Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 157 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.
Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!
If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love to you take a screenshot and share it on your socials and tag me in it. How cool would that be!
Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/157
Before we get started today, can I ask you a huge favour? Could you please share this episode with 1 other small business owner who you think might like/need to listen in to today’s ep or any other? If you’re on my email list, forward the email to them or perhaps tag them on your socials or mine to let them know to listen in?
I have some goals I have set back at the start of the year around this podcast and I’d really love to hit them and I’d love my community to help me to that! And of course, to hit that goal, I’d love some more listeners!
Thank you – I love my podcast community – so thank you!
Ok, onto today’s episode. 10 essential tips for digital success.
Many of these tips you’ve heard from me at some time or another. There is really nothing new here – but these are all little reminders of things we need to be doing.
Those things you hear and put on the “one day” list – and frankly, some of the things on that list never get to the top – I know, I’m the queen of lists!
So, take all these tips as your nudge to do them, tweak them, look at the data from them or keep doing the amazing job you are – whatever one fits – but I suspect the nudge one might be the most popular!
Righto,
- Know WHO your who is! See I told you you’ve heard them before!
But in all seriousness, if you don’t know who you’re targeting with your digital media, whether paid or unpaid, then you are going to get either skewed resulted or no results or the results you don’t want – aka attract the wrong type of customers/clients.
Do some work on your ideal customer – and if you’ve done it before, do it again because, in all honesty, the person you were marketing to pre-pandemic is NOT the same person you are marketing to now. That can swing either way – a good way or a bad way and by bad I mean you are pushing the wrong message and using the wrong language now.
Do some work on it – it WILL pay off, I 100% guarantee it.
- Know what you want to be famous for.
Again, the you who owned and ran the business in 2019 is probably not the same person who’s running it now! Just like your ideal client has probably changed, you have to.
Take some time to look at what you REALLY want your business to look like, who you REALLY want as customers/clients and what you want to be top of mind famous for.
Maybe you’ve been selling 1:1 services and don’t want to anymore. Maybe you’ve been selling candles but your newfound passion is cushions and you want to sell them now and be known for that – it’s ok to change your business model.
But you have to be honest with yourself and don’t do the definition of insanity – “ doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That little saying goes for number 1 too!
Get clear on what you want to be famous for.
- Be Where Your Audience is.
Where’s your audience hanging out these days? And unfortunately, it’s not as easy as saying a platform these days like Instagram. Because where on Instagram is my next question! Are they watching stories, scrolling the feed, addicted to watching long videos on IGTV or totally addicted to watching Reels? Because wherever they are – you need to be!
Or maybe they have gone back to community and are hanging out in Facebook groups where they can be with like minded people and be cheered on or get their social on there.
Or, the alternative is, they have left social altogether or are rarely showing up. What’s the biz strategy then? How do you reach them then? What’s your email strategy? Or other offline strategies?
If you do the work in number 1 – know who your who is – you will get the answers to where to hang out there. It’s important to do that work I spoke about – I’m just not trying to fill your plate with more work, I promise!
- Own your own website address and have a website.
Honestly, I am still a little staggered at the number of people who don’t have websites. Especially in e-commerce. Whether it’s a small one on Google my Business or whether you’ve interested thousands into one – your choice, but you need one.
For e-commerce stores, when you have marketplace platforms like www.spendwithus.com.au offering you a free website with traffic already coming into the marketplace – you’re a little mad not embracing it.
Australia Post recently said that in just 18 months, Australian shoppers have made up 5-10 years of online shopping ground compared to the rest of the world. Meaning that Australia was 5-10 years behind part of the world like the US and UK when it came to online shopping – but not any more.
We have changed our shopping habits forever, therefore, you need to be online as an e-commerce business if you want to grow that part of your business.
But even if you don’t sell products or don’t want to sell online – you still need to own your own domain and have some sort of web presence. The words of SEO Queen Kate Toon “If you’re not on Google, are you even a business?”
- Have a business email address.
