics you are considering.

There is no reason that an organization can’t still use their resources to run effective micro-influencer campaigns during a recession.

Big picture – digital marketing offers real-time campaign tracking, which allows for quick shifts in spend levels and budget allocations if something isn’t working. Adjustments to strategy can be made midstream, as opposed to many other more rigid business operations where they cannot.

And don’t forget the value of low investment, high-yield channels like SEO, paid media, and email marketing, which are digital marketing staples and pay dividends over the long term.

2.   Metrics Make Everything Better

The right kind of analytics can help companies, no matter how hard the world is crashing around them.

Of all aspects of business, few provide more or better metrics than digital marketing. While having the ability to analyze every inch of a campaign, blog, landing page, video, or tweet can be overwhelming, it ultimately provides valuable insight in ways most other departments can only dream of.

And sweetest of all, these metrics reveal value in the most inconspicuous of places.

Digital marketing can also make measuring the LTV much simpler than traditional channels. Here, businesses can predict the value of a customer over their entire lifetime, during downturns and beyond.

Knowing this can help inform executives and marketers when to pivot their digital marketing strategy during a recession and focus on the cost of acquiring customers. Likewise, organizations can continually adjust and improve marketing campaigns to meet both their financial budget and business goals.

All thanks to the power of digital marketing tracking.

There are plenty of other standard ways to measure a marketing campaign, such as monitoring web traffic and sales metrics. However, marketing is about much more than just sales these days.

Often, companies can use metrics to find the right brand identity and voice that leads to a real relationship with the consumer. Build a strong enough relationship, and customers will remain loyal — waiting out tough times to re-engage with their favorite brands as soon as they can, even if the economy prevents them from doing so in the present.

Speaking of which, knowing how to keep your current customers happy is one of the best ways to weather a recession. The right metrics can lead to the right strategies — like remarketing and incentive campaigns — to make that happen.

The fact that digital marketing is so measurable is a huge win for both large corporations and small businesses.

Digital marketing can help businesses figure out the right strategy at the right time for the right business. During a recession, this kind of measurability could prove to be the integral reason why your business not only survives, but thrives in a downturn.

3.   An Opportunity To Experiment

When times get tough, it’s easy to understand the need to cut costs. A company’s financial future could depend on it.

However, there is evidence that suggests cutting ad spending during a recession is a bad move. On the contrary, a recession can actually be the best time to come up with more innovative and creative strategies.

You know the saying, when one door closes, another opens? We’re pretty sure it was created to describe digital marketing during an economic downturn.

Take it from Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, from 2006 to 2014. She stated during her time there: “I was taught never to waste a good recession.”

Why all the love for digital marketing? Because digital marketing during a recession provides endless opportunities to experiment.

As mentioned above, one of the obvious reasons is digital marketing tends to be more cost-effective than other marketing methods. Companies can also adjust their brand identity and message to target new demographics more easily using digital marketing.

Versatility is more than just a new approach to marketing. New mediums continually emerge online that can provide a diversified portfolio to mitigate risk.

Take Snapchat, which launched in 2011, right at the end of the Great Recession.

 

Many companies realized the video platform was uber-effective when it came to marketing to millennials — a demographic less impacted by the economic downturn. In 2012, the app boasted 100,000 daily active users. A decade later, it now has over 332 million. Companies that took the “leap” to invest in a new medium like Snapchat at a time when it was generally advised to hide all your money under the mattress, reaped the benefits in the long run.

Examples like this make it easy to see how experimenting with new opportunities, even during a recession, can prove to be a wise decision in hindsight.

That’s why companies, in preparation for the coming recession, are already strategizing how to take advantage of digital marketing platforms.

Get Recession Proof with Digital Marketing

While a recession might prove to be challenging, investing in digital marketing during an economic downturn is imperative to keep revenue flowing and spur growth.

You might find that it can be a real buyer’s market during a downturn for digital marketing.

Digital marketing is an incredible way for businesses of all kinds and sizes to perfect their brand messaging and target new consumers all over the world. During a recession, all this adds up to digital marketing being a wise, high-return investment.

Not convinced?

