Having a digital presence for your small business is imperative.
According to American Express’ latest Small Business Recovery research, 42% of business owners agree that within 12 months, at least half of their total sales will be made online.
Further, 47% of business owners say they will continue to implement and improve their digital processes as we move through and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is great news for the 40% of Australian consumers that now complete the majority of their shopping online, but it puts pressure on our small business community to adapt quickly in order to stand out from the crowd.
According to the founder of $25million fashion boutique Birdsnest, Jane Cay, launching her store online after two years of managing a physical boutique was a game changer. “We launched online as we had literally run out of new customers in the Snowy Mountains! I’d initially hoped we could one day build it to be as big as our retail store, and I thought that was ambitious, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Now over 9 in 10 of our sales come in from Birdsnest.com.au enabling us to be a wardrobe wingbird for more women, across and beyond Australia.”
If you’ve invested in a new digital presence for your business, you’ll want to make sure you take advantage of that opportunity and create a strong digital marketing strategy that will bring you more sales.
The good news is this process doesn’t need to be expensive or time consuming, but you do need a plan to get started for best long-term results.
Here are 4 key areas for immediate consideration:
1.Build your Domain
You don’t have to spend a fortune on creating a professional-looking website – companies like Squarespace, Wix and many others provide web-design and hosting services for small businesses. However, each platform has varying costs for subscriptions, themes and more, so do your research and find the right option for you and your business.
2. Optimise your SEO
Understanding how search engines generate leads is a key factor in your business’s success. Keywords are phrases that are used when a customer is looking for something through a search engine. Building a Search Engine Optimisation strategy takes time and you can’t expect an overnight surge in traffic, but the long-tail benefits are more than worth the effort. There are a number of free resources online today to help you optimise your SEO – including Google’s digital marketing courses, with ‘Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide’ a great place to start.
3.Give your social channels lots of love
Approximately 80% of the world’s population use social media daily right now. That’s too good an opportunity for a small business to pass up. Plus, it’s cheap and easy to use as long as you don’t spread yourself too thin. Choose one or two channels and focus your daily efforts on growing your community and boosting your sales.
4. Create an email marketing system
Having a large and engaged email database is incredibly valuable for a business. It gives you a platform to communicate for free to your target audience and remains one of the only channels where you’re able to prompt your audience with a notification to their phone or device. Brands that are able to successfully leverage this opportunity with their customers can drive a very large volume of leads.
Successful digital marketing takes careful planning and refinement, but by setting aside time to make small but important changes like these, your brand will do better in standing out online.
American Express Idea Exchange Masterclasses are back and are all about helping your business realise its full potential and connecting you with other entrepreneurial-minded small business owners. Discover a program that will provide everything you need to KNOW about taking your business to the next level. Plus learn HOW to put what you’ve been taught into action. You can tune in for free to the next exclusive Masterclass of the series and learn from expert business leaders.
Stand out online: a digital marketing Masterclass (October 29th, 11.00am – 12.30pm)
In today’s world, just having a website isn’t enough. Join Aussie entrepreneur and founder of Birdsnest Jane Cay, along with experts from Google Australia, and learn innovative and insightful ways to grow your brand online. They’ll discuss the latest consumer behaviour online and share practical tips, tools and trends to help your business get found online.
