Every business wants to grow, to get bigger in size, sales, and eventually able to make more profit. For a small business, especially those that have just started, growth should be a priority, at least for a certain period. For Achieving this goal, small business owner must pay attention to their marketing strategy. Marketing activities, from market research, channel selection, content creation, to execution and evaluation, all of them are responsible to get new customers.

But, there is a Not a Perfect Word problem. It was well known that small business usually have limited resources, both in capital, technology, and human resources. With these type of challenges, it's more reasonable for small businesses to engage in digital marketing instead of traditional marketing.
So, what digital marketing strategy can small business owners apply?

1.) Create both desktop and mobile version
We used to access digital media from PC, but it has been almost a decade since smartphone revolutionized the way society consume information. Now, people access internet from their phone more often than they do from their laptop. As a small business owner, this is something that you must put into consideration. Your digital store, or website for your service, must be accessible from both desktop computer and smartphone. websites built for desktop look, without the right setting, can look distorted in mobile, or vice versa. So, make sure you have configured mobile version for your website.

2.) Don't overkill the technology
Digital marketing is a wide subject, and there are so many options available for you as business owners to implement. I know how tempting it is to buy a lot of software and marketing services such as paid advertising to get your business out of its stagnant phase.
However, you can’t purchase anything blindly, including technology. It seems like a good decision and has a long term benefit to buy a marketing software that has complete feature even if it is a bit pricey. However, only do this after you’ve analyzed potential ROI (Return on Investment) or it’s Cost/Benefit. Only after do quantitative analysis you can get exact number to support your decision. If you only buy a technology because you think it will be useful later, it will only become your liability instead of assets.
Eventually, just use software that you need unless you’ve done your long term projection. If available, buy version that is suitable for small business, which usually costs less than technology for Enterprise. Prefer to Purchase Software that are scalable, or can be upgraded later when you need it.

3. ) Use tools for analytic
A lot of business owners like digital marketing As it is Affordable & Effective As well. However, to say that something is effective, one must do a careful analysis for it. Just because you think you get more customers or orders than usual after you install new software or service, doesn’t mean that your investment is worth it. Analytic tools that show you ROI, such as how much leads you get from a campaign or your conversion rate during certain period, is important not only to see whether the money you’ve spent bring back enough to pay it back, but also to plan your future digital marketing strategy.

4. ) Focus on social media marketing
Social media has become almost everybody's address and phone number. So, it makes sense for any business owner, not just small business owner, to spend some effort in social media marketing.
There are two kinds of digital marketing strategy for social media. First, using paid advertising and second, using organic reach. Both have their advantage and disadvantage, and both are actually recommended even for small business owner.
Paid advertising in social media is effective to gain leads to your website. Facebook and Instagram are two most popular social media for small business owner, which is understandable, since the two are social media with the most number of users. Another advantage of paid advertising in social media is they are able to target specific users that will be more likely to be interested with your business.
But, organic reach is even better. While the reach or coverage of your post won't be as wide as paid advertising in your initial days, as time goes by, it will grow along with your business. Paid advertising will bring you leads during the time the ads are broadcasted, but not more. Meanwhile, your organic post will always stay in your social media feed, and as your followers grow, so does your reach.

5.) Encourage customers to share information
Imagine if you are a customer of your own business. What makes you decide to trust this business and buy from there? Is it because the website looks visually appealing, because the website explained about how they'll solve your problem enough, or because your friend recommended it?
Visual appeal is usually enough to catch people's attention, but not to gain their trust. Complete information will appeal to meticulous customers, but for most people, other people's recommendation seal the deal. It’s because they assume other people have no reason to lie to them. So, the best digital strategy you can apply for your business is to encourage people to share information about your website.
Make content that isn’t just about advertising, but about useful information that people would be willing to share to other people. You can also encourage previous customers to leave reviews, or write testimonials in their social media. All of these will give your website quite a number of social proof, and this will increase your visitor or first-time customer’s trust toward your service, which eventually will lead to conversion.

Having small business doesn't mean you'll get small result as well. Instead with smart digital marketing strategy for small business, you can grow big and win bigger. The key is to not overdoing the strategy, instead choose only several strategy that is appropriate for your level of business.