Digital Marketing is a Game Changer and small business owners know it is not a game, it’s their business, their livelihood and it’s time to get serious about implementing plans that will maximise business opportunities.

Like it or not, the Internet is either driving you crazy or it’s driving your business.

Unfortunately, six out of 10 small businesses are missing a tremendous opportunity to connect and engage with potential customer’s at the most basic online level.

In Australia consumers are embracing digital online trends faster than small business are creating content rich sites designed to meet their needs. This means that any small business that doesn’t have an online presence is in danger of falling behind the growth curve.

SME’s need to focus on Local Marketing as this is where real growth for them is possible. Search queries focused on local businesses continues to accelerate, with even greater growth in local search via mobile devices.

It is vitally important for small businesses to stake their claim now on local channels, like Google Places, and populate those sites with the types of information consumers are most likely to search for.

For Small Business owners, being found locally and via mobile devices will go a long way to ensuring they capture a lion’s share of the market. With the right SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), a small business can easily gain a highly ranked listing on local searches.

SME’s who want a part of this market but don’t have the expertise to develop the content or secure high value SEO rankings on the search engines need to find a service provider that does.

A nephew or neighbour down the street designing and maintaining a business website as a favour to the owner is no longer good enough.

If you want results then you need to find someone who understands your digital requirements and has a broad range of expertise to help you promote your digital online presence, so you can focus on your primary goal — making your business successful while they get on with the job of finding new customers via the internet.

E-commerce will be embraced extensively by SME’s in 2014 and not just for physical goods. Service providers, tax professionals, plumbers, etc., will recognise the demand for electronic billing, invoicing and processing payments.

E-commerce sales for 2014 are expected to rise by more than 19 percent. So,  for SME Businesses to get ahead of the game or be able to compete on an even footing with big business they must deliver the same value-added services, online shopping and billing systems as the big guys.

Paid marketing and social media will continue to generate awareness and drive sales in 2014 with SME’s increasing their spend and efforts in both advertising and social media networks.

Big businesses have controlled the digital online space because they have access to larger marketing budgets but this is changing and will allow SME with the right expertise to give them a run for their money. Even Matt Cutts from Google is spruiking the fact that SME businesses with much smaller budgets can outperform large corporates by focusing on rich content that interacts with its target audience.

If you want to find out more about how you can compete with the big boys using these approaches give us a call on 61 2 8061 4556 or send us an email to arrange a time to talk with one of our digital consultants.

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