Essential Marketing Channels for Your Small Business

Are you unsure where to spend your time and resources when it comes to digital marketing? No matter where your business is currently at when it comes to growing your business marketing remains crucial. If you are looking for new ways to aid your business’s growth, look at the below Essential Marketing Channels for Your Small Business.

Join social media

The first marketing channel to consider would be Social media. With more than 4.62 billion social media accounts worldwide social media has become one of the top places to interact with your target audience. Your competitors are already online and engaging with your target audience, so don’t miss out on potential sales get on social media today.

According to GWI a world-renowned audience targeting company specialising in audience insights, South Africans between the ages of 16-64 spend on average 5.37 hours a day on the internet. South Africa is also in the top ten countries for time spent on social media. The average person spends 3.43 hours a day on social media, substantially higher than the worldwide average of 2.27 hours.

It is reported that 61.1% of South African internet users aged 16-64 made use of social media to research brands and products, the worldwide average is only at 43.5%. The data speaks for itself, South Africans have grown accustomed to social media and that it is influencing our buying behaviour.

If ever you needed the motivation to get your business online. Think of it this way South Africans spend a great amount of time online and social media seems to be our preferred platform. Keep engaging your audience on social media with thoughtful content and it will increase the amount of traffic your business gets online and foster brand loyalty. We cannot get around it social media is here to stay, and it has many marketing opportunities for start-ups as well as recognised brands.

Get behind Videos content

It is becoming increasingly more difficult to effectively reach buyers online through text and images alone another marketing channel to consider would be video. Video marketing will aid your business in effectively reaching and engaging a bigger online audience. It will come as no surprise that most people prefer watching video content over reading, what might surprise you is that in a study conducted by Wysowl 86% of businesses already use video as a marketing tool. According to the same study, 92% of marketers continue to see the value of video as an important part of their marketing strategy.

Wysowl found that the top 4 types of video content created by brands were explainer videos, followed by social media videos, presentation videos and then video testimonials. Interestingly the motivation for video content differed between marketers with different brands measuring the success of their video marketing based on different outcomes.

62% of video marketers said they determined the success of a video based on the engagement their videos got. In addition, 60% of marketers reported that other criteria for measuring the success of a video were the number of leads the video brought in. But video marketing has many other benefits such as brand awareness and customer engagement

A staggering 81% of marketers reported that video directly aided them to increase sales, and if you aim to increase brand awareness, take the word of 93% of marketers who according to Wysowl said that video has helped them increase brand awareness. All around it seems that the benefits of video marketing are endless.

Create a blog

Creating a blog will benefit your business in multiple ways, from driving traffic to your website to promoting your products and services. It is a very effective marketing channel to educate your target audience and a great way to engage with potential clients.

Every blog you load to your website will also better the amount of traffic directed to your website through organic search. As you write blogs the number of pages on your site increases, and frequent blogs or new pages notifies the search engine bots that your website is active, this is a great way to organically increase your search results.

Blogs are also a fantastic way to engage your audience via social media, remember to share your blog content on your social media as well. This will attract potential new clients as well as build your brand awareness. Best of all whenever you share your blogs on social media you drive traffic back to your website.

You already have so much knowledge to share with your clients. Compile a list of tips or topics to educate your audience. Include content on the features and benefits your products have to offer. Write about a time your product helped solve a problem for one of your clients. Inform your readers about your team and what they bring to the business. Another content option is to share news and upcoming events with your clients.

Your blogs can also be used as an educational tool, make a list of frequently asked questions, and write blogs about these subjects, whenever potential new clients have questions guide them towards your blogs to help educate them. But consistency is key, keep engaging your reader and soon your archive of blogs will start to attract readers.

Get a Search engine optimised website

GWI also reported that 45.8% of internet users between the ages of 16-64 use the internet to research products and brands. In addition, 31.7% of internet users reported having used search engines to discover new brands, products, or services.

Search engine research ranked highest of all the platforms used to learn more about new brands or products including television adverts, word of mouth reviews, and even in-store product displays. So, your audience needs to be able to find you with ease online.  

61.4% of South African internet users admit to first researching brands, products, and services online before making a purchase. Worldwide ‘search engine research’ is listed as the number one platform buyers use when researching a brand. Your website is one of your biggest assets when engaging with potential clients. Have your web designer check that your website is search engine optimised (SEO) to ensure your website appears when potential buyers are looking for results online.

Paid Adverts

Another key marketing channel to pursue would be paid advertising. The world of digital paid advertising can be divided into two main fields being display adverts and search adverts.

Display adverts appear whenever someone fit within a pre-set criteria determined by the marketer. For example, demographics such as age, gender, location, hobbies & interests, careers and numerous other criteria are used to craft the perfect buyer persona. Your advert will only be shown to people who fit within these parameters whenever they browse the web or make use of social media platforms.

Search adverts appear whenever keywords are searched for matching your criteria with the use of search engines. Search ads can be described as a bidding process, whenever clients look up keywords relating to your business the top search result will be awarded to the marketer with the bigger ads budget.

Both options have their benefits and will allow you to reach potential buyers. Should your website not be ranking well in organic search results, consider investing in paid search advertising. Paid search advertising can aid your website to get listed in the top search results. Display adverts can aid you to reach potential clients who are unfamiliar with your brand, by targeting individuals who fit into your target market. This is a fantastic way to engage potential clients and build brand awareness.

We hope that your marketing journey will be very successful.

Yours in marketing
The Qum Studios Team

Want to learn more about other findings from the GWI report, go have a look at their research here.  Should you wish to read more about video research have a look at Wysowl data here