Here’s one final question to answer…

Would you rather be a fax machine or MyPillow?

Because one of those invested in digital marketing, and the other, well…

 

 

 

A Digital Marketing Carol: 12 Ways to Grow Your Business

Happy Holidays from Titan Growth!

Good tidings we bring to you and your marketing team. We hope you, your loved ones, and business operations have a safe and happy holiday season. And get presents. Lots and lots of presents. If ever there was a year for presents, this is it.

Though it’s safe to say all we really want for Christmas this year is to be able to sneeze in public without terrifying others. But some high-ranking websites and high-converting ad campaigns would be nice, too.

To make present buying a little easier, we previously shared the 7 perfect holiday gifts to give the digital marketer in your life. (Or yourself. We won’t judge.) We also sought to spread some good cheer with 12 merry memes only online marketing gurus will get. Because laughter is the best present.

This year we wanted to gift you something just as useful and festive — a list inspired by the holiday’s most annoying Christmas carol.

Ah yes, the 12 Days of Christmas. That timeless song where an over privileged chap brags about getting 364 gifts over 12 days from their “true love.”

Hey singer, news flash! Nobody gives someone they love six pregnant geese.

 

 

In case you were wondering, that haul tallies up to roughly $131,676.68.

Well, it’s time that song gets a more budget-friendly upgrade. So, in the spirit of joy, giving, high ROIs, and spreading the only thing that should ever be spread this time of year — holiday cheer — we present The 12 Days of Good Business.

Hit it Titan carolers!

On the first day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

A Blog Post on Page Load Speed

We wanted to start by giving you something that’s just as good as money. A blog post. We know. It’s too generous. But you know what’s even more generous? Giving your site visitors the gift of fast loading webpages.

On the second day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

2 Data Sets

If there’s one thing people love getting on Christmas, it’s data. So you’re welcome. Though this is a gift you can give yourself for free any day of the week. Just run a PageSpeed Insights report for your site.

Remember, the key to gifting yourself performance data is making sure you look at the most accurate and useful data possible. Specifically:

 

  1. Your site’s actual performance data
  2. Your site’s perceived performance data

 

Be sure to decipher your PageSpeed Insights reports the right way by accounting for both of these data sets.

On the third day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

3 Core Web Vitals

To come clean, we aren’t actually giving you these, Google is. As in they are instituting the following three metrics as one of their newest SEO ranking factors.

 

  1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
  2. First Input Delay (FID)
  3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

 

It’s the gift no businesses asked for but is getting anyway. So make sure you know how to track your site’s core web vitals and optimize accordingly.

On the fourth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

4 Email Fails and Fixes

Email is like the Santa Claus of business communication. In a single night (or campaign) they can reach every contact on their list and, when their deliveries are opened, bring joy to each recipient. But sometimes things don’t go so smoothly. In Santa’s case, it’s likely because Rudolph is acting like a diva again and holding up the sleigh. In your email campaign’s case it’s likely due to:

 

  1. Improperly configured domain (Fix: Authenticate your emails)
  2. Unwanted messaging (Fix: Write engaging emails)
  3. Targeting the wrong audience (Fix: Define your ICP)
  4. Overdoing outreach (Fix: Choose quality over quantity)

 

If your business can fix those four email outreach fails you’re sure to have a merry campaign.

On the fifth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

5 Golden Leads

What’s a golden lead? It’s a lead worth its weight in gold. For caroling purposes we’re sending you five leads, but in reality you’re going to want a lot more than that. All of whom are gold.

To get them, try these five golden lead-driving strategies:

 

  1. Redefine your leads for each and every channel
  2. Design landing pages around a single theme and goal
  3. Perform SEO targeting leads, not traffic
  4. Go granular with paid ads
  5. Try offline marketing tactics

 

On the sixth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

6 Page Tips for Landing

Ask yourself, what would happen if Santa was awful at landing his sleigh?

A lot of unhappy boys and girls, for one. Probably a lot of broken reindeer legs, for another.