If you are a business and you are working your emails under [insert business name]@gmail or @bigpond or at something other than your business name – please stop. Please invest the $23 a year it would take to get a professional email address.
Honestly, it’s not hard, it’s not expensive and well it just makes good branding business sense. Remember, marketing is everything and how you show up on email is included in everything!
- Build your database of customers/clients – start today!
If you haven’t got an email database start today. If social media disappeared tomorrow, will you still have a business? I think everyone’s business would take a hit, but some would go under overnight. In fact, I’d say many would. Don’t be that business. Build your database today – and nurture it!
- Own your Google My Business page
If you are a local business, you NEED google my business. Even if you’re not a local business – you need it. It will help your google traffic, your ranking, your search results (from others searching) in ways you will probably never know!
And if you have one, firstly check to make sure it’s up to date, post photos and posts to it often and update your business hours as they need to be, especially coming in Christmas/holiday/New Year period when hours tend to change a bit!
No use just having these assets – you have to make them work for you and keep them as part of your strategy!
- Set measurable goals and measure them!
There’s 3 types of people in the world when it comes to goals. Those who set them but never look at them again, those who set them and keep them front and centre and use them to make strategic decisions and measure their success or lessons against them and those, who sadly, never set them.
Which one are you?
If you set goals at the start of this year – get them out and have a look at them. How are you tracking? Are they still even relevant?
Before you set new ones, make sure you measure the lessons or success of the past ones. That’s how you make a difference!
- Embrace digital tech and what’s new and when you have to, ask for help!
Digital marketing, digital platforms, digital strategies are changing all the time. When a social media platform brings out a new “bright shiny object” jump on board, learn it and give it a go. It might not be right for you, or your audience, but until you try you won’t know!
And never be afraid to ask for help. Even if help is just watching a YouTube video or asking a fellow business friend how to do something!
The more we ignore something, especially in digital marketing, the harder it seems to be to get ahead again. Embrace it. I really don’t see you have a choice!
- Use data to drive decisions.
A little like goal setting, having data from digital marketing such as Google Analytics, Email stats, or insights in Facebook or Instagram, will mean nothing if you don’t look at them and use the data to make strategic decisions.
An example of a strategic decision from data that I see constantly is the shift from concentrating so so much on Instagram only to find out that most of your traffic to your website, where you make all your sales, is coming from Google.
Imagine if you created and implemented a Google Strategy and put energy into it and perhaps not so much on Instagram that virtually doesn’t bring any traffic at all.
Can’t make that decision without hard data – would seem counter-intuitive, until it’s not!
Want to grow your business – get your hands on as much digital data as you can and analyse it to help make data-driven decisions.
Of course, all decisions are test and measure – nothing is concrete – so if you make a data-driven decision, make sure that you check back on it to see if it’s working and if not, why not and if so, what else could you do to make it even better?
There you go, 10 essential tips for Digital Success!
Let’s go over them 1 more time
- Know who your who is
- Know what you want to be famous for
- Be where your audience is
- Own your own website and have a website
- Have a business email address
- Build your own database – start today!
- Have a Google My Business account
- Set measurable goals and measure them
- Embrace digital tech and ask for help
- Use data to drive decisions.
Which one sounds like something you need to put a little more energy into? Let me know in my Like Minded Business Owners group if this podcast episode brought anything up for you? Or made your mindset shift a little when it comes to digital marketing. I’d love to hear what you thought.
Or if you want to book a discovery call where we can see how I can help you further, brainstorm your ideas – do that! Go to: http://bit.ly/Discoverwithjenn
But that’s it for ep 157.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, which if you have listened to here – you hopefully are, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode with another superstar business owner who’s doing the daily grind and would appreciate someone making their business simpler, and leave a rating or review to show how much you are loving this free weekly content.
Massive love coming your way if you do!
See you next week on the podcast for episode 158. But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.
But whatever you do,
……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!
Wow! I didn’t even know about Google my business. That’s for the info. Much appreciated. And yes I do need to get a professional email😊