Businesses that have embraced the digital age are reaping big benefits. Those left behind that are still struggling to do simple tasks, like update their websites and create social media accounts, will continue to struggle in today’s marketplace.

The digital age is ruthless to any enterprise that fails to align with its demands. That’s why hardly anyone born after 1995 knows Kodak, yet the company was a giant just a few decades back.

For companies that want to thrive, here are digital marketing tactics you can use to promote and transform your business into a thriving 21^st century enterprise:

Build & host your website

You cannot truly begin transforming your business into a digital enterprise without building a website. It is through your site that people will learn about your business, and it’s the primary place to buy your products and services through platforms like Shopify.

Your site is also an excellent platform to get leads on all those interested in buying your products or services in the future. With a great site the potential is limitless.

To get started the first step is registering a domain name. Look for an innovative, catchy domain or use your business name if you are an established brand already. The second step is hosting your website. The easiest way to go about this is buying a domain from hosting service vendors like GoDaddy.

Create content & design the website

Your online enterprise is as good as the content that potential customers find when they visit your site. Take time to create quality content, and design the website in a way that would best present this content. The idea is to create content that is helpful to the visitors and encourages them to buy your products and services.

The website design should be easy to navigate and should be straightforward to use. Invest in creating the best possible content that visitors cannot find elsewhere on the web. This investment goes a long way in creating a space in the market for what your company has to offer.

Work on SEO, SEM & SMM

Search engines drive the traffic. It makes perfect sense that you would want to invest some resources to optimize your website’s visibility on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an extremely effective and cost-effective method of digital marketing.

Read: 5 SEO Tools Every Online Business Owner Should Have.

The other method is search engine marketing (SEM). You should do this hand in hand with SEO. It is an easy guarantee that your website shows up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). In SEM, you can use pay per click (PPC) or pay per impression (PPM).

Read: 5 Simple Ways To Get On The First Page Of Google.

Social media marketing (SMM) refers to all marketing efforts you would conduct on social media. Whether you choose to use Instagram growth tools like WeLovesMedia or Growr, host a contest on Facebook, or do an ad campaign on Twitter, SMM can be quite effective in promoting a business that is trying to find its footing online.

Build email marketing

Ask any marketer, and they’ll tell you that email marketing remains the most important part of any digital marketing plan that a company could formulate. Many years after email came onto the scene, no other form of marketing has succeeded to replace it. Emails give you a platform to sell your wares directly to the customer.

Several email marketing tools exist to help you, including ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and Zoho.

Work out what to focus on

When you focus on what has the greatest impact on your business, you can start to see results. Regardless of the huge traffic blogs bring you, if you have no clear way to get a return on your investment, it could all be for nothing.

To solve this problem, you must ensure that you create high converting landing pages and invest substantial resources to ensure they are visible to those who need your products and services.

If you don’t have traffic to your site, Tailwind is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduler that will bring massive traffic to your site.

Set SMART marketing goals

Your marketing goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound (SMART). Developing these measurable goals ensures you stay focused through the digital promotion process.

HubSpot has a great template you can use to set these SMART goals.

You can also learn how to set SMART goals in this post: How To Successfully Achieve Your Sales Goals.

Conclusion

With a clear strategy your business can rise from oblivion to become the next big thing in the digital space.

Digital marketing is a stark contrast to the traditional approach where you needed years and big budgets to make headway. With enough determination you can transform your business into a digital enterprise that is on everyone’s lips in just a matter of months.

Marquis is a writer, social media manager and SEO content marketer. She currently lives on the coast of Ecuador, working remotely as a freelancer. Her primary focus is on building online visibility of new, up and coming brand, particularly brands that promote health and wellness. She lives a nomadic lifestyle, though is originally from California.