Online marketing is massively used in much of North America and globally, and PEI business owners can only benefit from this powerful marketing avenue.
There are many ways PEI business owners should utilize online marketing, including digital advertising and content marketing. Here’s a brief overview of what that looks like and the best ways to go about it.
The 7 Best Ways to Market Your PEI Business Online
The online marketplace is vast, but regular business owners can tailor their marketing campaign to niche and local demographics to see a more effective return on investment.
You don’t always have to spend money on pay-per-click ads (although that can be helpful). You can try certain marketing strategies like Content Marketing which have a more effective and long-lasting impact, and with campaigns that can be tailored to fit your budget.
It is important to note that the strategies listed below should be carried out in combination with others. Just as there is no one-size-fits-all marketing model, you need to customize your strategy and continually hone and improve it.
Create or Update Your Website
If you are a PEI business and don’t yet have a website, you need one. NOW! Websites are crucial for business growth, brand awareness, and customer experience. They give your audience a way to find you, educate themselves about your service/product, learn more about your industry, and even purchase whenever they are ready.
If you don’t have a website, there is no better time than now.
okwrite, we’re always ready to help. We can help you with the web-building process and your content marketing strategy, creation, and distribution. What’s more, we are excited and able to work with businesses seeking improvements through the PEI Web Presence Assistance program. This program supports $1000 for new websites and $2500 for website improvements and upgrades to eCommerce.
If you have a website, look to see where you can improve. Does the website content accurately reflect your brand? Has it been updated for SEO? How is the user experience (UX)?
Paying attention to and updating these seemingly minor elements of your current website can generate more traffic and capture more leads.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a great tool that PEI business owners can easily tap into.
SEO refers to updating or adding elements to a website to ensure search engines can better read and discover it. Search engines crawl pages to identify the information on them, index them, and then serve them in the results for relevant search queries.
Without SEO, Google and other search engines will not know what to do with your site and they may get it wrong, meaning you’ll end up appearing in irrelevant searches or not appearing at all.
SEO involves looking at the industry you’re in, the services and products you provide, and finding the SEO seed keywords that most relate to your services. From there, agencies like ours can write content for your main web pages and your blogs so that it all speaks to those seed keywords. If you need more help with SEO content writing and SEO research, feel free to contact us!
Claim Your Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is the information card that appears on the right-hand side of the screen when someone Googles your business. Formerly known as Google My Business, you must claim and verify your Google Business Profile. This ensures the accuracy of the information and prevents other people from making updates and changes to the profile that would be detrimental to your business.
Your Google Business Profile includes useful information like the location of your business (especially important if you have a storefront), hours of operation, Google reviews, photos, blog posts, and all contact information.
For local PEI business, the Google Business Profile page is super important, and recent statistics support this:
- 98% of consumers in 2022 used the internet to find information about local businesses
- 76% of consumers “regularly” read online reviews when browsing for local businesses
- Local and organic searches together make up 69% of overall digital traffic.
- 87% of consumers used Google to evaluate local businesses in 2022,
- 42% of local searches involve clicks on the Google Map Pack.
Simply put, users are looking at local search and it only helps to have your business pop up as a local option. This profile is particularly useful for searches that include the term “near me,” like “coffee shops near me,” for example.
Add Social Media Business Accounts
As we all know, social media is a fantastic way to connect with local and new audiences. Having a social media business account is crucial, and it can be relatively easy to set one up and maintain it.
If you have a local store, then showing your online followers a little bit about your business on a daily basis can be a great way to increase engagement with your followers and neighbourhood.
If you’re daunted by the increasing number of social media platforms out there, stick with the basics:
- BONUS: Youtube
You can always add more later! And for our bonus one, we like to share videos about our blogs on our Youtube channel and in the blogs themselves. This gives you two opportunities to engage your audience and allows individuals to consume the information provided in their preferred format.
Regularly Interact With Users Online
Once you have your accounts online, it’s important to stay active with them. This means that if you have a Google Business Profile, you’re responding to customer reviews or adding photos. If you have social media accounts, you are regularly responding to messages and posting updates.
Regular interaction online is a simple way to show people that you’re available, that you care about your presence online, and that you want your online users to have a positive experience.
PPC Advertising or Google Ads
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) typically refers to Google Ads, which require spending a certain amount a month and allocating a budget for advertising. Your budget is determined by the cost of that particular ad (which is based on local/regional information, the breadth of your search, and the search keyword).
It’s important to have a PPC expert set up your account as this can be confusing. Luckily we have a qualified one on staff. So if you’re interested in PPC, shoot us a message and we can help.
Email Marketing
Yes, email marketing is technically online marketing. Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing because it delivers relevant business information directly to an inbox of an interested user.
If you don’t have an email subscriber list, growing this list may take some effort. However, once you do, the opportunities will only increase.
Email marketing involves sending regular emails to a group list, offering advice, information, and discounts to past and potential customers.
Get Started Marketing Your PEI Business Today
Marketing and interacting online is fun! You’ll find that there is a world out there that is increasingly looking to connect, learn, and explore. You can also leverage the fact that so many Canadians love traveling to PEI or have dreamed of coming here for a vacation. By showing up online, those tourists may see your business early and then want to visit you when they’re here!
Need help marketing online? Reach out to us at okwrite, your local content marketing company, for more information.
