BY Rachel Cagle
73% of SMBs lack confidence in their marketing strategies, says Constant Contact in a recent report. In order to build an innovative digital marketing framework, your SMB clients need a few questions answered. Here’s what they are and how to respond.
SMBs Need an Innovative Digital Marketing Framework
Which Marketing Channels Should They Leverage?
Only 16% of SMBs feel confident that they’re using the right marketing channels to reach their target audience. 82% know that using multiple marketing channels typically leads to better results. So, 62% regularly use more than one channel in their campaigns and another 41% plan to increase their channels.
The channels SMBs are using the most frequently right now include:
- Social Media: 60% of SMBs use this marketing channel
- Email: 53%
- Website (including SEO, blogs, content marketing, etc.): 49%
- Text and SMS: 20%
- Events: 19%
That current mix leaves so much room for innovative digital marketing.
Want to figure out which types of ads your client’s target audience responds to the best/most often? Check out their profile on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel. There, you’ll see which percentages of the audience took action after seeing/hearing various ads within the last year.
Don’t be afraid to push your SMB clients out of their comfort zones. Constant Contact says that SMBs are likely to stick with what they know and what’s cost-effective to implement. But using ads their target audience are receptive to will make any costs worth it in ROI.
What Content Resonates with Their Target Audience(s)?
Sometimes the most innovative digital marketing starts with simple content creation for your client’s website. So, hopefully your clients are among the 49% of SMBs already utilizing website marketing. But that’s far too low of a percentage, especially considering how effective content marketing is.
To get them started, you need to know what types of content resonate the best with their target audience. You can use AI to help them get started. According to a previous SalesFuel blog based on Content Marketing Institute data, AI can help your client:
- Brainstorm new topics: 51% of marketers use AI for this task
- Research headlines, keywords, etc.: 45%
- Write drafts: 45%
Essentially, AI can help your client find out what types of questions your client’s target audience is asking search engines. Then it can filter the questions surrounding your client’s expertise and that’s what your client’s content needs to focus on.
But what about content types? Content Marketing Institute says that these are the content types that produce the best results for marketers:
- Case Studies and Customer Stories: 53% of marketers agree
- Videos: 53%
- Thought Leadership eBooks and White Papers: 51%
- Short Articles and Posts: 47%
- Research Reports: 43%
How Can They Create a Strategy That Achieves Their Goals?
Overall, your SMB clients need help creating innovative digital marketing that gives them the results they need. Along with expanding their marketing channels and taking advantage of content marketing, what else can you do to help?
For starters, you can help them overcome their top challenges, including:
- Finding new customers
- Determining what’s working
- Finding resources
- Retaining current customers
- Sending the right messages
Your existing expertise should already give you a solid head start on solving these problems. For everything else, go back to AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel. There, you can find:
- Demographic and intended purchasing information on the audience
- Their marketing preferences
- How they want their purchases to make them feel
- What they expect from brands
As for resources, along with AudienceSCAN, you can encourage them to use AI to help with content creation.
With the answers to these three questions, you’re set up perfectly to create innovative digital marketing strategies.
Photo by: Microsoft 365