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Digital Marketing for Small Business

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3 Best digital marketing tools for your small business

Best digital marketing tools for your small business

  1. Canva
  2. Facebook Business Manager
  3. Mailchimp

Digital marketing for small businesses can be either easy or difficult – depending on how much you know about it. It’s hard to know where to begin given how fast things are changing today. Facebook comes up with a different algorithm each week, how do you catch up? In this post, we will show you the top three best digital marketing tools you can use for your small business. Start with these and see how you go.

Canva

If you haven’t heard about Canva then it’s time you check it out. It is one of the best tools out there for creating graphics for your small business. The best thing is that it is free to use. You have the option to upgrade, of course, but you can use a lot of its features for free. Use Canva for things like Facebook headers, digital advertising graphics, leaflets, presentations, logos and more. There are plenty of templates to choose from and the paid pictures are only $1. You don’t need to know a lot of tech stuff as it’s all drag and drop.

Facebook Business Manager

Facebook Business Manager is a free platform that you can use to organise all your advertising campaigns on the social media platform. This is where you set how much money you are going to use for which campaigns and for how long. This is also where you see behind-the-scenes analytics on your digital marketing efforts. The best thing about this platform is that you can let someone else manage your advertising needs without having to give them your Facebook username and password.

Mailchimp

Electronic direct mail or edm is still one of the most effective ways to put your brand out there and keep in touch with your customers. Mailchimp is one of the best tools out there in sending out your marketing campaign. It’s free to use and easy to navigate. The templates are already created for you and all you need to do is drag and drop your logo and pictures. You can use it as many times as you want too. Use Mailchimp for newsletters, discount codes, coupons and more.

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3 Tips when using Facebook advertising

3 Tips when using Facebook advertising

Small business owners know they should be on Facebook. Aside from engaging with their customers on the popular social media platform, small businesses also need to follow other Facebook pages. But what about when you start advertising on Facebook? What are the rules when doing it? Is it worth doing? How easy is it to do?

In this post, we will discuss three things you need to remember when using Facebook advertising.

Use fantastic graphics

You need a kickass ad to attract attention and stop clients from scrolling. But how do you do it when you don’t have a graphic designer (or any graphic designing skills)? Easy! In this post we outlined all the tools we love using. Check it out and you’ll find some ideas on what you can use to create smashing graphics and videos for your ad. Remember to read Facebook’s advertising rules to make sure you are following them.

Be super specific with your target market

That’s the beauty of using Facebook – you can be extremely specific with the audience you want to target. Things like sex, age, hobbies, interest, location and more can be targeted down to the last detail. That’s what makes Facebook a great marketing tool. Not only is it targeted, it is also affordable so small business owners can do their own digital marketing. Make sure you know who you are targeting first before you start advertising on Facebook.

Always test your Facebook ads

Because Facebook is easy to manipulate and it is affordable, testing your advertising is going to be easy. Pick two different ads with two or three different targets, graphics or message. Run them both at the same time and see which one is getting a lot more traction. Take out the one that’s not working and focus on the one that is. One of the best things about Facebook is that it’s almost instantaneous so you don’t waste a lot of time and money.

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The realities of social media marketing

One of the first things we do for small-business owners during our free initial consultation, even if they don’t end up as our client, is to manage their expectations about social media marketing. Why? Because based on experience, small-business owners think it’s the messiah of marketing.

Social media marketing helps your small business join the digital age but it’s not the answer to all your needs. So when we sit with small-business owners, we make sure they know these three top things before we move forward.

Read the full post over at Inside Small Business.

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End of year digital marketing check up

End of year digital marketing check up

  1. Know your winning platforms
  2. Be realistic with your assessment
  3. Drop the ones that aren’t working
  4. Look at your analytics
  5. Create a new strategy

We are so close to the end of the year. If you’re like us, you’re probably scrambling to get things sorted before Christmas — both at home and at work. The To Do list is probably overwhelming (we know ours is!) but there is one aspect you need to look at, too. Now is the best time to go through your year and take a hard look at your digital marketing strategy. In this post, we will give you a guide on how to do a post mortem of your year.

The winning platforms

List the platforms you used for things like online advertising, marketing and social media. Go through the analytics of your platforms and look at which ones were hitting your targets. Remember that the targets are not always the same for each platform. It could be that your target was awareness of your brand. Or maybe education about a service you introduced this year. It could be to sell more of a certain product/service. Because your targets were different you need to measure the results differently as well. But be pragmatic about it. If you were on three or four social media platforms but only one or two are giving you the best results drop the others.

