Digital marketing is a big phrase that covers a small idea: being findable by the people who are already looking for what you sell, and staying in touch with the people who have already bought.
The phrase has attracted a lot of jargon and a lot of agencies. Strip that away and there are only a few channels that matter for a small business. This is my attempt to explain each one without the buzzwords, and to say honestly which are worth your time.
Being found: search
When someone types "plumber Norwich" or "gift shop near me" into Google, the results are the most valuable advertising space in the world, because the person has told you exactly what they want.
There are two ways to appear there. Search engine optimisation is the unpaid route: having a fast, clear website with pages that answer the questions people actually search for, and a Google Business Profile that is kept up to date. It is slow to build and cheap to run. Paid search is buying an advert at the top of those results. It works immediately and stops the moment you stop paying.
For most local businesses, a well-maintained Google Business Profile does more than any other single thing. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and it is where your reviews, photos, and opening hours live.
Staying in touch: email
Email is unfashionable and it is still the channel with the best return for small businesses. Every other platform decides who sees your message. Your email list is yours.
A list of a few hundred customers who have bought from you before, contacted once a fortnight with something genuinely useful, will outperform almost any advertising budget. The hard part is not sending emails. It is collecting the addresses in the first place, which means asking at the till, on the website, and in every parcel.
Being seen: social media
Social media is where most small businesses spend most of their marketing time, and it is usually the channel with the least to show for it. That is not because it does not work. It is because "posting" is not a strategy.
Social platforms are good at two things. They let existing customers remember you exist, and they let those customers show you to their friends. They are poor at reaching strangers unless you pay. Pick one platform where your customers actually are, post consistently about the real life of the business, and treat it as a way to be recommended rather than a way to advertise.
Paying for attention: advertising
Online advertising lets you show a message to a very specific group of people and measure exactly what happened next. Google Ads catches people who are searching. Facebook and Instagram ads catch people who match a description. Both can be switched on with a small budget and switched off the same day.
The trap is running adverts to a website that does not convert. Advertising multiplies whatever your site already does. If the site is slow, confusing, or has no clear next step, advertising just gets you to disappointing results faster.
Measuring: the part everyone skips
Digital marketing is worth doing because you can see what worked. Every channel above can tell you how many people it sent to your site and what they did there. Ten minutes a week looking at those numbers will tell you more than any expert can.
The questions to ask are simple. Where did the visitors come from? Which pages did they look at? Did they call, buy, or leave? Which channel sent the people who bought? Move your effort towards whatever the answers point at.
Why it matters
Your customers are already online, comparing, reading reviews, and deciding before they ever walk through the door or pick up the phone. Digital marketing is simply making sure that when they do that, they find you, they like what they see, and they remember you next time.
It does not need a large budget. It needs a clear website, a claimed Google listing, an email list, and the discipline to keep in touch. Everything else is optional.
If you want a second opinion on where your marketing effort should go, get in touch. I am happy to look at what you are doing and tell you which of these channels I would focus on first.
