While large companies have been incorporating digital marketing strategies over the last few years, SMEs have been reluctant to adopt new marketing techniques and have settled for traditional ones. According to Brendon O’Donovan, Chief Marketing Officer at Vocus, SMEs have become aware of how affordable and accessible digital marketing tools can be, a fact that, combined with their growing awareness of this discipline, “has shown small businesses that digital marketing is a viable channel for finding and attracting customers.”
In addition, the report shows that, for SMEs, the primary objective of implementing digital marketing strategies is to increase sales, with this response receiving a score of 4.45 (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most important). Brand recognition and creation scored 4.36, followed by the intention to reach new customer segments and build consumer loyalty (engagement).
Surprisingly, aspects related to cost savings and increased productivity are at the bottom of the list of objectives to be achieved through digital marketing.
Once the goal of increasing the company’s sales has been defined, the next step is to adopt an appropriate digital marketing strategy. Álvaro Mendoza, a psychologist specializing in Marketing Management, states on his website that the first thing to do is to research the market, that is, to define who your customers will be. It is vital to know this information in order to subsequently place the company’s advertisements on the websites that these users normally visit (content websites and social networks).
Optimizing the website with a view to generating potential customers is another factor that Mendoza highlights, especially when choosing the domain name. “Having the product related to the domain name helps consumers remember it,” he points out. Ensuring that the site’s content is useful and has a professional design are other details that need to be taken care of.
Customer loyalty is the next step, and to achieve this, it is advisable to take advantage of the opportunities offered by email marketing (sending newsletters, discount coupons, promotions, etc.). Personalization should play a fundamental role: why not talk to the user on a one-to-one basis?
Traffic monitoring and measurement are other extremely important elements, as they allow you to determine whether the campaign is effective. How can you find out if the advertising space you have purchased is paying off? The key factor is the well-known CTR (Click Through Rate), which measures the percentage of clicks on the ad in relation to the number of times it has been displayed.
The force with which mobile devices have burst onto the market in 2013 is an undeniable fact, as it is estimated that there are almost 6 billion smartphone users and 1.5 billion people who use the mobile web worldwide.
In light of these figures, Sílvia Guinart, CEO of the Guinart Group communications company, has stated that, specifically in Spain, “approximately 7 out of 10 companies with a presence on mobile devices increase their sales,” so “by implementing a good strategy, sales can be increased by up to 20% per campaign.”
But mobile marketing is not the only trend that is becoming essential for companies, as email marketing is also proving its effectiveness.
According to the latest survey on the Email Marketing Industry conducted by Adestra, a British company specializing in this activity, more than half of the companies consulted attributed the 10% increase in their sales, compared to the previous year, to the implementation of email marketing.
Such is the importance that certain companies attach to this type of digital marketing that, according to the report, 62% of the participating companies invest around £5,000 per year in this advertising practice.