Assess the losing platforms

Yes, you should drop the platforms and the advertising avenues that aren’t working but before you do that, assess it first. Why were they not effective? Were the messages wrong for that platform? Were you posting during the wrong time? Or maybe you didn’t post enough. Did you target the right people? Maybe you didn’t put enough budget for the advertising campaign on platform X? Whatever the reasons are, you need to find out so you don’t make the same mistake. Make it a teachable moment for you and your staff.

The right messages

Finally, look at the messages that were winning this year. Which ones got a lot of engagements and shares? What format worked best? Was it video? Maybe a slideshow? Was it the carousel one? What kind of message moves your customers to make that click? Look at your analytics and find out so you can create a content strategy around that for the following year. Having said that, you also need to be on the lookout for what’s going to ‘trend’ next year. Plan as much as you can but also make room for flexibility when things change (yet again) next year.

To learn more about digital marketing and how it works, check out our Small Business Digital Marketing portal!

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Small Business Digital Marketing platform

We’ve been brewing something awesome here at 3C Digital. Introducing, the Small Business Digital Marketing portal! This new platform was born because of you — small business owners. We listened to your needs. We heard your questions and concerns. And we did something about it. In this post, we help you get to know the Small Business Digital Marketing portal.

Who is it for?

The Small Business Digital Marketing portal is for small business owners who:

  • want to learn about digital marketing
  • want to do digital marketing but find it confusing
  • don’t have a big budget for digital marketing
  • want access to digital marketing experts minus the giant cost
  • want to be updated with changes and how it affects them
  • have questions about digital marketing but don’t know who to ask
  • want to have access to tutorials on topics they want to learn.

What do I get out of it?

Some of the things we offer in the portal include:

  • Super-easy-to-understand video tutorials on various digital marketing and social media topics
  • Downloadable eBooks with checklists and templates that you get to keep
  • New tutorials each month
  • Learning about the ‘whys’ (because it helps if you know why you need it before you do it)
  • Access to 3C Digital’s expertise
  • Bespoke packages that are small business-friendly
  • Regular updates on digital marketing and social media changes (and how it affects you)
  • Webinars from experts
  • And so much more!

Can I afford it?

Of course you can! It’s like half the price of your everyday coffee! We made it that way because we really do want to help the small business owners who can’t afford the agency fees. The Small Business Digital Marketing portal was created with you guys in mind. We’ve met so many small business owners with the same concerns. We understand we can’t cater to all these businesses, that’s why we made the portal. It’s here to help YOU!

Ready for it? Check out our brand new site for more details!

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Why you need digital marketing for your small business

Small business owners ask all the time why they need to go into the digital marketing world. Can’t you just do what you were doing and leave it that way? Unfortunately, not because the old ways are not working anymore. We’ve met with small business owners who admitted that they barely got a reply to the 10,000 flyers they left in people’s mailboxes. All that money wasted. In this post, we will tell you why your small business needs digital marketing.

It’s a digital world

You can bury your head in the sand but the truth of the matter is that we are in a digital era. Although there are still some things that are the same (advertising messages still need to be compelling), the avenue has changed. And it’s changing constantly. But even though you are overwhelmed by the digital marketing world, you still need to be there. If you can’t do them all, just start small. Read up on our digital marketing for beginners tips to get you going. We make sure we lessen the jargon so that you understand what we’re talking about.

You need to be competitive

One thing to remember is that your competition is online. They are doing the digital marketing stuff. They are on social media and they are not afraid to use it. If you want to be competitive, you need to have a digital space, too. These days, when customers hear about your brand they check out your website and your Facebook page first. Then they look at your reviews online and the different ways they can contact you. Aside from that, they also look at what your posts have been on social media. If you’re not online, or your customers are having a hard time finding things out about your small business, you will miss out.

It’s not changing anytime soon

We’re sorry to say that the digital world isn’t budging. No matter how many times you hear issues surrounding social media platforms, it is still going strong. In fact, users for platforms like Facebook and Instagram are in the billions and increasing. If you don’t ride the tide now, it’ll be even more difficult to catch up later on. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t hesitate to hire a digital marketing agency. Read our tips on what to look for when looking for a digital marketing agency for your small business. Whether you are going to DIY digital marketing or hire an agency, it is best to start ASAP.

Wanna know more about digital marketing? Contact us for a FREE 30-minute content strategy.