How to Do a Digital Marketing Campaign for Your Small Business

One of the best ways to earn money is to open up a business. You may possess a local enterprise or an online shop. Either way, a small business needs all the help it can get. Be smart about where you’re putting money into and what you’re going to spend on.

Digital marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach the most number of people without spending too much money. You can have the global reach that media like the local paper and television can’t attain. However, it would be best if you didn’t put money into a digital marketing strategy without the necessary preparation and planning.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can create a digital marketing campaign for your small business:

1. Set aside a budget

If you’re going to venture into digital marketing for your Shopify or e-commerce stores, you should have a budget. The amount will make sure that you’re within your spending limit, and your business is not spending too much on the campaign. The budget will keep you disciplined as you search for the best options to spend on.

An ideal marketing budget should be one to two percent of your sales target. If you’re aiming to have sales of $10,000, you can ideally have $100 to $200 as your marketing budget. Plan out how you’re going to spend every dollar so that you make the most out of it. You can spread it across multiple platforms and advertising spaces.

2. Define your digital marketing goals

Before you start planning your campaign, you should define your goals. The objectives will help you strategize what kind of path you should take on your digital marketing campaign. The goals will also determine the type of conversion rates and metrics that you can measure success.

Here are the possible objectives you can have:

Increase in social media followers
Your sales target
Conversion from followers to customers
Number of new email addresses on the mailing list
Increase in Youtube subscribers
More traffic for your ecommerce website

The goals and objectives will give you direction on your campaign. It will also determine the structure that you’re going to practice for your digital marketing plan.

3. Know your target market

After setting a budget and your objectives, you need to find out your target market. You can find out by checking which people like to buy your products. The target market is the most critical part of your campaign because it’s the demographics of the people who are interested in your products and services.

Here are the data that you need for your demographics:

Age
Gender
Device (mobile or computer)
City or country
Language (if applicable)
Interests

Your demographics will shape up how you will execute your digital marketing campaign. You can use the information to develop identities for you and your brand.

4. Develop buyer and brand personas

After establishing the demographics of your target market, you should develop a buyer persona and adjust your brand’s identity to relate with your customers. These identities will help coordinate the messaging and platforms you will use.

The buyer persona is a representation of the target market; it’s a character that portrays the ideal individual who will buy your products. You can create this persona by materializing your demographics into a concrete rationale.

For example, you have a small business for activewear. You are targeting young women in their 20s who love to go to the gym. You can name your primary buyer persona as Jane, an athletic working woman. She works a 9 to 5 job and goes to the gym afterward. She needs to have gym outfits that will fit easily into her bag, and they need to be stylish in case someone from the office sees her.

The brand identity should be a mixture of your corporate image, and your buyer persona’s ideal company. If you’re targeting kids from two to nine, then you should develop a brand that can easily communicate with the younger generation. If you’re targeting teens, then use more informal language, and talk in terms they understand.

5. Setup your social media accounts

You should also create social media accounts for your small business. These platforms will help you in interacting with your clients, customers, and consumers.

Here are the social media platforms and their respective functions:

Facebook – currently has the most number of monthly active users. It’s the perfect platform for launching ad campaigns that you can direct to your site.
Instagram – mainly has images and videos. It’s the perfect platform for influencer marketing and promoting your brand with images.
Twitter – generally contains quick text and image updates. It’s the best platform to talk directly with your customers and share fast updates about your products or services.
Linkedin – primarily used for professional purposes and brand promotion. It’s the ideal platform to look for partners and like-minded entrepreneurs.
Snapchat – made a trend of using cute image-altering filters. It has a pretty straightforward image format, much like Instagram. This platform is perfect for interacting with your younger customers.

The best thing about creating social media accounts is that they’re all free. You can make fan pages and profiles for your company without paying a subscription fee. Getting a social media profile will increase awareness and enhance local search value, helping your business gain more attention.

6. Create a posting schedule

Last but not least, you should do a calendar of the things you’re planning to post. It should be a detailed plan with a rundown on what you should add and on what social media platform. This schedule will determine what you’re going to do for the next weeks or months.

Having an intelligent calendar assistant such as Clockwise can make this task much simpler. As a small business owner and entrepreneur, the phrase time is money means a whole lot more than to the average joe. Programs such as clockwise free up time for you by optimizing your calendar and creating what they call “focus time”. Reducing stress, time management, all of these things are essential for a business owner, and can be achieved through use of this program.

Final Thoughts

Your business can benefit from having a well-curated digital marketing campaign. It’s crucial to take all the steps listed above, and also adjust them according to your market. Your digital marketing strategy can make or break your company’s sales and performance, so you should try your best to get information about your customers.