Digital Marketing for North Carolina Mom-and-Pop Businesses

There’s no need to be afraid of the phrase “digital marketing.” It’s just a straightforward tool that even the smallest of small businesses can take advantage of.

We know that owners of mom-and-pop businesses may not spend a lot of time online. You’ve got a business to run! But we still want your small business to connect with the people who live or vacation in your area—and who also live on their phones and tablets.

So we’re here to tell you what digital marketing can do for western North Carolina mom-and-pops. And why the best digital marketing option for a small business like yours is to partner with a boutique digital marketing agency like ours.

What is digital marketing for small businesses?

“Digital marketing” doesn’t (necessarily) mean advertisements. A lot of it just refers to your company’s presence online: your website and social media accounts, and anywhere else a person might go online to find out about your business—like directories, reviews, etc.

While you don’t have total control over all of these online venues, there are ways to manage them in order to spread the most accurate and appealing picture of your company. That’s digital marketing!

(Paid advertising like online ads and boosted social media posts are also digital marketing options, but that’s another conversation.)

What can digital marketing do for mom-and-pop businesses?

The four major benefits of digital marketing are:

1. Information
2. Recognition
3. Reputation
4. Longevity

Information: No matter what size the business, your website acts as the ultimate authority for accurate information. Your website is the home of your story, everything from your history and philosophy to your services, hours and contact info. Other digital marketing tools like social media and directory management put that factual info into even more digital spaces.

Recognition: An online presence expands your brand reach. A successful small business may only interact with a limited number of people in a day, week or year. But with digital marketing, people who may never have heard of your company or driven by your sign will still recognize who you are and what you’re about.

Reputation: In this day and age, even if you haven’t put your business online, chances are someone else has. There are online reviews, digital directories, maps, photos, and 100 other ways people are already telling your story. Shouldn’t you have input in how that story goes? Digital marketing gives you the biggest say in your company’s reputation.

Longevity: In order to succeed as a business over the long-term, you have to establish a lasting, positive, accurate presence in people’s minds—especially the people within your own community, be it Boone or Banner Elk or Elk Park. Digital marketing establishes that connection.

What kind of digital marketing plan works best for small businesses?

So, where do you start when building your business’s online presence?

Why not start with a company that’s a lot like yours: A North Carolina small business (boutique marketing agency) with a presence right here in the Appalachian Mountains (Elk Park, North Carolina) and an established track record of building long-term relationships and doing right by our clients.

The best part of hiring a boutique digital marketing company like ours is that we start with what you need (not a pre-made template) and then we stay with you the whole time (rather than outsourcing our work to some unreachable entities).

We don’t expect you to know everything (or anything) about websites or social media. But we’re also not going to keep you in the dark. We can walk you through what we’re doing with your brand online, and why. We can give you simplified options, and we can listen to your concerns and make adjustments as we go.

We can handle your website design and management, your social media accounts, and whatever else your brand needs to have handled online. And we’ll make sure you’re part of the process, too. Whatever level of involvement makes you comfortable, Deckard & Company provides it to small businesses in the Appalachian area.