More and more businesses are realizing that they need online marketing to achieve their business goals. Whether you’re a multi-billion-dollar company or one with a turnover of just a few thousand dollars, the internet offers a wealth of opportunities to build your business. Of course, larger companies have different opportunities than smaller ones. In this article, I will give advice mainly to small and medium-sized businesses on what online marketing tools to use.
I have been working with small businesses for many years, and after all this time, I can summarize relatively easily what kind of advertising tools they prefer. Basically, they expect three things: that the ads are effective, that they are simple, and that they are scalable. Of course, not all ad tools are perfect in all three respects, but if they come close, they can be popular.
Of course, marketing is not just about advertising. Marketing is also about pricing, about products that are right for the customers and what they want, and about well-designed sales solutions. However, for smaller companies, much of this is either a given or determined by the market, so marketing focuses primarily on advertising solutions.
But before considering advertising options, it is worth thinking about communication. After all, business communication is more than just advertising, and this is particularly true on the internet. A company does not only communicate through (paid) advertising—there are many solutions that do not incur direct advertising costs. Of course, there are no truly free solutions; if nothing else, we pay for the time we spend using a communication channel. On the other hand, communication is also about the message and style. The wording of the message and its content have a big impact on the effectiveness of the advertising, so it is worth paying attention to these elements. Style, above all, is important to ensure that it is consistent and aligns with the company’s other communications.
For a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), the internet offers the following basic possibilities and tools:
- Own website or online shop
- Building and using an email database
- Social media presence
- Advertising
Although this list may seem simple, it encompasses a wide range of possibilities. In the following sections, I will describe each of them in detail.
Own Website or Online Shop
From time to time, I come across the opinion that a traditional website is unnecessary due to the availability of social media tools (especially Facebook). I believe it’s worth starting by addressing why an SME needs a website.
There are typically two types of arguments: one focuses on why having a website is beneficial, and the other explains why relying solely on other platforms is insufficient.
Why it is good to have a website:
Having your own website means full control. As long as you need it, it will function according to your preferences. You decide what content to include and what services to offer. The website’s appearance is exactly how you envision it, and the content is entirely of your creation.
You can measure everything on your own website. The only limitations are the measurement tools and technologies you choose. This means you can continuously gather a wealth of valuable information without restrictions.
A website demonstrates seriousness. If you have one, you establish a presence on the internet. Without one, there is limited or no information about you elsewhere, making your business appear less credible or established.
Why are other solutions not enough:
Social media services are not your own. If you have a Facebook page, it is ultimately Facebook’s property. They can do whatever they want with it—they can delete it, restrict access, or dictate what content you can post.
Not everyone uses social media. Even the most popular platform, Facebook, does not have 100% reach – not even close. If you want to ensure that everyone can find you, you need a website.
Finally, measuring the effectiveness of your social media use is much harder without a website. This means you would need to plan your communications and advertising with less data, which can negatively affect your strategy.
For these reasons, having a website is essential. And if you want to sell on the internet, you must also create or rent a webshop.
Using Email
For an SME, email is now a must: a dedicated email address, communication by email. But email can also be effective for advertising: you can send promotional letters and newsletters to potential or existing customers. To do this, however, you need some kind of email address list to which you can send the emails. There are several ways to get an email address list. For companies, you can send mail to their company email address without permission. For individuals, only with permission, which they either have to give you, or you have to buy an address list that not only has permission to send promotional mail, but also has permission from the subscribers to sell it to others.
From a marketing point of view, the most effective way is to build your own mailing list: where possible, you ask people to subscribe to newsletters, and in various ways you not only ask for their address but also for permission to send advertising. Some users subscribe without any incentive, all you need to do is give them the opportunity to do so: you put a subscribe box on your website, you give them a separate option to subscribe for purchases. But usually this is not enough. To give someone permission to send you promotional mailings or newsletters, you also need to use incentives.
Such an incentive could be a prize draw, in which participation is conditional on providing an address, or an incentive could be to make access to some content conditional on this. It is important to add value but also to provide an unsubscribe option in all cases.
Once you have the mailing list, it is up to you to create the content and send out the emails. Good content is either generally informative—which is what you expect from a newsletter—or it contains direct advertising, which is what eDM, or electronic direct mail, is for. A newsletter and eDM are technically the same, but their content differs. What is also important is that you use a tool for sending that is capable of measurement and designed for mass emailing. Such email-sending solutions will be marketing appropriate.
Effective email communication requires both good content and good technology. The most important element of an email is its subject line, as this is what the user will definitely see. It must be something that attracts attention. The content of advertising emails is usually short. The aim is to grab the user’s attention and then lead them to your website, where they can get more information or contact you.
