A few years ago, I would have written this article on the reasons why digital advertising makes more sense than traditional advertising to spend your money on. However, after working for a number of companies, and helping SMEs understand digital, I know now there’s no either/or. The tools digital offers an SME to fulfil their business objectives often fit perfectly, and most effectively, with other methods of marketing.

What digital marketing tools?

I could write another 20 or 30 articles on this alone, but for today, I’ll keep this part simple – for an SME, the digital marketing tools they should choose are the ones that make sense for their business. Put simply, digital marketing tools to allow your audience to purchase your product or service, and digital marketing tools to enable you to participate in conversations with current and potential customers, are key.

As a starting point, web presences are a bare minimum – a website, potentially a Facebook Page, potentially a Twitter account. From there, it’s about the channels to drive people to these web presences to fulfil the SME’s objective – from Search Engine Optimisation to have your website appear as high as possible on search engines for certain key words and phrases; through to advertisings models such Google Ad Words as ads that show when people search in Google for particular keywords and Facebook ads which appear to people based on the information they have filled out on their profile (including their likes and interests). Decide which make the most sense for your business.

Why digital?

For me, there are two key reasons digital marketing tools are now essential. Firstly, it’s the sheer numbers – from a range of external studies, we know that over 77% of the entire Irish population is online and spending about 20 hours a week there; over 50% of the entire Irish 15+ population is on Facebook and over 7% of the total population is on Twitter; and Google has passed into usage as the word for searching online.

Secondly, it’s the benefits of digital – when you run a local press advertisement, you know you’ll be hitting some of your target audience and getting people to buy your product/service. With digital, you can understand exactly who your audience is; what sort of online marketing works best in terms of driving people to your website(s) and measure the exact return on investment of each; and test and reiterate – from knowing the exact demographics of people who like your Facebook Page, to knowing exactly what keywords people are searching for on Google that drives them to your website, and which keywords mean conversions and ads on Google and Facebook that show you which ads work best in terms of clicks and eventual conversions ; through to the ability to run two versions of your website and know which works better to get people to buy your product/service – digital allows the most accountability that’s ever been seen in marketing.

What offline marketing tools?

When thinking about non-digital marketing, ask yourself one question – where does your business currently come from? How do you sell to new customers, and repeat sell to those same people over time? What current advertising channels do you use? Whether it’s old traditionals like television or radio, press or outdoor, and national or local variations of these; whether it’s direct mail or word-of-mouth spread through business cards and email signatures – as you obtain new customers, work to understand how they’ve come to find you, and to make a decision to buy from you, and understand what marketing is driving business for you.

1 + 1 =

So, armed with your online and offline tools, the next step is putting them together. Think about this in two ways – engaging with customers and would-be customers in conversations tailored towards your business objectives in order to influence them to purchase from you; and ensuring that at the point of choosing a product or service, yours is the one they choose. You may not need to do both, but you can use a number of tactics to fulfil both.

There’s no single prescription answer – it’s really up to you as a business owner to decide what your digital strategy is – but there are many examples of best practices. Whether it’s ensuring that all your posters or television ads include either a “Find us on Facebook” message for your business’ Facebook Page or a “Search…” for the keywords you know you’ll appear for on Google; whether it’s some more unique ideas such as QR codes on your business cards that drive people to your Facebook Page or website directly; or whether it’s simply ensuring that every single email sent by someone in your company includes the URLs of any web presences you own in a footer, there are a range of solutions available. Simply take some time to do an audit of your current offline marketing efforts and where customers are coming from, and ensure your web presences are included in those efforts in some way that captures attention and hopefully customers!

For more information on how other companies have used social media successfully click here.