 

 

Santa can’t afford a bad landing. Ever. And neither can your business. That’s why it is so important to follow these landing page best practices:

 

  1. Keep your landing pages simple
  2. Keep your messaging succinct
  3. Include a singularly, engaging USP, CTA and hero image
  4. Say it all above-the-fold
  5. Unify your landing pages and your ad campaigns
  6. Design pages for mobile first, desktop second

 

On the seventh day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

7 Audiences for Excluding

Let’s be honest. Every family has at least one member they’d love to exclude from coming over for Christmas.

 

Businesses are no different. So be sure to exclude these 7 audiences from your PPC campaigns:

 

  1. Current Customers (or Everyone Else)
  2. Current Employees
  3. Job Seekers
  4. App Audiences
  5. Non-Engaged Visitors
  6. Overlapping Audiences
  7. Convertors

 

On the eighth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

8 Faces Caging

If you’re an avid reader you probably know we’re big fans of things with Nicolas Cage’s face on them. We enjoyed resting our heads on a Nicolas Cage sequin pillow case after boosting eCommerce marketing with Amazon Advertising. We figured out the perfect ACoS for a Nicolas Cage prayer candle. And we hooked ourselves up with an entire Cage-faced wardrobe thanks to Amazon DSP.

We’re also big fans of gifting things with Nicolas Cage’s face on them. So here you go.

 

Deeply disturbing? Yes, absolutely. But isn’t sharing things with Nicolas Cage’s face on them what the holidays are all about? Probably, somewhere. So enjoy.

Wait.

We count only seven faces-a-Caging above.

Perfect.

 On the ninth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

9 Optimized Amazon Listings

We’re pretty sure Amazon has put Santa’s workshop out of business. And maybe even Santa himself. So if you want to ensure all those good little boys and girls out there find your sweet-ass products, be sure to optimize your Amazon listings to the nines.

That means optimizing your:

 

  1. Product Titles
  2. Product Images
  3. Product Video
  4. Product Features and Description
  5. A+ Content
  6. Product Keyword Targeting
  7. Product Pricing
  8. Product Availability
  9. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)

 

On the tenth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

10 Rich Snippets Indexing

Let’s face it. Getting rich is the sweetest gift we could receive on Christmas.

Fortunately, there are a sleigh-full of rich snippet opportunities available to help your webpages attract traffic.

 

  1. Reviews
  2. Ratings
  3. Product Info
  4. FAQ
  5. Event Info
  6. App Info
  7. Course Info
  8. Bread Crumbs
  9. How-Tos
  10. Course Info

 

Trust us, they are just as good as cash.

Decorate your SEO with these rich snippets (by adding the appropriate structured data to your site), and it’ll be like celebrating Christmas every day.

 On the eleventh day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

11 Guides for Marketing

Remember when you were a kid and you couldn’t wait for Christmas day to come, counting down the weeks, days and hours to when it would arrive. And when it finally did, you sprang from your bed, rushing to see if under the tree Santa had left you any how-to guides. Us too.

Well, why should kids have all the fun?

 

Here are 11 guides to help grow your digital marketing;

 

  1. Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency
  2. Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score
  3. Conducting Effective Email Outreach
  4. 5 Things Keeping Companies from Successful SEO
  5. How Google Evaluates Webpages
  6. 4 Red Flags When Looking at Digital Marketing Agencies
  7. 5 Things Keeping You from Successful Paid Media Campaigns
  8. How to Leverage AI in Your Digital Marketing
  9. Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
  10. Paid Search Opportunity Analysis: Increase Leads and Revenue
  11. SEO Opportunity Analysis: Increase Rank and Revenue

 

On the twelfth day of business, Titan Growth gave your marketing team:

12 Conversion Rates Optimizing

Few brands pay much attention to conversion rate optimization (CRO). They may do so tangentially, while working on other aspects of their business, but they don’t often specifically focus on it. At least not in the same way they prioritize ranking factors for SEO. But CRO is just as important. In fact, it might be the most important thing you can do for your business.

Here’s a 12-step plan for conversion rate optimization:

 

  1. Make data-driven decisions
  2. A/B Test strategically
  3. Eliminate bottlenecks
  4. Prioritize macro conversions
  5. Tell a story (and keep it simple)
  6. Redefine your CTA strategy
  7. Play the long game
  8. Amp up urgency
  9. Improve Site Speed
  10. Leverage Remarketing
  11. Be Personable (and Trustworthy)
  12. Test CRO (and then test again)

 

Because what could be more joyous than converting customers this holiday season.