It is worth testing your mailings. The right sending software can tell you how many people have opened the email and clicked on the links in it, so you can compare the effectiveness of different versions of the mail. What is the good subject matter that your subscribers respond to? What is the good content that sells?
Social Media
Many people associate the internet with social media services. We use Facebook, watch videos on YouTube, and scroll through Instagram or TikTok on our phones—all part of the daily routine for millions of people. SMEs can’t ignore these tools either, as you need to be present where you can reach your potential customers and where they can get in touch with you.
In the UK, Facebook has become a fundamental element of business communication. If your customers are not companies, you can almost certainly reach them here, and a significant number of your business partners are also likely to be on Facebook. Simply creating and running a Facebook page is no longer a unique tool; the real question is how you use it. There is no universal rule: posting once or twice a week can show that your company is active, but you can also post several times a day. However, Facebook is not particularly business-friendly. If you don’t spend money on advertising or pay to ensure your posts are shown to a large audience, your presence is unlikely to be effective. Therefore, always plan for advertising costs as part of your Facebook communication strategy.
The choice of which social media tool to use depends primarily on the nature of your business: who you are communicating with and what you are trying to achieve. However, it is also important to consider what is feasible. Video communication is highly effective, but producing high-quality videos can be expensive. Posting daily is valuable, but creating content is time-consuming. You need to plan carefully to determine what is manageable and what is not.
Experience shows that, in addition to Facebook, it is worth investing more energy in Instagram. If you can produce high-quality video content, including YouTube in your communication can also be highly effective.
Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile is also a social media service, as some of the content available there is opinion-based, and the information provided can, in certain cases, be modified by users. However, this service primarily ensures your presence on Google Maps. It is important to know that you can appear on the map even if you have not registered, but in this case, you still have the right to edit your profile. Make sure to get it, as this service is now an important communication point. When someone plans a route to your location or simply searches your name on Google, they’ll see your information here.
Advertisements
The most costly element of your marketing activities is advertising. Although all other tools incur costs (directly or indirectly), the money spent on advertising typically makes up the largest part of your marketing budget. The domestic SME sector often relies on Google’s advertising system, Google Ads, and Facebook’s advertising system. These tools allow you to reach audiences on Facebook, Instagram, Google search, YouTube, and thousands of other websites in the Google Display Network. If you want to advertise as an SME, these platforms are essential to consider.
In addition to these, it is also common for companies to purchase advertising on professional websites relevant to their industry. However, you should not overlook another advertising tool: listing sites. If you have an online shop, you may want to appear on price comparison sites such as PriceSpy or Idealo. If you offer accommodation, consider signing up with platforms like Booking.com, Expedia, or LateRooms. For real estate marketing, real estate aggregators such as Rightmove or Zoopla will be your key partners, and so on. These targeted listings can also be highly effective, so it’s worth testing them out.
Measure Everything!
I have written about testing several times. Testing is important because there are so many factors that can affect your results, making it impossible to provide ideas that will work equally well for all companies. That’s why it’s a good idea to structure your marketing, including your advertising, by starting in a pre-designed direction, then monitoring the results and making small adjustments—changing the targeting, the copy, the images used, the messages, etc. If the results improve, you’ve made a change for the better; if they get worse, you need to revert to the previous approach.
To perform this testing, you need to measure. Advertising tools can help you measure results, but they only show data related to the ads themselves. Therefore, it’s worth using additional measurement solutions. I recommend two widely used, free tools that can provide a wealth of data: Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Google Analytics shows what users are doing on your website. You can gather a lot of information, from the number of visitors to the time spent on the website and the source of the visits. With the right settings, you can see which of your ads have delivered the desired results. If you have an online store, you can also track where your customers came from, which channels brought in traffic, and much more.
Search Console shows you what Google search sees from your website. Here too, you receive a wealth of information, though it differs from what Analytics provides. This tool is particularly important if Google search plays a key role for your business, as it offers data specifically related to search visibility. For example, you can see which keywords and phrases your website appears for in the search engine, the average number of hits for each keyword, and so on. This tool is not primarily used for campaigns but for planning and monitoring your website’s performance.
Marketing Approach
The internet offers SMEs a wide range of opportunities to achieve their business goals. It is important to understand that there is no single solution that will be right for every business. However, in this article, I have outlined some of the most relevant solutions. At the same time, it is essential not to rely solely on tools; you will be effective if you have a plan, clear goals, and a strategy. It is important to adopt a marketing approach that helps you use these tools as part of a cohesive system, enabling you to communicate successfully.