It’s been a while since the coronavirus made its arrival, and it’s an understatement to say that it has affected many lives and businesses.  With limits to physical activity, many aspects of life like socializing and shopping are making the shift over to the digital space. It’s safer, convenient, and can be just as effective. And this applies to business too! For many businesses, digital marketing has become an increasingly vital element for them to survive and grow.  So, if you happen to be an SME or small business owner that’s facing difficulties in maintaining your business or just one who is looking for different opportunities during the pandemic, read on below to see how you can help your business thrive with digital marketing! Digital marketing tactics to us

1. Tread into e-commerce

Due to tighter restrictions, increased wariness of going out among people, and other effects, traditional brick-and-mortar stores have been seeing a decline as a result of the pandemic. On the other hand, online shopping has only been growing massively. For this reason, it’s now a good time to start picking up e-commerce! Besides opening yourself to a lot more customers, getting into e-commerce also comes with benefits like lower operating costs, greater flexibility in managing operations, being able to collect customer data, and having an always-open store. In other words, it’s all the good of running an actual store and more, with none of the hassle of maintaining a physical location. If you have a traditional store, don’t worry too much about it going obsolete as you can most definitely run both a physical and e-commerce website at once. In fact, having both can allow you to reap the benefits of physical and online! 

2. Join the online marketplace

Just like with e-commerce, shopping at online marketplaces has grown quite popular in recent times due to the pandemic. But while e-commerce websites can bring in customers, they do not necessarily have the exposure to attract many visitors and prospects.  And this is where joining an online marketplace becomes a great idea! The main benefit to online marketplaces is that they are already well-established, which means you likely get to see more customers (such as from abroad) as well as enjoy higher levels of trust from them. Plus, the nature of marketplaces means that you have access to features like automation and analytics along with lower costs of setup and marketing. Compared to having your own e-commerce website, joining an online marketplace is easier as you don’t have to create and maintain a website of your own. 

3. Connect with wider audiences through social media

These days, it would be fairly difficult to find any successful business that isn’t active on social media. With many users across each platform, any business looking to keep up or stay ahead of the competition should most definitely have social media in their arsenal. Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, there are tons of audiences and customers using these platforms. As long as you have the right social media strategy, you can turn these social media users into prospective customers and leads for your business。 However, due to how many other competitors there are on social media, you will need to have the right approach to connect with wider audiences effectively. While there’s no one definitive strategy, some popular social media tactics in digital marketing include:

• Create videos on interesting topics
• Host giveaways or contests 
• Show appreciation for fans and followers
• Engage with users on a personal level (e.g., ask-me-anythings, answer questions)

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! When it comes to social media, the possibilities of connecting with your audiences are endless. As long as you have a strategy that resonates with your brand, it won’t be long before social media starts bringing in new customers to you.

4. Take up paid advertising online

The digital space has grown quite massively over the years, and the number of people online – both consumers and competitors alike – has gone up exponentially. For this reason, there’s no better way to help your business thrive than by advertising online! Aside from increasing your brand awareness, digital advertising has a couple of advantages not always found in traditional advertising, namely its cost-effectiveness, great reach, promising returns, measurable performance, and comparatively lower costs.  Just like how traditional ads come in print, television, and radio, digital advertising also comes in various types, such as: 

• Search engine ads (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)
• Display ads (e.g., Google Display Network)
• Mobile ads
• Social media ads (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.)
• Email ads 

If anything, digital advertising can be quite a worthwhile expenditure for your business. If you want a digital marketing strategy that works, digital advertising is a solid and effective way to put your brand in front of online audiences without having to break the bank. 

5. Get on board with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Just like how much time people now spend on the Internet, search engines are also used a lot nowadays. If you want your business to thrive, then it pays to have it show up on search result pages (especially the coveted first page) through search engine optimisation!  One of the aspects of digital marketing, SEO essentially involves making adjustments and tweaks to push your brand to the top of search engine result pages (SERPs). When done right, your business will appear in your audiences’ searches more frequently and visibly, which, in turn, increases the number of leads and prospects you can get. It’s also worth mentioning that SEO does not cost money, unlike paid advertising. However, the extent to which you can help your brand stand out solely with SEO is not as high. In any case, SEO should be seen as more of a supplementary way for boosting your business’s visibility instead of being the primary solution.

6. Utilize online marketing channels

The online world is growing rapidly, which means there’s a lot of business potential to be had by getting the people online to know and develop interest in your brand! For this purpose, it’s a good idea to employ various digital marketing channels in marketing your brand. For example, here are some common types of online marketing:

• Content marketing (e.g. videos, images, infographic, etc.)
• Influencer marketing (e.g., having influencers promote or endorse products, etc.)
• Email marketing 
• Affiliate marketing 

While each one is different in execution, all these types of marketing have the same goal: to boost audience engagement and interest in your business. Depending on your business’s needs, you can employ these digital marketing strategies one at a time or simultaneously.

7. Make the move to hosting virtual events

If your business centers around events and shows, it’s sad to say that physical events aren’t doing too well at the moment. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the towel, though! Thanks to technology, now is a good time to start considering virtual events! Being fully online, the primary advantage to virtual events is that anyone can participate, even from the comfort of their own homes. Not only is it safer for everybody, but the virtual nature of virtual events means that you can reach both your existing customers as well as new ones online just as easily – all without having to worry about venue spaces and bigger costs. Although virtual events might seem more restricted in terms of creative execution compared to physical ones, virtual events can be conducted in a variety of engaging ways:

• Webinars
• Online workshops
• Online shows & events
• Virtual reality expos

This works even better if you can offer incentives like giveaways or having well-known speakers at your virtual event. As long as you can create an interactive and enriching experience for your audiences, virtual events can be just as, if not more, effective as a physical event in helping your business grow. 

Conclusion

Like it or not, the pandemic has most certainly upended many businesses and parts of life. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get back up again!  By leveraging these digital marketing tactics above, it’s definitely possible to help your business find its footing during these tough times – if anything, you might just find the solution you’ve always needed for helping your business grow. If you happen to need some advice in digital marketing or perhaps even a professional to take care of things for you, then don’t hesitate to reach out to Artisense! With our team of qualified professionals, you can rest assured that we’ll have your needs sorted out.