When it comes to small business marketing, just how effective is digital marketing? If you’re a small business owner, you’ve probably heard about the benefits of services like Facebook and Google Ads, but do these advertising platforms work for everyone? How does one get started with digital marketing? Today we’ll take a look at the different services offered, and how any small business owner can increase their digital marketing success, even without a digital marketing agency.
How to Pick A Digital Marketing Platform
Let’s take a look at the top two advertising platforms, Google and Facebook. Which service you decide to use may be based on several factors, including: what product/service are you offering? Would people search for your offering (ie: “Plumbers near me”) or are you aiming to put your offering in front of people as they scroll social media? If you’re the former, we recommend Google, and if you’re the latter, we recommend Facebook. Of course, you can generally use either service for any kind of offering, but in our experience we’ve seen the most success when they’ve been used in this fashion.
Google Ads
Google Ads is an extremely powerful tool that any small business owner can make use of. It has a user-friendly interface, clear instructions, and tons of live support to help if you run into any questions. Google offers several campaign types, including Search, Shopping, and Display. Search campaigns are perfect for small businesses looking to convert with customers looking for specific services. (like the “Plumbers near me” example earlier). To do this, you’d start with building a keyword list for terms you’d like your ad to show up for. For example, you could create a keyword list that includes:
- Plumber services
- “Plumbers near me”
- +Plumber company
This list is made up of 3 keyword “match types”: Broad, exact, broad match modified. The first term will trigger your ad in a broad sense, meaning it doesn’t have to exactly be that keyword. If someone searches for “Plumber in Los Angeles available now”, your ad may show up. The second keyword would prompt your ad only if someone searches the exact keywords. If someone looks up “Plumbers cheap fast near me”, your ad won’t be shown. While this takes away some viewers, it does make your ad highly targeted, which can bring in more relevant users and lower costs. The third term triggers your ad if someone searches “Plumber”, but the “company” can be anything like “services” or “for hire”.
Google Shopping Campaigns
Search campaigns are without a doubt, one of the most effective and cost efficient advertising services available. If you’re offering a product for sale, you can also use Google’s Shopping Campaign type, which shows your ad above the search results, as shown below.
If you’re advertising a product, utilizing Shopping ads can be one of the most effective methods out there. To use this campaign type, you’ll have to create a Google Merchant Center account that inputs your business information like shipping times, product weights, and other details.
We recommend for any small business owner to try out one of these options, depending on what you’re offering. If you’re offering a product for sale, we’d recommend using both Shopping and Search campaigns, as you can establish your branding and name recognition, along with generate conversions right away.
Facebook is an awesome tool for business owners wanting to sell a product. This platform differs slightly from Google in that the media you use plays a much bigger part. To do well with Facebook, you can count on testing different photos and videos to see which generates the most clicks.
Facebook has a highly advanced AI system in place that even with broad targeting, can identify the most likely buyers. This is an advantage that Facebook has over Google in that it’s a bit less effort to get started. Without keyword lists, the most important thing to focus on with Facebook is the broad targeting and the media you’ll be using to advertise.
What’s Best for Small Business Owners?
All things considered, the best ad platform you can use depends on the product you’re offering. If you have a ton of photos and videos to try, we’d definitely recommend using Facebook. If you don’t have a lot of photo/video options, but you’ve made a thorough keyword list, Google would be a great choice. Also important to note is that both platforms have a super effective and highly intelligent AI system. This lets both generate great results even with some human errors, and we’ve found in particular with Google that their “smart” technology is hard to match!
Final Thoughts
Either way, getting into digital marketing for your business doesn’t have to be a headache. It’s never been easier than now to launch effective advertising campaigns that won’t break the bank. If you are looking for any additional help getting started, we here at Angelytix are standing by waiting to help. We’ve seen how focusing on digital marketing efforts can take businesses to the next level, and we hope with this information you can get started today!