Targeted advertising has become a crucial aspect of small business marketing in today’s digital age. With more and more consumers turning to the internet to find products and services, businesses need to have a strategic approach to online advertising in order to stand out from their competition. 

Reaching the Right Audience

Targeted advertising allows small businesses to reach their ideal customers by displaying their ads to people who are more likely to be interested in their products or services. By using data such as demographics, interests, and online behaviors, businesses can identify and target the audience that is most likely to convert into paying customers. This helps businesses to optimize their advertising budget by showing their ads only to those who are most likely to take action, ultimately resulting in higher conversion rates.

Cost-Effective Marketing

Targeted advertising is also cost-effective for small businesses. Traditional forms of advertising, such as print or TV ads, can be expensive and often fail to reach the desired audience. With targeted advertising, small businesses can set a budget for their campaigns and only pay for the clicks or impressions that their ads receive. This means that small businesses can get more bang for their buck by using targeted advertising to reach their ideal customers.

Building Brand Awareness

Targeted advertising can also help small businesses to build their brand awareness. By consistently displaying their ads to their target audience, businesses can create a sense of familiarity and recognition with their brand. This can help to build trust and credibility with potential customers, leading to increased brand loyalty and customer retention.

Measuring Success

One of the biggest advantages of targeted advertising is the ability to measure success. By using tools such as Google Analytics, small businesses can track the performance of their ads in real-time. This allows businesses to make data-driven decisions about their advertising strategy and adjust their campaigns to maximize their return on investment.

Targeted advertising is essential for small businesses looking to succeed in today’s digital marketplace. By reaching the right audience, controlling costs, building brand awareness, and measuring success, small businesses can use targeted advertising to grow their customer base and increase revenue. With the right strategy and tools in place, small businesses can compete with larger companies and achieve long-term success.

As a small business owner, you likely either love or hate social media. It can be an incredible asset for growing your audience, but the upkeep takes a lot of time and creativity. The worst part is that it’s hard to truly track ROI. However, in today’s growing digital age, having a social media presence, especially when trying to reach younger audiences, is particularly valuable. 

Where to start?

Whether you’ve owned your business for a long time or are just starting out, it can be hard to know where to start with social media. What platforms do you need to be on? How often do you need to post? Should you use social media to advertise? If so, how does that differ from everything else you do on social media?

Many people are overwhelmed by the choices they have to make to operate a social media business page, and for some small businesses it can quickly become a jumble of unrelated content that may or may not reach your intended audience. 

Having a social media manager, either on your team or through an agency like Iowa Digital is one way to make sure your social media is consistent and helping your business grow, but there are still some decisions you’ll need to make so the person running the page has everything they need to accurately represent you digitally. 

Questions to Consider

When starting – or revamping – a social media page, there are a few things you need to consider to get the most out of it. Who is your social media targeted at? This will likely be the same type of people your business is trying to reach in general, so it shouldn’t be a hard question. 

Secondly, what message or messages are you trying to get across? Are you trying to be informative about the products and services you offer, or are you trying to create a fun space where people can engage with you and your business on a regular basis? There are many different options for this and ways to go about getting the best results for your business, but having a general idea of your end goal is always a good place to start. 

What to Post

If your business has a physical location or a lot of products to offer, coming up with ideas for posts is actually quite easy! Most people that visit a social media page want to get an idea of what your business is going to be like if they visit. Show what you offer, show the interior space, and have fun with it! Social media is a great place to show your personality and style. Be authentic, be personable, 

For businesses that offer only or mostly service, coming up with post ideas might seem a lot trickier. However, there is still a lot to work with! For example, lawn care companies have lots of success when showing examples of projects they’ve done, or their crew doing work. Similar to brick and mortar locations, you want to show your personality through your posts. 

When you have Iowa Digital manage your social media accounts, we’ll make sure to use photos of your location, services, products, and staff. Whether you provide these photos or we come and take them, you can be sure your business is well represented. 

Management and Scheduling

Even when you’ve dialed in what you want to post, actually posting poses its own challenge. You’re focussed on providing the best experience for your customers, and posting to social media falls to the back burner. Having a social media management team that creates posts to fit your brand and posts consistently takes the hassle out of it! 

At Iowa Digital, we work with you to find the experience that fits your team and style best. Posting consistently with quality content is the best way to ensure that your social media presence is thriving, not just surviving! We take the guesswork, hassle, and stress out of it.

Step up your social media game and stay engaged with current, potential, and future customers with social media management solutions from Iowa Digital! 

If you own a business, chances are you have some sort of online presence. Whether that’s simply a google listing and basic website, or a profile on every social media platform available, you know that being found online is integral to being found by 97% of potential customers. 

However, being found isn’t the only important thing when it comes to an online presence: more and more these days, customers are looking at your reputation as well. They want to see what other people say and think about you before deciding to use your products or services. 

Numbers Matter

Many small businesses don’t have very many reviews to begin with. This may not seem like a big deal, even if the majority of them are positive (making an overall higher score), but customers aren’t just looking at the star rating, but also how many reviews contribute to that score. Beyond that, the Google search algorithm is also looking at your reviews! 

Almost 10% of Google’s algorithm originates in part from Google Reviews. This means that more reviews can actually help you be found better on Google! And if you’re being found, it certainly helps if those reviews look good. 

Good Reviews

Making sure you have a good online reputation can be somewhat of a daunting task. You can’t control what other people think or write about you on Google, Facebook, or other review platforms. Luckily, there are ways to make sure you get the most positive reviews possible, and respond to negative ones in a way that encourages future prospects to give you a chance anyway! 

Studies show that over 90% of customers turn to review sites such as Yelp, Google, Facebook, and TripAdvisor before making a purchase or choosing a service. Almost everyone turns to online listings before visiting a business, even if they’re just to look up directions on how to get there. Since star ratings are visible on map services such as Google and Apple, a low rating may deter a potential customer from visiting you, even if they weren’t originally looking you up to check out your reviews! 

Bad Reviews

You can’t please everyone, and everyone has their own opinion. Unfortunately, negative reviewers tend to be more vocal about their concerns. As a business owner, sometimes it feels like the best thing you can do is try your best and hope that customers will see that. 

When left on their own, though, reviews tend to be sparse and more negative than positive. But don’t despair! There are plenty of ways to bolster your online reputation with positive reviews from your existing customers!

What To Do About It

Generating more reviews and responding to reviews, especially negative ones, are the best ways to stay on top of your online reputation. While you can’t control every review that comes your way, you can control how you respond to it. 

Iowa Digital has systems in place to encourage your customers to leave reviews, but also to give them an opportunity to give you their feedback on a non-public forum. We can also respond to reviews for you, good and bad, so you don’t have to get worked up about them in any way! 

Bolster your online reviews and cultivate an online presence you can be proud of with reputation management solutions from Iowa Digital!