Benefits of Digital Marketing for Small and Medium Enterprises

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are springing up all year round, and the trend is not stopping anytime soon. Digital marketing, or the online promotion of goods and services, has since become a centerpiece in the SME marketing puzzle, providing a means to get more leads.

The problems of SMEs are far from over. According to various reports, some of the challenges facing today’s SMEs range from mismanagement of finances and the inability to balance the business structures.

If you have all these in place, your worries are almost over. Let us discuss how digital marketing can help expand your Small and Medium Enterprise (SME).

What are You Marketing Digitally?

Digital marketing means using online or digital advertising platforms like Facebook, Instagram and even Search Engines to promote goods and services. It is also a medium for SMEs to generate quality leads and close more sales without having to meet physically.

In today’s digital marketing era, all hands are on deck to explore as many online platforms as possible to generate leads and make sales. Email and affiliate marketing also form a part of digital marketing strategies.

That said, here are some reasons why you want to leverage digital marketing for your SME.

1. Digital Marketing helps You Create Brand Awareness

One of the challenges of running an SME is that you may fold up in the shortest time possible. It is because of the risks associated with managing talents, providing stellar customer service, and dealing with business expansion.

Some small-scale businesses end up closing or reducing their mode of operations within the first five (5) years. To that end, you want to use digital marketing to create brand awareness for your business.

Here are some of the benefits of doing that:

• Creating a brand awareness campaign helps your target audience to understand what your business or company is about.
• It also helps you to help the target audience become familiar with your brand assets, such as the logo, typography, and font.

Creativity with your digital marketing campaigns is also essential because you don’t want to start on the wrong foot.

2. Digital Marketing is Cheaper than Print Advertising

Before the advent of the Internet, the traditional press, including newspapers, radio and television stations dominated the advertising industry. Today, you can use the Internet, including social media platforms, to promote your goods and services.

One of SME’s benefits is that it helps you work within your advertising budget. Depending on your target audience, creativity, and offer, you may spend anywhere between$5 and $20 to generate a lead and make a sale.

When you combine this with email marketing for follow-ups, you spend less on your digital advertising.

3. Digital Marketing helps You Reach Global by Being Local

No matter your location, you can reach as many people as possible via your digital marketing campaigns. If you are in Canada, you can target customers in the UK, or the US, especially if you are running an e-commerce business.

In addition, you can diversify your digital marketing campaigns and generate leads in your locality, including prospective buyers in your state or region.

4. Diverse Your Marketing Budget Across all Platforms

SMEs can now leverage several digital marketing platforms to generate leads and sales. From social media sites like Facebook and Instagram to Search Engines like Google, you can maximize these platforms to your advantage.

One unique thing about this approach is that you can maximize your budget across the platforms. For example, you can use a budget of $100 to test your digital marketing campaigns across these platforms. Adverts on Facebook can be $50, while that of Google can be $50.

By testing these campaigns across all platforms, you can find the platform that generates the most sales and scale the campaigns.

Also read: 

• Low Cost Marketing Strategies for Startups
• How to Market your Business for FREE
• Top Small Businesses to Start with Little Capital

5. Digital Marketing Keeps Your Brand Online 24/7

Traditional business owners close their offices or shops within a specific time. These offices can open early in the morning and close later in the evening, but that is not the case with running a business online.

Since you have an active online presence on your website and social media pages, you tend to keep the brand online all day long. Worthy of mention is that you would need to hire a brand manager to help coordinate the business activities. Hiring a social media manager to help manage social interactions across the brand’s social media platforms is also essential.

6. Competition Analysis is Easier with Digital Marketing

It may seem outdated to walk into your competitor’s retail outlets to inquire about a particular product or service to see if they already offer it. This time, you can analyze your competitors faster simply by leveraging digital marketing.

Here are some of the best ways to go about it:

• SEO Competitor Analysis

Since most brands now have an online presence, including a website, you can use SEO tools to analyze the competition. You get to see the locations they have a massive presence in, their content marketing strategies, and their digital campaigns.

• Make In-Depth Paid Advertising Analysis

You can also use paid advertising and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google to spy on your competitors. Facebook, for instance, has a dedicated Library that digital marketers can use to get real-time information on the campaigns their competitors are currently running on the platform.

7. Use Digital Marketing to Provide Real-Time Customer Service

Now that your brand is online, you can get real-time access to the customers and attend to their queries similarly.

There have been times when customers turned to Twitter to register their displeasure over their favorite brand’s services. Using these online platforms helps your brand to provide real-time solutions to these customers’ problems, which in turn, helps to reduce your competitors’ chances of winning them over.

Concluding Thoughts: Digital Marketing is Beneficial to SMEs

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) often have a limited budget and continually seek room for expansion. By leveraging the Internet and, by extension, digital marketing techniques, they can build a huge following online and get more people to trust the brand and like to do business with it.

Statista estimates that the United States is leading in the digital marketing industry, with an estimated $566 billion ad spend for 2022 and projected to reach $700 billion by 2025. If you want to get started with digital marketing for your SME, consider using Facebook. As your brand expands and more budget is available, use other platforms like Twitter, Google Ads, and Instagram.