For a brief moment, close your eyes. Imagine the typical small town. Tight-kin and family-oriented and full of local businesses operated by entrepreneurs whose families have been living in the area for multiple generations. Everyone buys from each other and if no one offers a particular product or service, surely the next town a few miles down the road would. All is right in the world!
Until a department store suddenly appear right outside of town! It’s the talk of the town! Everyone in town starts shopping there and folks from the neighboring municipalities also start visiting. Why wouldn’t you? You could purchase multiple copies of that item or service you had to spend a half hour driving to find. Not to mention the prices are much cheaper.
The local businesses are not too fond as the department store is siphoning all their customers. They’re forced to close down and many of these experienced businessmen are forced to accept low-paying salaries. The town’s Main Street becomes a ghost town as all activity has since diverted into the department store. Consumerism had worked against the town and destroyed its charm.
What’s the point of this?
If you’re a small business owner, you know that customers are the heart of your budding enterprise. Customers are people and people use the internet to find goods and services, compare pricing, read reviews, get directions and find an email or phone number to contact.
The good news is that with the Internet, small business owners now have the means to market goods and services to get a message across their audience. Digital marketing allows small business to not only compete with larger competitors at a fraction of the high costs that come with traditional mediums of advertising but to specifically target the type of people they want to have.
It is therefore essential that small business use digital marketing to inform about their products and service and transform people into loyal customers.
There many tactics that encompass digital marketing so it is necessary for the small business owner to determine which tactic would best work for them? Video Content? Advertising on Social Media? Pay Per Click on Google, other search engines? Banner ads? Advertorials? and other tactics should be considered.