Merry Digital Marketing!

May all your future campaigns be optimized right.

How To Digitize Your Business – Success in The New Normal!

News Flash: COVID-19 royally screwed things up. It’s also had a bunch of unexpected consequences that leapfrogged the normal order of things. Like grandmothers setting up Zoom video chats. Big budget movies premiering on your TV. Knitting being cool. And a racoon approving you for a mortgage.

What’s another unexpected consequence of COVID-19?

The acceleration of doing business online.

You’ve probably noticed we do a lot more things online these days than we did a decade, year, month, ten seconds ago. This is especially true for digitizing businesses. The steady shift towards online branding, advertising, and commerce is in full effect. Yet, surprisingly not everyone has jumped on the digital bandwagon.

So what does that mean if you want to know how to digitize your business? Let’s talk through it…

Not too long ago it was found 46% of small businesses did not have a web presence of any kind. We hope that’s not the case anymore because COVID-19 boosted Internet use by a whopping 70%! Before the Coronavirus struck, Nasdaq estimated that by 2040, 95% of purchases would be made through eCommerce. That timeframe for SME (small-to-medium size enterprise) digitization has likely shrunk by a lot.

Quite simply, the pandemic deepened the digital divide between those businesses active online and those who aren’t. That’s not as delightful a consequence as the uptick in knitted dog sweaters, but just as important to be aware of. But it also means that the concept of SME digitization is more important than ever!

In the not-so-distant future, every business will either need to get online or risk falling behind. Those slow to react and still reliant on more traditional business models — like brick and mortar — will fight for survival, while those that cater to customers on the internets will see their gains amplified.

Just like grandma knowing more about Facetime than you do, this is the new normal.

So the question becomes, how will you position your business for success?

Our advice: Digitize your business. Today.

Why should you digitize your business?

Here are just a few reasons:

  1. Everyone is going to be online sooner or later
  2. You need to stay in touch with your customers
  3. You need to keep generating revenue
  4. You don’t want to lose market share to your competitors

To help ensure your business is on the digital fast track to success, below are some of the best ways to digitize your business and beef up your online game.

 

Step 1: Get Online

We’re willing to bet you’ve used a screen recently. You’re probably even reading this on a screen right now. Which means — SURPRISE — you’re online!

Well, you’re not alone. Every man, woman, and child is doing exactly the same thing. Even the cat is on Instacart these days placing orders to Petco.

(Obviously that’s a fake photo. Nobody uses an iPhone 4 anymore)

What’s the primary mandate of doing business?

Be where your customers are.

Your customers (and their cats) are online. So the first step to reaching them is to get online, build an online presence, and engage them online. Emphasis on the word “online.” See a theme forming here? If you’re digitizing your business than it’s important to realize that your brand’s website cant just be an afterthought or a placeholder for your online presence – it needs to be a full-blown digital marketing hub in and of itself.

 

Step 2: Build a Website (and Sell Through It)

A branded website is the heartbeat of any successfully digitized business. All other online activity funnels into your site which in turn funnels traffic into paying customers, both online and offline.

Here are a few of the awesome things a website can do:

  • Give your business legitimacy
  • Act as your directory listing (especially for local businesses)
  • Provide a means for lead generation
  • Directly generate revenue & sales
  • Provide a means for data collection & KPI tracking
  • Outperform competitors
  • Facilitate webrooming
  • Establish a brand identity and grow customer loyalty
  • Garner organic traffic for “brand” and “navigational” search queries

Never heard of “webrooming?”

Webrooming is the consumer practice of researching products online before buying them in a physical, brick-and-mortar store. (Think visiting a showroom, only on the web.)

All the cool kids bizzes are doing it.

Even the most locally of physically in-person based operations on the planet need a website. Over 80% of consumers do research online before heading out to a store. If your business isn’t online with a site showcasing (aka webcasing) your products and services then those consumers aren’t coming to your store. Plain and simple.

