When promoting your business online, you don’t have to shell out on hiring a digital marketing company. Many aspects of digital marketing can be carried out by oneself. You’ll save money by doing this and you’ll have complete control over the content you produce. Here are just several ways in which you can handle your own digital marketing.
Creating your own website
Every company needs a website; it’s the bread and butter of modern marketing. Building your own website may sound complex, but it doesn’t have to be. There are free website builder platforms out there like WordPress that don’t require any coding knowledge. Using drag-and-drop features, you can design your own website exactly how you want it. Having an eye for design is still important, and you may want to watch a few tutorials on YouTube to help inspire you. The likes of WordPress won’t allow you to create anything too flashy – those wanting a more elaborate website may be better off hiring a web designer.
Doing your own social media marketing
Social media pages are another great way to attract new customers. Creating social media pages for your business is free and easy – you can read this guide on how to set up a Facebook business page if you’re not social media savvy. Once you’ve set up pages, you’ll need to create regular content. Ideally, you want to be posting once per day. Social media content shouldn’t all be promotional and you may find that you attract more followers by creating fun and informative content, as well as sharing other people’s posts that don’t conflict with your business. The likes of Facebook allow you to pay to promote posts, which can also be worthwhile for attracting more followers.
Running your own PPC ad campaign
PPC advertising is the main form of advertising found online. It involves paying for an to display until a certain amount of people have clicked on it. Platforms like Google Ads can be used by anyone without being a marketing expert. There are tutorials online and automation programs for Google Ads, which can make this form of PPC easy. The likes of AdWords can also be a great DIY alternative to SEO – this involves paying for your company’s search listing to display at the top of the rankings temporarily as an ad.
Generating your own blog/vlog content
Blogging and vlogging are two other DIY ways of gaining exposure online. Creating blog posts on your website can be a great way of building credibility and improving SEO. These blog posts should be informative content related to your business – an example could be ‘how to save money on car insurance’ or ‘5 tips for increasing the value of your car’ if you own a car dealership. Vlogging is much like blogging but involves video content instead of written content. To create this content, you should set up a YouTube account for your business where you can upload videos. These could be shot yourself with a camera and could include similarly themed business advice. Investing in a good quality camera and microphone will ensure that your videos look professional.
Managing your own email marketing
Email marketing can be another way of attracting customers. It’s particularly effective for encouraging return customers – you can get existing customers to join your mailing list and send them information on promotions and updates via email. It could be worth paying to subscribe to a bulk-mailing platform that will allow you to more easily email lots of recipients at once. These platforms can also help you to build professional-looking emails using flashy templates. As with social media marketing, you should post emails regularly, although this may not need to be as excessive as every day – once per week may be all you need to keep the recipients on your mailing list interested.
