Having a strong online presence is a must in this day and age.

Most people who are considering doing business with you will check you out online before making any decisions about investing in you.

They will look for your website, do a Google search, or see what people are saying about you on social media.

As a business owner, if you don’t manage the way your brand is perceived on the Internet, you are giving up control of your company’s reputation.

Investing in a digital marketing strategy is an investment in your company’s reputation, and an effective way to grow your business.

Here are a few ways to invest in digital marketing for your business…

Have a strong website

If you are an entrepreneur but don’t have a website, you are sabotaging your business efforts.

Not having a website is like not having a business card. Your target audience will assume you have one, and if they discover that you don’t, they will think something is wrong with or suspicious about you.

A website should be a place where your target audience can learn more about you, your product, and your service.

It should also provide value and help to the people you intend on serving.

Your website is where people can easily get your contact information, look up your location, sign up for your newsletter, and find out where you are on social media.

Furthermore, a great website loads up quickly and is easy to navigate.

If you’d like to go a step further, further invest in SEO (search engine optimization) so that your site comes up higher in search engine searches.

Create great content

Content marketing is a relatively new concept, but it has drastically changed the landscape of marketing – especially online.

Content marketing works on the premise of focusing on adding value for the target audience, engaging them, and building a relationship with them, as opposed to trying to sell them something upfront.

A popular way of providing content is by ways of maintaining a business blog, hosted on a company website.

A business blog is a great way to offer advice, inspiration, and motivation to your target audience. It will help establish your business as a trusted resource and build rapport with your customers and potential customers.

As an added bonus, consistently updating your website with fresh content contributes to your business website’s SEO.

But, content isn’t just limited to written blogs and articles.

Still images and videos are content as well.

In fact, images and video tend to be better received than written content, as they are easy to consume.

Video is by far the most effective when it comes to engaging and converting leads into customers.

Although video requires a greater investment in terms of time, money, and resources to create, it yields a greater return on investment than other media.

If trends continue, more marketers will continue to use more video in their online marketing efforts, as the investment has proven worth their while.

Leverage social media

No entrepreneur in their right mind can ignore the power and prevalence of social media.

Love it or hate it, your target audience is engaging on social media, which means you have to be there too.

Social media marketing is driven by content, so use social media platforms to share your content and direct traffic to your website or blog for even more content.

You might feel overwhelmed by the number of social media platforms out there, but rest assured, you will get a lot out of your digital marketing efforts if you just focus on the most popular ones for business.

The strongest social media platforms for business, commonly called the Big 5, are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Chances are, whoever you are trying to reach as a potential new client is on one or more of these Big 5, so concentrate your efforts here as opposed to diluting your efforts all over the place.

Email marketing is not dead, so use it

You might think that email marketing has gone the way of the dodo, but nothing is farther from the truth.

Unlike in the early days of email, there are now strict rules and barriers to prevent spam and unsolicited email, so you always want to make sure that you are only emailing people who want to be on your list and you are always offering value.

In other words, don’t be spammy.

While social media is a great way to expand your reach and grow your list, email is a more guaranteed way to reach your audience, as you have direct access to their inbox.

Bottom line, you cannot ignore the power of digital marketing. Make sure you have a strong website. Content is king, so create great content that brings value to your target audience. Engage on social media in order to grow your online audience. Use email marketing to drive your messaging home.