Should Your SMB Invest in Digital Marketing? Discover Its Worth

Key Takeaway

Yes, digital marketing is a worthwhile investment for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with an average 5:1 ROI ratio.

Yes, digital marketing is a worthwhile investment for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with an average 5:1 ROI ratio. SMBs in most industries can leverage digital marketing to drive website traffic, leads, and revenue. 

It evens the playing field for SMBs operating in industries with big and well-funded companies capable of investing in expensive traditional marketing methods like billboards, TV, and radio advertisements.

With digital marketing, SMBs can reach targeted audiences without incurring the extravagant costs associated with traditional marketing. It relies on various marketing tactics and technologies accessible with smaller budgets to reach consumers online and drive valuable results. 

Before discussing how SMBs can benefit from digital marketing, let’s discuss its scope first.

What is digital marketing for SMBs?

Digital marketing for SMBs involves using online marketing channels and tactics to sell or promote your brand, products, and services. It helps small businesses with a more limited reach unlock newer audiences, engage them, and turn them into repeat clients. 

You can leverage various digital marketing strategies in tandem to drive results. These include:

• Social media marketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
• Content marketing
• Email marketing

Using multiple strategies helps you maximize your reach and bottom-line impact.

What are the benefits of digital marketing for SMBs?

An effective digital marketing strategy can drive valuable and measurable benefits for your business. Below, let’s discuss the reasons why digital marketing is important for SMBs:

• Boost online visibility
• Target your most valuable audience
• Streamline marketing budget
• Compete with larger enterprises
• Drive measurable results and revenue

1. Boost online visibility

In today’s digital world, your business can’t get away with not having an online presence. With consistent efforts, digital marketing helps your small business become more visible, recognizable, and discoverable online. 

Search engine optimization is the key to unlocking visibility and higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs.) Higher rankings drive more traffic to your website and social media platform, potentially increasing leads and conversions. 

Combined efforts that involve churning out informative content marketing, engaging video content, and captivating social media posts will get your brand in front of more customers. Brand awareness can also foster trust and credibility among audiences, encouraging them to become repeat customers.

2. Target your most valuable audience

Digital marketing gives you access to a large audience at your fingertips.

While it expands your reach and breaks geographical barriers, digital marketing also helps your small or medium-sized business reach its most valuable targets. 

Strategies like SEO, PPC, and email marketing allow you to show up in front of prospects who need your products or services most. 

Additionally, reporting and analytic tools can provide valuable insights into customer behaviors, trends, and preferences. 

You can leverage this information to streamline your SMB digital marketing tactics and techniques to fulfill customer needs, boost engagement, nurture leads, and build long-term relationships.

3. Maximize your marketing investment

Digital marketing maximizes your marketing budget by channeling your spend into targeted strategies that reach ready-to-buy leads.

The average monthly digital marketing cost for small and medium-sized businesses is between $51 and $10,000 per month. 

Partnering with a leading digital marketing company like WebFX can help you plan your budget effectively and choose the strategies that provide the highest return. 

4. Compete with larger enterprises

Among the most notable advantages of digital marketing for SMBs is that it gives you a competitive advantage over other small and medium-sized businesses and larger corporations. 

Whether you’re operating an ecommerce or brick-and-mortar business, most of your customers are already using it, and it’s best if you’re not left behind. 

Digital marketing for SMBs involves establishing a brand presence online, which helps to differentiate, humanize, and make your brand more relatable to your target audience. As a result, customers no longer view your business as a faceless company, which makes it easier for them to handpick your product in a crowded marketplace.  

5. Drive measurable results and revenue

With digital marketing, you can easily track and measure the results of your campaigns. Every digital marketing channel has a tracking and analytics system that provides access to metrics, like clicks, conversions, and leads. 

These analytics allow you to optimize your marketing campaigns to maximize results by investing more in what works and reducing budget allocation for what doesn’t. Unlike traditional marketing, which doesn’t allow you to make changes once the material is out, you can adjust your digital marketing campaigns over time.

When you partner with WebFX for SMB digital marketing services, you gain access to our award-winning RevenueCloudFX proprietary software. The platform integrates with your customer relationship management (CRM) system to collect and analyze data on all your channels, helping you enhance your digital marketing campaigns and drive leads, sales, and revenue. 

FAQs: Digital marketing for SMBs

Get answers to FAQs about the cost of digital marketing for SMBs below:

Is digital marketing cost-effective for SMBs?

Digital marketing is a cost-effective strategy for SMBs that’s more affordable than traditional marketing strategies. 

Is digital marketing for SMBs worth the cost?

Yes, digital marketing is a worthwhile investment for SMBS as it helps you drive more traffic, leads, and conversions for your business. It boosts your company’s sales, revenue, and bottom line in the long term. 

How much should SMBs budget for digital marketing?

We recommend investing 7-10% of your overall revenue in digital marketing services. However, you should also create a budget that caters to your unique needs. 

Boost your digital marketing ROI with WebFX

While you can implement digital marketing yourself, a professional digital marketing agency can help you increase your bottom line. WebFX is a full-service digital marketing agency with over 29 years of experience and 155 digital marketing awards.

We can help you launch and manage different digital marketing strategies or develop a custom plan tailored to your industry, needs, and goals. Why should you trust us? We’ve driven $10,085,355,239+ client revenue in the past 5 years. 

To get started on a digital marketing strategy for your SMB, call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today to discuss your needs with a strategist.