The Ultimate Digital Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

As a brand and web designer, I am all about creating digital marketing strategies for small businesses. If you are a small business owner, you have my utmost respect. Starting something is hard. Sticking with it is even harder. Butttt….. I happen to believe it would be a lot easier if you had some marketing strategies up your sleeve. 

Because no matter what you do, whether you’re a wellness coach or a wedding photographer, you need people to find you online. And then you need to get them interested enough to book a call. And then, who knows? Maybe they’ll be your next dream client. 

But you’ll never know if they’re your dream client if they don’t even know you exist. So this blog is dedicated to the BEST digital marketing strategies for small businesses, because marketing doesn’t need to be so hard! 

Step 1: A Strong Brand 

If you want to market your business online, you have to start with a strong brand. When most people hear the word “brand,” they think of things like colors and logos. While those things are a big part of creating a recognizable brand for your business, they’re not the first step. 

The first step is getting up close and personal with your ideal client. Before you can do anything to market yourself, you need to know who you’re marketing to. So ask yourself, who do you want to work with? Maybe you’re a nutritionist who is passionate about helping women heal their relationship with food and exercise. Or maybe you’re a florist who creates lush, moody installations for weddings. These two businesses will market to vastly different people. The way you talk (aka, your brand messaging) and the way you present yourself (aka, your brand identity) will be different. The first step to developing digital marketing strategies for your small business is discovering your ideal client. 

Once you know who they are, you can ask yourself more in-depth questions, like “What are they looking for in their nutritionist/wedding florist/fill in the blank? What are they scared of? What can I do to make this process easier and better for them? The answer to these questions will depend on your ideal client. I ask all of these questions and more when creating a brand strategy for my clients!

Now that you know who your ideal client is and you’ve stopped to walk a mile in their shoes, you can move on to my personal favorite part: your visual identity! This is when we develop a color palette, choose your fonts, and, yes, design a logo. We have a few goals when building your visual brand. We want to capture the feeling of your business while designing something recognizable and memorable. By the time we’re done, your leads will associate certain colors, feelings, and images with you and your business!

Step 2: A Strategic Website

Once you have a strong brand identity, it’s time to build your website. Every other digital marketing strategy you develop will come back to your website. When most small business owners start out, they use a template they found online and consider it done. There’s nothing wrong with website templates (and if you’re in that stage of business, read this blog about how to edit your ShowIt template!), but eventually, you’ll hit a point where you’ll need your website to do more. 

And when that time comes, you’ll want something completely custom, beautifully designed, and intentionally strategic. Lucky for you, that’s the Kelly Ryann Co. special!

Your website can’t just be pretty. Before anything else, it needs to be clear. Within seconds of landing on your website, visitors should know what you do and who you do it for. From there, your website can strategically guide visitors on a journey, answering their questions before they’re even asked, and subtly showing them that yeah, you ARE the best option. Backing up your claims with strategically placed testimonials, your website becomes the ultimate selling tool (without the side of sleazy car salesman tactics). 

Step 3: Search Engine Optimization 

The final step in making your website your marketing hub is SEO. I have a whole blog dedicated to creating SEO strategies for service-based businesses, but I’ll give you the SparkNotes version here: 

SEO (aka search engine optimization) is the process of making your website more visible to search engines like Google. It relies on things like keywords, the structure of your website, backlinks, and more to determine who you are and which searches you belong in. 

A website without SEO is just another piece of digital driftwood, floating in the void. 

But a website with an SEO strategy? That’s your key to getting found in the right searches and landing in front of your ideal clients. A strong brand, custom website, and solid SEO plan is the best digital marketing strategies for small businesses. Instead of scrambling to find people who might be interested in hiring you, you’ll have people coming to you who are already interested and ready to learn more! 

Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Once you have these three things in place, marketing gets a lot easier. Now, you can go through any channels you want (like blogging, email campaigns, or social media marketing) and confidently direct people back to your website. You’ll no longer have to rely on just one outlet to get found, because your website will be working for you behind the scenes! I offer individual branding, web design, and SEO services, but I highly recommend doing all three at once! This way, you know that your website is fully equipped to draw in leads and turn them into clients, without you needing to do a thing! A strong website is the ultimate digital marketing strategy for small businesses. Contact me to learn more and begin your brand, website, or SEO project!