Solutions for The Customer Journey
Awareness
Given how much marketing is available, it can be tempting to try and do everything. However, it’s important that you first focus on what works in your local market. The first step is to get active on social media and connect with your current and potential audience. Our digital marketing solutions for small business awareness are selected to help you be more efficient in social media and online advertising.
Findability
In order for potential customers to find your business, they need to be able to find accurate and up-to-date information about it. One way to do this is by keeping a list of all online listings and the business information they contain. This may include hours of operation, address, and contact information, and you should make sure that this information is up-to-date wherever it’s found. Our digital marketing solutions for small business findability help automate this process so that you can update your current business information in one place and then automatically synchronize it with multiple general and industry-specific business listing sites.
Reputation
Potential customers are increasingly relying on online reviews to make purchasing decisions, particularly when trying to choose between a few different businesses. One suggestion is that you monitor these reviews regularly in order to outrank the competition in the search engine results and improve your ratings. Without this, at this stage of the buyer journey, your efforts and costs to build awareness and be found could benefit your competitors.
Conversion
A functional and up-to-date website is crucial for driving customer conversion rates. Customers crave information about products and services, and when your website provides it all in a clear, easy-to-navigate format, customers are more likely to complete the buying journey with you. The first step of creating a digital marketing strategy is to update your existing website to better reflect what you offer today and provide relevant information to your customers.
Advocacy
Happy customers are the best advocates of a company. That’s why this suggestion is to reach out to previous customers for reviews to increase the number of stars you have on popular review sites. This will make a big difference to new customers who are looking for a company in the local market.
Small Business Digital Marketing Solutions
Small businesses need to successfully and affordably acquire customers online even if they have a physical location where business is conducted. And, in competing for online visibility, they must win at every stage of the online buying journey…awareness, findability, reputation, conversion, and advocacy.
As a small business, you should know that you have big business tools and tactics available to you at a small business price. And, these tactics are not only available to you, they are essential to your business.
The state of local marketing and how it impacts customers’ buying behavior. We all know that things have changed!
Thanks to how quickly we can discover information, your customers know way more about your business before they set foot in your front door (physical or virtual).
Your digital marketing efforts help control WHAT they know.
This means your customers often know exactly what they want before they visit you.
In 2020, 93% of shoppers say they’ve used online resources (search, video, apps) while 83% of U.S. shoppers who visited a store said they used online search before going in. (Source: BrightLocal). And, if you think those 2020 numbers may be an anomaly because of COVID, they’re not…they’ve been consistently in this range and growing steadily based on the same annual research every year.
But, what exactly do we mean by “buying decisions”?
Before the internet and mobile devices existed, your customers discovered your business pretty simply!
First, an initial Stimulus would catch the attention of your customer — something like a radio ad, television spot, or a coupon in the phone book for your business.
Next, if this sparks their interest, they immediately head to your business. They buy the product or service they were interested in, and experience a “First Moment of Truth.”
Then, afterwards, they see if expectations match reality. Did they love their experience? Hate whatever it is they bought? Often, consumers share bad experiences with friends and family; that’s important to keep in mind…especially because of how things have changed.
People research your business before they enter your front door! They are making their decisions based on what they find online before you ever get to interact with them directly.
Research from Google shows that the moment people are making buying decisions is happening ONLINE. Google calls this the Zero-Moment-Of-Truth. And it’s happening every single day for your business. So, how do you positively impact this online buying behavior in favor of your business?
You have to stand out where customers are looking. Since 93% of consumers say they search for businesses online and buying decisions are made at the Zero Moment of Truth, you need to manage the entire customer journey online. Consumers are making an online buying decision (the ZMOT)…are they making that decision with your business or with a competitor?
To learn more about the stages of the digital buying journey and the Zero Moment of Truth, check out this article. The digital solutions we offer are designed to assist with each stage of the buying journey. Each solution is specialized but we bring them all together in our our digital Business Center to make it easy for busy small business owners to gain insights and manage their small business digital marketing efforts in one place.
