Every entrepreneur wants to grow his or her Business. This is as true for new businesses as it is for businesses which have been around for twenty years. Entrepreneurs frequently ask us, “how do I grow my business with digital marketing?”

Pepper Gang Digital Marketing presents five ways to jump-start growth for any business.

A Good Website Is An Extension of Your Business

A website is an online showroom for a business. Regardless of the type of business, a good website is the cornerstone of any digital marketing campaign. This is true whether the business is a gym, a hotel, a law firm, a real estate agency, or pretty much any other business you can think of. A website is an online extension of the business and reflects on the business.

Did you know that a website can help a business grow? Here is how:

• Prominently displaying the product or service offered
• Making it easy to purchase a product or service online (if applicable to the business)
• Displaying the address of any physical location
• Displaying the hours of operations
• Having readily available contact information (physical address, email address, phone number, etc.)

It is estimated that 97 percent of customers search for a product and service online (Expert Web Professionals, 97 Percent of Consumers Look Online Before Buying Locally). By having a website, a business can get in front of customers to build brand awareness, and to sell consumers on the value of the given product or service.

Search Engine Optimization Increases Visibility

Having a website is important, but its effectiveness is minimized if no one sees it. This is where Search Engine Optimization comes into the picture.

Search engine optimization is the process of increasing a businesses visibility on Google or other search engines. Statistics show that 92 % of people do not navigate past the first page of Google. And, it is estimated that the very first spot on Google captures approximately 33% of traffic (Search Engine Watch, No. 1 Position in Google Gets 33% of Search Traffic).

Businesses which want to grow would be wise to invest in search engine optimization to increase and maximize their online visibility.

Let me share one secret. Search Engine Optimization is done via on-page optimization and off-page optimization.

On-page SEO techniques can get you to the top of Google

On page SEO includes the following:

• Having a well written and accurate meta description
• Making sure each image has valid “alt attributes”
• Ensuring the website has a valid XML sitemap
• Site speed
• Mobile friendliness (including mobile site speed)
• How often a site is updated
• The quality of content on the site

Off-page SEO techniques can help your brand build credibility

Off-page SEO techniques include:

• Submitting a website to a search engine
• Link earning

It can take months to see results with on-page and off-page search engine optimization. Accordingly, we recommend that a business implement search engine optimization as soon as possible.

Paid Advertising Drives Traffic To Your Website

As discussed above, a website is necessary for any business that wants to grow. But, having a website is not enough. A business must drive traffic to its website to see results.\

In contrast to search engine optimization, which can take months to generate results, paid advertising drives traffic quickly.

Paid advertising channels including search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and YouTube, as well as display advertising on more than two million sites world wide (including sites such as CNN, ESPN, Boston.com, etc.). Facebook, Instagram, Quora, LinkedIn, and even Amazon, can be used for paid advertising.

Paid advertising makes it easy to target people who are searching for a given product or service, and it also gives a business the opportunity to target people by age, gender, location, income, life events, and interests.

Additionally, with paid advertising, a business can also “retarget” consumers.

Retargeting means displaying advertisements to consumers who have already shown interest in a given product or service (either by visiting a specific website, or searching for a specific product or service).

Email Marketing Helps Your Business Grow

Email marketing can help a business grow by targeting those who have visited a given website, or business. There are two ways to target prospective consumers by way of email marketing. One involves sending a monthly (or even a weekly) newsletter.

This allows a business to educate new and existing customers on products and services, to build value, and to simply remind new and existing customers that you are open for business.

The second type of email marketing is done by way of an email drip campaign. Whether a business gets email addresses by way of a special offer, or in exchange for making a piece of content available online, an email drip campaign can be used to drive consumers through the purchase funnel.

An email drip campaign can be used to build awareness for a product or service and to sell value.

Social Media To Interact With Consumers 

There are several Social Media channels available, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest. These social media channels give businesses the opportunity to target a wide range of consumers and in a variety of formats.

A business can use social media to build awareness, sales, loyalty and retention, and more. Social media marketing is one of the most versatile and cost-effective strategies that a business can implement.

Social media is important because a businesses’ customers are almost certainly on social media. Depending on the products or services that a business offers, its customers may be on some channels but not others (for example professionals are more likely to use LinkedIn than Snapchat). However, keep in mind the fact that the vast majority of customers are active on one or more social media channels.

Social media gives businesses a fun and easy way to network. In fact, 95% of adults between the ages of 18 to 34 are likely to follow a brand on social media (Dream Grow, 21 Social Media Marketing Statistics You Need to Know in 2018). This means that a business can use social media to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to its businesses’ website.

Grow My Business With Digital Marketing

Feeling overwhelmed about how to grow your business with digital marketing? We can help. Contact us today.