Small Businesses and Digital Marketing in 2011

Marketing has come a long way from traditional tools used in print or magazine media. We are in an age where everybody who is anybody is interconnected and with a cursory view of your profile, it is pretty easy to know which market you would most likely be under.  As such, entrepreneurs have a greater chance of locating their target markets without leaving their desks.

digital marketing in 2011

In a recently conducted Zoomerang survey, most SMBs would either increase their digital marketing efforts or retain them in 2011. If small businesses are considered by many as the lifeblood of the economy, especially as far as job generation is concerned, then new customers are the holy grail.

However, it is also important to note that customer retention is more cost effective and this is where the focus should be. Free, low-cost digital marketing tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking sites should target not only possible customers but attention should also be given on ways to retain the customers you already have. Continued support from people you have already done business with is vital to the success of any enterprise.

While entrepreneurs are constantly looking for ways to connect to customers, management software and various marketing products become a necessity to drive growth. According to Marchex’ white paper entitled Three Things Small Businesses Really Need: Re-defining the Digital Marketing Product Set, the digital marketing products for small businesses would ultimately address these three things:

  1. Lead Generation – even though we’re in the digital age, leads are still important because most businesses still use print media apart from their online presence.
  2. Online Presence Management – there are a lot of tools to measure online influence but there are only a few which are all-encompassing. This means that there’s a need for a tool which collaborates all aspects of online presence which are data, content and competition.
  3. Relationship Management – as I have mentioned, it is important to retain your current customers. And the best way for you to do that is to establish a business relationship with them with the use of customer relationship management tools.

There are many tools which serve each of those things mentioned but they are more often than not, specializing in one aspect only. Marchex’ white paper proposes that there should be an all-in-one tool. A tool which would greatly benefit small businesses and in time, it would not be just a fad, it’s going to be a need.

While we are waiting for such a tool, we would just need to content ourselves with the tools we have right now and make the most of it. No one ever said running a business is easy but like anything else that we work hard to maintain, it definitely is worth it.

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3 Comments Small Businesses and Digital Marketing in 2011

  1. Lakshmi

    Hey Amenda,

    Gr8 post once again. Iam sure small business providers like us will surely look into this article and and will do better. We also have online presence and do services to customers. Keep encouraging us with these posts.

    Thank you
    lakshmi

    Reply
  2. Paul Guerette

    Hi Amanda,

    Thanks for the great post. My sentiments exactly.

    I believe were on the cusp of true integration of different social media tools in an effective, transparent way. True there are some out there, but evolution still needs to take place to increase effectiveness.

    It really makes sense… so many directions, and each has such a great ability to reach consumers.

    Thanks again for the great post!
    Paul
    http://twitter.com/FTTF_Domains

    Reply
  3. Brijendra Dharampuria

    Digital Marketing is useful for all businesses small, middle to top businesses. Even small business is using mostly digital marketing. As their customers are well familiar with digital media and use it. Therefore digital marketing is mostly prefer to small business. According to me “Online Presence Management” and “Relationship Management” is the most important factors in digital marketing and most of the business fail to manage it. There is some tool for RM but we have to use facebook and other some popular sites to retain our online presence.

    Reply

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