Digital Marketing Toolkit for Start Ups and SMBs

This year I began consulting for a small carpentry business to introduce them to digital marketing and kick-start their digital transformation journey. I began listening to how they do business, understanding the different personality types in the company along with understanding what sells. From there, I created a personalized digital marketing road-map. I have put together a tool kit for SMBs of my top 5 digital marketing activities to consider based on my findings.

1. CRM System

The first piece of software every start up/small business should invest in is a good CRM that will enable you to scale and meet your specific business needs. Personally, I am a huge advocate for Salesforce but if you are a small business with minimal resources or digital experience, perhaps Hubspot could be a better fit. Plus its free!

The purpose of a CRM system is to manage all customer relationships; both current and prospective, track opportunities, integrate analytics & emails and fundamentally be a "'one source of the truth' when it comes to customer engagements and forecasting. Spending time at the start to import all your customer contacts and engagements can be tiresome but well worth the effort down the line! You will never loose track of a customer engagement again.

2. Marketing Campaigns

If you are a start up or small business and are not continuously and consistently reaching out to your customers to stay top of mind, be prepared to be left behind!

When it comes to marketing plans, take the time to map out your customer journey. What do you want your customer to do? What actions do you what them to take? Taking this time at the beginning will ensure you optimize your campaign for the best chance of success.

Some good marketing campaigns could be an upcoming webinar, a new product release, a new Christmas promotion. Whatever the outreach is, ensure you plan out your campaign and follow up on all clicks with a sales call and/or follow up email.

3. Social Media

Did you know that 78% of businesses now have dedicated teams for their social media? Yet only 4% of organizations are aligning their skills training with their digital strategy!

Start ups and small businesses, in particular, should have no excuses for not leveraging social media tools. They are free and almost all your customers are using at least one platform. I encourage everyone in the business to 'think digitally'. Every interaction point with a customer, you should be thinking "how can I leverage this on my social media?".

I recently consulted for a carpentry company to help them digitally transform and educate everyone on the power of social selling. I was astonished to learn that they had no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or blog even though most of their work is home renovations. Social media is today's generation's primary source of information. Whats more is that this company had no customer engagement practice. If a customer was happy with their new kitchen, they did not ask for a customer testimonial, they didn't take a photograph of the happy customer and capture this on their website/ social media platforms and they didn't encourage the customer to leave some positive feedback on their social medial channels.

We are becoming swamped with new social media tools so my recommendation would be to adopt one or two platforms to start, grab a cup of coffee in the morning while reading your emails and post something. Whether it is a relevant quote, a team picture, a promotion offering, whatever it is, get into the habit of posting daily. You will be surprised what opportunities can come from it.

4. Photography

In recent years photography has become more and more popular. Whats more, is that it compliments social media beautifully! People buy experiences, not products. This means that you can no longer rely on solely promoting your product or service. Factors such as company culture, office space and latest trends all add to why someone would choose you over your competitor. And what better way to capture this than with a photograph! After all, a picture tells a thousand words.

I would recommend investing in a good beginners DSLR for social events, conferences, customer testimonials etc. If you have limited resources, iPhones and Samsung phones have great quality cameras with a broad range of filters that integrate nicely with social media platforms. Find out what works best for you and be consistent. Personally, a good photograph could be the difference between me buying something or just another LinkedIn update on my feed!

5. Website

Last but not least, your website. Your website is your online identity. It needs to be clear, visual, target and most of all relevant. Your website is a living organ yet so many small businesses do not invest enough time to update their website continuously.

Personally, the best websites are those that understand their niche and target those individuals directly. So many small businesses fall into the trap of trying to be a one size fits all to gain a broad scope of the market. This approach only leaves a buyer confused and frustrated that they cannot understand your offering. Be clear with your value proposition so when a prospect lands on your page they understand exactly what you do without having to click their mouse! If your niche is in automotive and healthcare, for example, create dedicated pages for this on your website with all relevant content, collateral, customer references and links in one place.

This sums up my digital marketing toolkit for start ups and small businesses, For more information, contact me through my page and I will be happy to answer any questions you have!