Or just as worse:

An online site increases your offline profits. That’s just math.

Your site doesn’t have to be the next Amazon. In some cases a one-pager will even suffice. The goal is to create the webpages you need to help:

  • Build up your SEO
  • Generate leads
  • List your offerings
  • Provide contact information

Once those are covered, you can expand into an eCommerce platform, and conduct customer transactions directly through your site. You can also enrich the experience by implementing structured data, such as Product schema.

Just remember, whether it’s one page or 1,000, your website needs to look good and work even better.

 

Step 3: Build Social Profiles (and Sell Through Them)

Granted, transitioning online is hard. And it can get costly.

But even if you don’t have the immediate funds available to build the world’s greatest website, there’s no reason why you can’t build the world’s greatest social media presence. If done right, you can learn how to digitize your business with social strategies.

Heck, it’s how Poo-Pourri, the Arab Spring, and Justin Bieber got their start. If social media is good enough for the Biebs, it’s good enough for you.

Best of all, creating a social media account is totally free. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, it’s all yours for the taking. Except Google+. That no longer exists. If you still have a Google+ button on your website, please remove it. (If you still have a MySpace button on your website, call us immediately.)

How wonderful is social media for digitizing your business?

You can even use certain social media platforms as eCommerce platforms.

For example, Instagram has been rolling out a checkout feature that allows users to make purchases without ever leaving the app. They also offer Instagram Shopping, which provides brands the ability to add tags to posts that link directly to product pages on their site. (See! That website’s already coming in handy.)

But even if you can’t take advantage of social media shopping features or don’t have an eCommerce-capable site, you can easily generate sales through online brand awareness using social media. To craft a winning strategy all you need is some creativity and time.

What’s that you say? You don’t have all the time in the world to start twittering at people. We get it. You’re really busy.

But you don’t need to spread yourself (or your budget) too thin trying to stay active on social media.

In fact, we recommend against that.

All too often we see businesses try to keep up with all the latest online trends by juggling a ridiculous amount of social media accounts. Far better is to focus on a select few social media channels and do it right.

Not sure where to start? Should you tweet, gram, post, tumble, or tok?

Facebook and Instagram are two of the top choices, particularly because of how well they tie-in with commerce activity and online advertising. Go ahead and add LinkedIn to that list for B2B companies. We also recommend amplifying your digital strategy with video because it routinely produces the highest ROI, and can be easily shared across all your social accounts.

And just like that, you have a solid online presence. Now, let’s share it with the world.

 

Step 4: Google Your Business

 

No, we don’t mean doing a google search for your business.

We mean creating, updating, and optimizing your Google My Business account for selling. (While you’re at it do the same for Bing Places. According to Wordstream, nearly half the US uses Bing. Crazy, right?) For complete SME digitization, understanding how these platforms are crucial for small businesses is key to long-term growth.

Having a well-rounded Google My Business account is a must for locally-focused businesses, but it’s equally as important for non-localized brands as well.

Your Google My Business account helps you:

  • Brand your Knowledge Panel (aka Google’s sidebar)
  • Qualify for Local Results
  • Generate leads with clickable phone and contact info
  • Post photos, updates, and offers
  • Manage your online reputation
  • Boost your appeal with reviews
  • Reply directly to customer queries

Think of Google My Business as a way to advertise for free on Google.

Also think of it as one of the first touchpoints your customers will have with your business.

What’s more, GMB has a lot of great ways to funnel your customers into making a conversion. One of the best (and most underrated) is its posting feature. Through it you can share offers, announcements, news, and products directly on SERP, using calls-to-action and retargeting.

Google My Business is also a key component of SEO.

Which leads us nicely into….

 

Step 5: Drive Sales with SEO

 

Though SEO optimization is typically viewed as a means to improve site traffic, it is also one of the best ways to drive sales – especially for SME digitization. Have your doubts? Feast your eyes on this:

And that’s just the tip of the digital iceberg.

We previously broke down the top benefits of SEO, the best being that companies generate a higher ROI from organic traffic than any other traffic source. The key to profitable SEO is to optimize your website and online content to attract high-quality traffic. This is done by strategically targeting sales-friendly queries and writing with conversions in mind.

