As a business owner, you may be looking for a social media marketer who can translate your brand into creative content online, driving more traffic to your website and creating more sales. There are many reasons to market your business digitally, but the main reason is because it works. Social media is everywhere. According to a global survey completed in January 2021 by Hootsuite, 84.9% of the global population are active social media users. In Canada, that translates to 32M users. That’s an astounding reach for one marketing campaign. The same research reports that 81.5% of users searched online for a product or service to buy and 76.8% of those searching purchased a product online. That’s a market you can’t afford to ignore.
Online marketing can be a steep learning curve and requires a considerable amount of time to master, especially at the beginning. That’s time better spent on running your business. Also, you may not want or need someone in-house full time, like many small or home-based businesses. Digital marketing requires consistent effort over a long period of time. There are new trends and apps arriving almost daily on our screens and you may not want or have the time to research each of them to see if they would be beneficial to your business.
It’s important to note that not all marketing plans are created equally. Marketing your bakery would be completely different than marketing your tire shop. Capturing a beautiful croissant or a freshly baked scone makes for great mouth-watering presentation, while a picture of a tire is…. well, a picture of a tire. You must find your “hook” or discover what is unique about your business that makes customers want to buy. And how do you find those customers? Have you identified your ideal client? How old are they? Where do they work? What are they reading? What websites are they visiting? What social media platforms do they use? These are all important questions to consider when creating your marketing plan.
Another important point to know is this: using social media to market your brand is not the same thing as digital marketing. Posting a picture of your product is great but there are dozens of tips and tricks to use that post to increase your followers and drive more traffic to your website which translates into more customers. Unless you have someone in-house full time, you may not be aware of how effective digital marketing can be.
For example, if you want to send a monthly enewsletter (which is arguably still the best way to reach your customers), do you know how to come up with content? Are you a writer? Do you know how to increase subscribers? Do you know how to manage your subscriber list?
What about creating posts for platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.? Do you know how to increase followers? Do you know how to steer your readers back to your website?
What about buying ad space on these platforms? Do you know how much to spend or pay per click? Or is it necessary to purchase ads? Do you know anything about SEO (search engine optimization)? Do you know how to find keywords that will draw customers to you? And which social media apps should you use? Do you know how to find the one or ones that best reflects your product and market share?
By contracting this service out, you don’t require office space like you would for an employee, so your costs are kept to a minimum. Unlike employees, you don’t have to pay a full-time salary, benefits or vacation time, but you still have someone on your side who has put in the time to master digital skills, someone who is aware of the new trends and apps arriving almost daily on our screens.
If any of this sounds like something you may want or need, please let me know. I’d be happy to listen to what’s working for you and what’s not, and perhaps come up with a plan to market your business online.
Call me at (780) 951-2530 or shoot me an email at yvonne@uptowncreative.ca.
