Digital marketing 101 for small businesses

When I talk to small business owners about digital marketing, the most common comment I hear is, "Boy, I know I need to do something online, I just don't how to start." As with other types of marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all digital marketing package. So where to begin?

Well, for starters, it would be a fantastic idea to take an inventory of one's current marketing efforts:

• How are you currently spending your marketing budget?
• Is there an overarching strategy to your marketing?
• If so, when was the last time you re-examined the strategy and made adjustments?
• And here's the kicker -- Do you know what kind of results you are getting from each different marketing tactic you employ?

Let's assume that we now have answers to each of the above questions. Certain changes to your marketing plan are likely to be implied by these answers. For example, it may turn out that newspaper commands an ever-growing portion of the marketing budget, but you are getting less bang for your buck. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you should rely less on newspaper, if at all.

Now you are almost ready to figure out what your digital marketing budget is. However, you still haven't established whether digital marketing makes sense for your business and, if so, which components hold the most promise.

Whether or not digital marketing makes sense for your business depends upon a number of factors, such as:

• Type of business
• Number of locations
• How consumers shop for your products or services
• Your current capacity to handle additional business
• Your ability to interact with prospects and customers
• How consumers currently perceive your business

Consider the case of a hypothetical local chain of dry cleaners.They have several locations, which consumers find both digitally (email, search engines, internet yellow pages) and through more traditional media (out-of-home, newspaper, etc.). However, while the chain wants to grow their business, customers already complain about the amount of time they have to wait to pick up their clothing.

Clearly, this chain is not in a place to invest heavily in digital marketing. Perhaps email campaigns, enhanced internet yellow pages listings, search engine marketing and social media could drive additional business, but to what end? The business cannot handle the volume of business they already have. Additionally, it is unlikely that anyone associated with the business would have the spare time to interact with prospects and customers.

All right, then, let's now assume that this dry cleaning business has invested in additional machinery and employees in order to reduce the wait time to pick up clothing. Happily, this leads to improved customer satisfaction. Further, let's assume that these investments paid for themselves fairly quickly, freeing up funds for additional marketing efforts.

Finally, our dry cleaning business is ready to establish a digital marketing budget. But first, let's be sure that we know whether we:

1. Have staff in place to interact with prospects and customers through digital means.
2. Are prepared to deal with negative comments, ratings and reviews of the business.

While the correct manner for dealing with these steps may vary for different businesses, I have a few suggestions. If the staff has limited time and no one is prepared to deal with potential negativity, then perhaps some combination of email campaigns, internet yellow pages advertising and search engine marketing make the most sense. The downside here is that these means of promoting your business have greater upfront costs associated with them.

Conversely, if money is tight, but there are people in place to deal with prospects and customers, both happy and unhappy, then social media may be the way to go. Twitter accounts, LinkedIn profiles and Facebook pages cost nothing to establish. However, and I cannot stress this enough, a business should not use these media to shamelessly promote themselves and their own interests.

These media allow businesses to engage with an online community. In return for connecting with your business, the community expects regular contributions that demonstrate value to it, the community. Your communication needs to be strategic and focused on the end benefit to the community as opposed to your business' bottom line.

Think of social media as similar to parenting. As with parenting, the barriers to entry are minimal, but doing the job well is a challenge. Be sure that you are prepared to tackle the enterprise before casually entering these waters, as there is no half-stepping into either social media or parenting.

Hopefully someone out there reads and appreciates these tips, and I apologize for not being pithy this time out. I welcome comments, and I promise to respond to the civil ones.