Doing Digital Marketing the Economic Way - Top Tips for Your 2021 Marketing Strategy

Towards the end of every year, right before the holidays start, industry experts around the globe sit down to write about their predictions for the upcoming year.

While it is an amazing practice, especially when it comes to building authority, most predictions made before 2020 started fell flat because of the unexpected way this year has turned out.

The digital marketing industry, however, was an exception. Look at this prediction article published by Digital Marketing Institute in January 2020. Most of the predictions made here, like the peaking popularity of Facebook, the use of chatbots for customer servicing, and the importance of good content in the right context, all held true throughout the year.

In fact, it would not be wrong to say that the dependence of businesses on digital marketing has increased exponentially in 2020.

While many businesses were reaping the benefits of their investment in digital marketing, there are also others that are barely able to stay afloat, thanks to the global lockdown and social distancing restrictions.

As a result, many small businesses are entering the new year with a lean marketing budget.

Whatever digital marketing trends may become popular in 2021, squeezing out the maximum value from every marketing dollar will be high on the priority list for most small businesses.

If you identify with the previous statement, you have landed on the right article.

In the following sections, I am going to discuss marketing strategies and tactics that won’t break the bank and if done right, will still help your organization regain its footing in the market and consistently generate more business.

Without further delay, let us jump right into it:

Be Present Only On Relevant Social Networks and Use Them to Sell 

Over the past few years, we have all witnessed the rise of a number of different social media platforms, all targeting a different niche, all offering a different, seemingly more engaging set of features. Just as easy as it is for individuals to be enticed by the emerging social networks,  there are many brands that are trying their best to engage their audiences on as many platforms as possible.

However, this strategy is not only an expensive one to execute, it is also counterproductive.

The expensive part is pretty self-explanatory- generating content for multiple platforms, even if you are repurposing a major chunk, is an expensive undertaking. Not to forget, keeping track of engagements and hygiene on various platforms is a task that demands dedicated resources.

The reason maintaining your brand presence of many social media platforms is counterproductive is because there is a good chance (for most niches) that a major percentage of your audience is present on only one or two platforms. That’s why, it only makes sense to identify these and target them exclusively.

Now that we have understood why you should only target one or two social media platforms, let us talk about how you can utilise them to sell your products, and why you should.

According to Massimiliano Tirocchi, CMO and co-founder, Shapermint, the way we use social media is evolving. He predicts that social media will evolve from being a discovery-first platform to being used for seamless purchases.

When you think about it, the ability to purchase directly from a platform like Instagram or Facebook will reduce the number of steps that a prospect has to take in order to become a customer. In other words, purchasing directly from social media based stores is a more seamless way to make purchases than the currently present alternative (discovering the desired product on a social media platform and then going to the website to purchase).

With social media based stores popping up on more platforms and becoming available in more locations, it is the ideal time for small businesses to start using them to their advantage.

Produce Short Videos and Use Them To Build Ad Campaign Audiences

Pick any article about the upcoming digital marketing trends and you will see a mention of the importance of videos in a modern digital marketing strategy.

In fact, these mentions have been included in prediction articles for several years now and each year, the importance of videos in marketing is becoming more and more critical. 2020 was no exception to this fact and 2021 is not expected to be any different.

In other words, producing high quality, engaging video content will no more be an option for brands that take their marketing seriously.

Thankfully, as the importance of video in marketing has increased, producing decent quality, engaging videos has become easier and more economical.

Small business owners can start producing short engaging videos with the help of only one device, a smartphone. 

With the rise in popularity of platforms like Tiktok, and Instagram’s Reel feature, it is clear that the popularity of short videos is not a passing farce but a trend that is here to stay. 

The best part is, on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, short videos, if they are engaging enough, can help you save some serious money on your social media advertising efforts.

However, in order to enjoy this benefit, you will need a well planned strategy to roll out your short videos. Basically, the planning will be needed to ensure that you are able to consistently produce videos that interest and more importantly, engage your ideal audience.

When you have garnered enough engagements, you can use the targeting options available on Facebook to target the people that have engaged with your content. To take this a step further, you can then go on to create lookalike audiences that have similar attributes to the people that are already engaging with your content.

This way, you can potentially save thousands of dollars in testing your ads and ensure you are targeting your ideal customers from the get go.

Track Search Engine Algorithm Updates and Produce High-Quality Content

No article about economical digital marketing is complete without a section dedicated to search engine optimisation. 

When done right, search engine optimization is perhaps one of the most cost effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your website.

However, the “when done right” part is tricky, especially for those who don’t know what they are doing.

With that said, search engines and the practice of optimisation for them has been around for long enough now. In my opinion, it is high time that small business owners start learning about the basics. This way, they can at least ensure that they aren’t being ripped off by pretentious “experts”.

The simplest way to improve your search engine optimisation knowledge is to get acquainted with search quality guidelines published by Google.

It is a lengthy document but it will help you make sense of all the activities and services involved in search engine optimization. Whether it is blog outreach services or producing “high quality” content, these guidelines will give you enough knowledge that you can make informed SEO decisions with confidence.

Conclusion

One of the reasons digital marketing became popular in the first place was that it is a cost effective and affordable way to reach targeted audiences. 

By choosing the right platforms for marketing, learning about and using their features to your advantage, and keeping up with the best practices laid out by search engines, I hope that you will be able to continue marketing your business on the web in 2021, without breaking the bank.

If you have questions or queries, feel free to drop them in the comment section, I promise to be prompt with my replies.