How can a digital marketing specialist help you grow your business?

SME's are essential for the economic development of every country. In Switzerland, SMEs represent 99.7% of the total of enterprises in the country. Moreover, they provide work for 67% of the total population. 88% of swiss enterprises have been affected by the situation caused by the COVID-19, particularly in the retail, catering, cultural and sporting sectors. Given the importance of the situation, it is crucial to have professionals with marketing and innovative ideas who can see beyond this crisis.

What is a digital marketing specialist?

After looking for ways to explain what I do to my family and friends, I came up with this simple analogy: think of your digital marketer as a Lego builder. Consider the different elements that compose a digital strategy as Lego blocks; a website, a mobile app, advertising campaigns, social media channels, SEO strategy, content marketing, loyalty program, and analytics. A digital marketer’s job is to build a strategy that will increase brand awareness and profit by combining all of these elements.

Most people who dedicate themselves to digital marketing, tend to focus only on specific sectors such as social media, website development, analytics, brand content, or advertising.

Experienced digital marketer specialists are hard to find on the market.

But working with someone who has solid experience in a variety of digital sectors, adds more value to organisations.

How are most small and medium businesses using marketing?

I often think about small and medium businesses that may not have invested in establishing a digital marketing strategy before COVID-19.

Think back to a time before COVID-19, and to all the places you went to where the business NEVER created an activation process to ask for your name, your email address, or even your phone number.

Most businesses limit themselves to creating a social media account, sometimes maybe a website, and in very few cases a small email database. The customer database is a countless treasure and few people know how to make the best use of it.

This is just one example that shows us how most companies are not ready to sell more proactively. We live in an omnichannel world where the customer, regardless of the point of contact, be it physical or digital, is waiting for an integrated service experience.

Many readers may be thinking that these strategies and tools are only accessible to large companies and large budgets. The reality is that it is possible to create strategies adapted to each company's size and budget.

What about businesses that did not think to invest in a quality database and a solid marketing strategy before COVID-19? It would have been much easier for them to deal with the present situation, had they taken a few basic measures.

According to McKinsey and Company, the COVID-19 has accelerated the digitalization of customer interactions by three years in Europe.

The first confinement caused many businesses to adopt new tactics such as food delivery services and online payment functionalities.

However, these actions are not enough to build a solid strategy.

The role of the digital marketing specialist in your organisation

The digital marketing specialist is THE person who will help you onboard your organisation into the digital world. With the support of all decision-makers and stakeholders, they can change workflows and align other areas of the organisation, as they make the modifications necessary to create an omnichannel experience for the consumer.

One of their tasks could be a thorough analysis of your website. To do so, these are some of the actions they would undertake:

• Measure the website loading time;
• Validate the website structure to ensure it is aligned with the company’s goals;
• Work hand in hand with the editorial team around best practices to develop the quality content for the web;
• Establish the search engine optimisation strategy;
• Propose the best strategy to implement an e-commerce solution depending on your target;
• Ensure that metrics are measuring the key performance indicators (KPI's);
• Create reports for all management levels;
• Provide a monthly report with recommendations and an action plan;

That was a simple peek into a digital marketing specialist's daily routine!

As you can see, this kind of specialist not only has numerous hard skills and soft skills but also the technical knowledge to understand how each digital element works individually and in an ensemble.

A digital marketing specialist can also convince people, negotiate with internal and external stakeholders, as well as present ideas and proposals at all levels of management.

The next time you are looking to implement digital marketing best practices to grow your business, you could contact your future Digital Marketing Specialist by clicking HERE, where you will find the best strategic thinker to help you guide you during your organisation's digital transformation.

Further reading:

Luxury Digital Marketing: Building an impactful online presence by Huizhu Irrthum

What’s the role of digital marketing for startups ? by Elena Sava

Why you need a Digital Marketing Manager or Digital Expert in your team by Aparna Hegde

Sources:  McKinsey & Company, Statistique structurelle des entreprises STATENT et BFS.

Image Credits: Depositphotos, McKinsey & Company