A Small Business Owner's Guide to Recovering From The Pandemic - Part 2: 14 Essential Digital Marketing Tips to Increase Sales!

The Complete Small Business Owner's Guide: 7 Additional Digital Marketing Tips To Try When Recovering From the Pandemic

Last week we posted the first 7 Essential Digital Marketing Tips to Increase Sales of 14 that we think every small business owner should try. Everyone knows that last year was not the easiest year to be a small business owner and we understand that some might need a little extra guidance when it comes to recovering from the pandemic.

Many businesses which were forced to shut their doors in 2020 did so partly, because of a lack of effective and much-needed digital marketing. But lucky for you, we work with business owners small and large across the country who are experiencing the same struggles right now and we are here to help! 

We have selected our favorite 14 tips that will increase your business's sales and help relieve some of the stress on your plate due to the aftermath of covid restrictions.

The Final 7 of 14 Essential Digital Marketing Tips to Increase Sales

1-7. A Small Business Owner's Guide to Recovering From The Pandemic - Part 1: 7 Essential Digital Marketing Tips to Increase Sales 

8. Investing in Local SEO Might Just Be Your Smartest Investment

For anyone who might not know, local SEO is essentially what allows local customers to find your business. Local SEO is vital for any business that is quickly trying to bring in more customers and ultimately make more sales. It helps your business show up in local customers' search results.

We understand the entrepreneurial mindset of small business owners. We realize you don't have the time nor the patience and quite frankly the expertise to invest and wait years, to finally show up when someone a mile away searches for their specialty.

There are many different organic ways to improve your local SEO but for small business owners who are trying to make ends meet while recovering from the strict pandemic restrictions, we recommend outsourcing the tedious SEO work. 

9. Take Advantage of The Power Behind Blogging and Social Posting

We have noticed that over the years many small business owners have become increasingly aware of the fact that you need to be utilizing blogging and social posting. 

That is fantastic.

Yet somewhere a disconnect still exists. Many small business owners are still not taking advantage of the power behind both blogging and social posting.  

Blogging and social posting are a huge part of improving local SEO. 

It's sad to see so many businesses ignoring the benefits of both. Especially when paired together, they create power for Google, your prospects, and customers. 

Again, we understand that taking the time to create all of the content or hiring someone to do that weekly can get costly. That's why we recommend taking advantage of proprietary software that does it all for you.  

10. Take the Time To Optimize for Mobile 

By the end of 2020, half of all website traffic was generated by mobile devices and tablets. This raises the question, why wouldn't someone optimize their website for mobile? 

There was a time in history when you weren't able to have a website both viewable on mobile and laptops. 

Thankfully that has changed. 

Mobile optimization is the process of adjusting your website's content so that it is easily viewable and customized to a viewer's device. 

Is your site mobile-friendly? 

Prospects will quickly leave a site on mobile due to the difficult user experience (UX) versus their UX on desktop. 

Don't let a bad pop-up block your chances of increasing sales.

11. Claim and Grow Your Google My Business

Another great tool available to small business owners trying to recover from the pandemic is Google My Business (GMB). 

GMB is basically a free way to get your business online and in front of the right potential customers. 

GMB gives prospects and customers general knowledge such as hours, location, specials, and anything else you might need someone to know before coming to your business. 

In the days of recovering from the last year, GMB is a great tool for small businesses to communicate essential information to customers about how the business is handling the restrictions and if the business has any changes going forward.

GMB also holds great power when it comes to reviews and SEO that we will address next! 

12. Motivate Customers To Leave Honest Reviews 

A lot of people don't realize the power of honest customer reviews for a small business online. 

Not only do reviews help others to make a judgment of your business online, but organically reviews help with SEO by simply sending a link to a customer.

GMB is a great place to encourage customers to leave reviews along with other sites such as Yelp, Tripadvisor, and many more. 

It is important though to encourage honest reviews and moderate them in the meantime. 

Any reviews that are seen by the AI as spam or fake will only hurt your business more than helping. 

13. Use Social Media Channels But Be Wary

We have written in previous blog posts about the benefits and downfalls of social media marketing, a myriad of times. 

Right now for small business owners, we suggest picking no more than a few social media channels that work best for your business. This means wherever you have found your target customers spend their time online, go for that and again target them within that app. 

But don't be taken in by every new social platform that comes along. 

Social media marketing has become a rocky road with so many policy changes across platforms that will change the way we advertise and market online. 

It is important to use social media moving forward but pretty much follow the appropriate saying with Easter coming up, don't put all your eggs in one digital basket. 

Utilize all 14 of these tips and do not focus solely on social for digital marketing success.

14.  Email Marketing Is The Last Man Standing

As anyone in marketing knows, the trends have changed over the years. 

One thing that has remained a constant, is email marketing. 

If you're a small business owner and you're not running email campaigns and segmenting your audiences we hate to break it to you...you're losing out on a lot of customers and sales. 

Luckily, email marketing isn't going anywhere. So you haven't started yet? We suggest getting a move on it. 

There are many reasonably priced, and even freemium plans and free email marketing services online that can help you develop and design campaigns yourself. 

But like we've mentioned before, you get what you pay for and that can be tedious and time-consuming.

Hiring a digital marketing agency and coming up with a plan is the most efficient and effective way to gain ROI and increase sales. 

You Have the Complete Guide Now... How Are You Going To Customize It to your Small Business?

Now that you have all 14 of our top tips for every small business owner recovering from the pandemic, what are you going to do with them? 

It is beyond time for us to help you out with a completely free digital marketing audit valued at $2500. 

With that, you will be able to take all of your knowledge you have learned from this guide, and use the information from the audit to create a completely custom digital marketing plan. 

With the help of our proprietary software and a completely custom digital marketing plan in place, an increase in sales will be in your near future without breaking the bank.

We're in the business of building businesses and we're ready to help you get your business back in the black! 

Email info@shaneshirleymedia.com today to schedule a call with our President to get your digital marketing audit scheduled and start the road to recovery! 

Guest Post by Reece Smith, EVP