Well, that’s actually the short of it. There’s a lot that goes into SEO from site structuring, speed optimization, content creation, backlinking, competitive analysis, the laundry list goes on. All of which when puzzled together correctly can skyrocket your online visibility, traffic, and sales.

Point being, getting online is only half the battle for the process of digitizing business. The rest is making sure your customers find you. That’s where SEO comes in, along with….

 

Step 6: Paid Online Advertising

Okay, so you’ve gotten online, set up a website, sent out a few tweets, and maybe even found yourself in a Google search.

HIGH FIVE!

It’s official — your business is digitized!

But we’re not done yet.

As more and more businesses move to doing business online, competition is going to tighten. So how does one stand out from the crowd? How do you digitize your business on these platforms?

Digital advertising is the best place to start.

Digital advertising lets you consistently generate sales online using such marketing channels as:

  • Paid Search ads aka SEM (e.g. Google AdWords)
  • Paid Social ads (e.g. Facebook and Instagram Ads)

Here’s a snapshot of how some of the most popular online ad platforms can be best used in your sales funnel:

  • Google Ads: for targeting audiences with strong purchase intent
  • Facebook Ads: for generating leads and building brand awareness
  • LinkedIn Ads: for selling B2B products and services
  • Instagram Ads: for targeting younger audiences with visually strong products

Different platforms are also better for targeting different demographics. For example, Pinterest Ads are better for targeting women instead of men, as over 70% of Pinterest users are female. LinkedIn ads are useful for targeting higher-income demographics as 75% of users make $50,000/year or more.

Then there’s advertising on Amazon.

If you sell a product that people can buy online then you should be using Amazon Marketing. Case closed.

Amazon Ads are unique in that they provide direct access to every stage of the sales funnel from the research stage straight through to purchasing. Odds are your audience is likely already using Amazon anyway so why not meet them there. Want to successfully digitize your business to sell online? Then enhance your eCommerce with Amazon advertising.

But that just scratches the surface of what you need to consider.

We won’t sugarcoat it. Growing your online reach with digital advertising isn’t easy. It takes time to master, from choosing ad types to tracking the right conversions, targeting the right audiences, setting up remarketing, and beyond. It can also get costly if you don’t have a strong paid media strategy in place right out of the gate.

But with all that work, comes huge rewards.

Which is basically the motto of digitization.

 

Step 7: Put It All into Action Amidst the New Normal

In order to position your business for success amidst COVID-19 (and beyond) you will need to take an omnichannel approach using the digital methods listed above. Many industries are quickly being forced to realize this hard truth.

Case in point:

  • Restaurant Industry: By turning to online ordering and delivery using online services like GrubHub and Postmates and promoting these new services online (that’s a lot of digitization), restaurants are finding innovative ways to get their services where they are needed most — people’s hungry bellies.

  • Travel Industry: By updating and engaging customers through social media and adding time-relevant portals on their site, airlines and hotels are creating new online channels for customer service.

  • Rainbow Tours is a perfect example of how travel-based businesses can use the digital landscape to creatively continue to provide their services. Because home quarantining doesn’t mean we can’t travel.

  • Museum and Zoo Industry: Showing the world how to turn typically in-person activities into digital experiences. Like a virtual museum tour of the Louvre or live cams of animals doing adorable things at the San Diego Zoo. You’re never going to find shorter lines to see the Mona Lisa, or a monkey.
  • Farm Industry: Salmonberry Goods is helping local farms sell produce to people who want to eat produce with their Farm Box, available for purchase online via their site. If farmer’s can digitize anyone can.

These are some examples of industries that typically do business offline, only now they need to rely on online interactions to survive. While not every online effort results in a direct sale, with SME digitization, they all build something just as valuable in the long run: brand awareness, engagement, and loyalty.

Industries like these are the ones you think would be hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. But thanks to their successful digitizing they are able to get by and thrive.

Thank you Internet!

Is there nothing you can’t do?

So in conclusion, you may not want to have gone all in on digital, yet here we are — the new normal. If you want to know how to digitize your business, contact us for help.