Most business owners agree that marketing is essential to the growth of a business, but many struggle with digital marketing decisions. Two of the concepts decision-makers wrestle with are what channels or campaigns to start with and how much is it going to cost.
To help make some of these decisions a little easier, we’ve outlined 5 digital marketing tips to either get started or revamp your marketing strategy including:
Social Media Posts
Creating Email Lists
Blog Content
Google Business Profile Photos & Posts
Build Reviews
And the best part is, they are all either free or have a minimal cost associated with them!
1. Social Media Posts
Creating social media channels and posting on social media are completely free. Meta has reported 3.65 billion users across their core products including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. With the average American spending more than 2 hours on social media daily, this is a big opportunity for business owners to get in front of potential new customers. Not only does it benefit you from a social media perspective to create and maintain social media profiles, your business can also benefit in terms of Search Engine Optimization, contributing towards the strength of your brand, domain authority and playing a part in search engine visibility.
Social media posts offer a variety of benefits to your business. This provides a platform for you to share updates about your business, promotions, new technology, seasonal services and so much more. Creating content can be easy and doesn’t have to be time consuming. The first step should be identifying your goals and target audience. You can use this to create a content calendar outlining what and how frequently you post. If you’re looking to increase your followers and reach a wider audience, it is recommended to post at least 3 times a week. If you choose to apply a boost or ad budget to your posts the frequency is not as important, but if you’re solely relying on organic visibility frequency and creativity will be key.
You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create social media content. Snapping photos in the office and utilizing any partner portals with assets is a great starting point. There are plenty of social media content creation tools like Canva, Canvas Studio, Crello, etc that can help you design creative and professional looking content without investing a lot of time or money. In some cases these platforms can be free or offer a free trial to test the tools before signing up.
2. Creating Email Lists, Include CTAs
Email marketing can also be an effective way to stay top of mind with existing clients or potential clients that have shown interest in your business. Creating and maintaining audience or campaign lists for email communications like newsletters, new product or service announcements, promotions, etc. can help you maintain both brand awareness with your customer groups as they frequently hear from you, and help increase opportunities for conversions with dynamic call to actions in your email prompting customers to take action by potentially claiming a special offer, scheduling an appointment or registering for an event.
Depending on your audience or list size, sending emails could be free. If you’re looking for advanced audience or workflow management, you may want to consider investing in a paid marketing automation platform; But, if you’re just starting out, using your existing email workspace or free accounts can serve as a trial!
3. Blog Content
Content is still one of the biggest contributors to SEO ranking. With that, updating your website with custom content regularly is one of the most frequent recommendations for your SEO strategy. For some, the thought of drafting a blog alone can be daunting, add in the thought of how to tie the content into a larger SEO strategy and many will give up before they even start. But, keep in mind, Google wants content to be written for your users, not Google bots. So when outlining or writing your blog content, keep it simple. Don’t try to overuse keywords or think about what you think Google wants, just write content that is informative and original. There is no magic formula for creating the perfect SEO-rich content, but sticking with what you know, being creative and answering frequently asked questions is a great starting point.
When you start blogging, you should have an idea as to how often you will publish content. Search engines do like to see frequent updates, but even as little as once a month can add value to your digital strategy. If you have the capacity to post twice a month or once a week, even better! It may be tempting to outsource content creation, but if it seems too good to be true, it could be. You want content that is created by an individual, not a machine. Utilizing a computer program generates content with a series of keywords you provide could actually harm your SEO ranking. There are plenty of bloggers that could positively contribute to your SEO strategy, but do your due diligence before working with someone new for content creation if you are not creating the content yourself.
4. Google Business Profile Photos & Posts
Local SEO has become increasingly important for small businesses as ‘near me’ and other local searches have surged in recent years. Having a verified, optimized and regularly managed Google Business Profile is essential for your business. If you already have a page, ensure it is completely up to date with categories, services, hours of operation, website and appointment links and photos of your business. Google can accept user suggestions so regularly checking your profile for accuracy is important. Potential patients could be turned off and turned away if your hours are not correct or services are incorrect. Simply having a profile is important, but optimizing and regularly updating your profile is required if you want it to rank higher and show for more searches.
Google also rewards businesses that are active with your profile, so uploading new photos, responding to reviews and creating posts to your profile can help improve your visibility, and these actions are all free!
You could create Google ads that show on Google Maps, ensuring your profile has top placement, but if you’re looking for free or low cost options, regularly posting new photos and creating posts for your page (even repurposing social media posts or website blog posts) add value to your Google Profile.
5. Build Reviews
Reviews build trust and help your business stand out from your competition. Not only do reviews help instill credibility with potential customers, your review rating, frequency and overall number of reviews can contribute to increased Google profile ranking. Encouraging customers to leave a review doesn’t require a campaign budget. You could simply create a flyer for your front desk encouraging a review so it is top of mind for patients that are checking out. Asking customers for reviews while their experience is fresh in their mind, increases the likelihood that they will submit their feedback. Sending out emails or text reminders in addition to asking in the office also increases the probability of customers sharing their feedback.
Once you’ve implemented one or many of these marketing tips, tracking the results will be essential. Identifying what is working can help refine your strategy to potentially invest more into that channel and explore paid marketing options to further maximize that channel. Alternatively, if something isn’t working don’t give up. Explore why it isn’t working - is it something that you can A/B test and change or do you need to consult with an expert to reconfigure the campaign to make it more viable?
While these are all tips that can help your marketing efforts with little to no campaign budget, some of them may not have immediate results and are part of a longer term strategy. If you’d like to explore other campaigns that could have more of an immediate impact on visibility or conversions or just have questions about the tips outlined above, visit roya.com/demo and schedule a free consultation to discuss your online strategy!
