How digital marketing supports small businesses

Digital marketing isn’t as simple as creating a social media channel or website. For that reason, many SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) struggle to get it right but it is an essential part of any growth strategy.

Digital marketing can help SMEs reach new audiences, bring a product to life through video or photos, and foster an online community with continuous engagement. While not every business will seek to do all these elements, used correctly digital marketing can help every SME to further success.

This is why the Help to Grow: Management Course offers business leaders an opportunity to consider how digital marketing could positively impact their business, as well as modules on branding, marketing, and company values that can inform digital marketing decisions. In addition, business leaders can often choose a mentor for 1-2-1 sessions with expertise in this area.

Three alumni of the Help to Grow: Management Course went on to use the course to change how they digitally market with brilliant results ranging from greater engagement to increasing turnover by three times. These alumni have shared what elements they have implemented and how it is helping them move their digital marketing strategy forward.

Knowing what your business does is one thing, but communicating it clearly is another. During the Help to Grow: Management Course, Bhupinder Sid, Co-founder of Find A Business Expert, quickly found that his company’s message wasn’t resonating with his audience. Ultimately, it wasn’t clear who the business was trying to target.

Through the branding case study in Help to Grow: Management Course he saw the importance of a clear proposition. He then realised he needed to re-brand the company after discussing the purpose of his website with peers on the course and seeing that the company’s purpose was unclear to newcomers.

To overcome this problem, he changed the company name from Business Butler to Find A Business Expert. The name was accompanied by a new logo and visual identity that makes it clear what the company does for other businesses.

I realised that because my business serves both freelancers and business owners, it wasn’t clear who our website was targeting.

“By changing the name we refocused on our target audience which is owners of businesses.”

Sid then set about updating his digital marketing channels to reflect the new name. The new website with clearly defined messaging and benefits has had a significant impact. “Traffic has more than doubled, on the back of our website rebrand and engagement rates have tripled. We went from 15% of visitors engaging with an expert to 45%.”

Before you build your digital marketing strategy, it is critical that you get your targeting and positioning correct.  By testing your messaging with your intended audience, you can be more confident that your digital marketing will generate awareness and engagement from the right customers.  Ultimately, this process enabled Sid to reach a larger audience through his digital marketing.

Once an SME’s message has been defined, it needs to be communicated. A good place to start is to ensure that your website is up to date and easy to navigate, and that your social media channels are being updated regularly.

Karsten Smet, CEO of the ACI Group, was introduced to the ‘Marketing Mix’ in Module 6 (Building a Brand) of the Help to Grow: Management Course. This is a model designed to help business leaders map out how they reach potential consumers.

At the time, Karsten had not been prioritising the digital presence of the brand, but with new frameworks to hand, he realised that the ACI Group could be better promoted. Karsten put a renewed focus on the ACI Group’s digital presence.  This included regular social media posts and a revamped website.

After revamping the ACI Group’s website and regularly posting on social media channels, Karsten and his team started to see the benefits of their hard work.

“Ultimately, this had a huge impact on how the business interacts with potential customers. The business has seen an 800% increase in interactions with customers on its website. On top of that, the ACI Group now has over 1,200 followers on LinkedIn which places it within the top five of our competitors.” 

Creating a digital presence can quickly feel pointless if it doesn’t generate traffic to the business’s website. It is essential to make buying easy. After all, no one wants to bounce around on different web pages before being able to make a purchase. Peter Beaumont, Associate Director of Monty’s Miracle, has first-hand experience in making the social media presence of his business an effective funnel for customers.

“During the Help to Grow: Management Course, we talked about how powerful social media is and so I started looking at our business and seeing what we could do. I realised our product is very easy to illustrate visually, so I began to make videos.

This inspiration has allowed us to reach thousands of new customers and is an essential driver for our business. Having the time to focus on this area through the course has been transformative.”

To capitalise on the success of the social media videos he was producing, Peter created a TikTok shop and also began selling on Amazon.

“I wanted to see if the online storefronts would help, and it surpassed all my expectations. Amazon became responsible for a third of our sales.”

By creating multiple easy routes to the point of sale, Peter ensured that digital marketing was driving results for Monty’s Miracle and the company has seen turnover increase by 362%.

Every SME has a different approach to reaching customers, and this is the same online. The Help to Grow: Management Course encourages you to consider how digital marketing can help you, and through modules that cover every element of business leadership you can apply the learnings to a new digital strategy.

If you are struggling with the avenues that you can market your business, or need a mentor to provide insight on where you can improve, the Help to Grow: Management Course can help you.