The Small Business

Digital Engagement

Manifesto

DISCLAIMER

www.netstripes.com

The information, text, technical and research content contained in this document is for

general information purposes only and should not be mistaken for a business consultation.

We make no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied about the suitability of the

information contained to your business.

Ride the Digital Wave

Introduction

Chapter 1: Customer Needs

Digital Engagement

Search Engine Optimization

Content

Social Media Engagement

Email Marketing

The Know-How

Chapter 2: Increase Traffic to

Your Website and Business

Lead Generation

Conclusion

CONTENT

The aim of this manifesto is not to

give a step-by-step guide on digital

engagement, but rather to give

insights on strategy for small

business owners.

We believe that by providing the core

foundation that every small business

needs to succeed in digitally

engaging their business, they will

be better equipped to grow their

business and excel.

Foreword

CEO of Netstripes

Dinesh De Silva

The digital world is changing and constantly evolving with new

technological advancements at a phenomenal pace. People now

interact and communicate on a global scale, which means the

way they choose and buy their products is also changing. And

just as people are embracing digital technology, business

owners must also integrate their business with today’s demands

if they want their business to survive.

Therefore, we are pleased to offer our experience and this

manifesto to help you assimilate your small business seamlessly

into the digital world with the right tools and the right strategy.

Ride the

Digital Wave

Introduction

As anyone who embarked on launching his

or her own business knows it is hard enough

starting a business much less maintaining

it. However, our research shows that when it

comes to digitally engaging your business,

thousands of business owners are either:

a) fearful and not aware of the importance

of digital engagement to their business,

b) do not understand what steps to take to

positively impacts their business, or

c) do not know how to implement digital

engagement within their marketing plan and

try every possible tactic and frustratingly

experience poor or no results having spent

much money and time.

The reason most small business owners

who do try to build online engagement with

their clients and prospects fail because they

lacked the strategy, skills and the knowhow

needed for effective online engagement.

It is about doing a few things right and not

doing everything. Unfortunately, many small

businesses have been the victims of poor

advice and strategy.

Technology is only a medium of delivery

and hence success demands that we make

sure our business models are geared to

deliver upon the exacting requirements

of consumers who incessantly consume

information, entertainment, products and

services addictively and want everything

now. Unfortunately, most businesses and

their business models fail to deliver to these

demands.

NetStripes believe that small business

owner need help with guiding their

business strategy first before they invest

on building websites or on any form of

digital marketing.

Chapter 1

Customer

Needs

The most fundamental aspect of

designing a successful marketing strategy

is understanding your customers and their

needs. The biggest issue we have seen

having spoken to over 7000 business

owners is that they don’t understand

the needs of their customers well

enough. Hence, any marketing strategy

created without that understanding is

fundamentally flawed.

The goal of understanding your current

customers and your future customers’

needs, need not be an expensive and

complex process. One of the latest

marketing trends is conducting Ethnographic

Research that uses a humancentered design

approach. This kind of targeted research

provides the basic framework to identify

your target market and Consumer

Buying Behavior.

The reason why you must gain insight

into buying behavior, such as what drives

the basic and supplementary needs of

consumers and what gratifies them, is to

help you connect your product and services

to these basic needs and ensure consumers

react positively to your product. Ad

campaigns such as

“reach out and touch

someone”

“you’re in good hands with

Allstate”

all reflect this primary principle.

Most importantly, you must define who your

ideal customer is, by building a customer

persona that fits your target market. An

example of the ideal customer persona

could be: middle aged legal professionals -

owners of their own consultancies/practices

- $1M revenue who are dependent on word

of mouth advertising and are struggling to

attract new customers...etc. Once you know

who your ideal customer is, you could fit

your content to that persona and attract the

right customers to your business.

CONSUMER

BEHAVIOR

Get to Know Your Ideal Customer

Understand What Drives Your Customer to Buy!

The next step is talk to as many current

customers as possible in determining

Purchase Patterns, which focuses on what

compels consumers to actually take action

and purchase your product, as opposed

to just generating interest. Here, product

attributes (value, size, durability…etc.)

creates a comparability factor on which

the customer decides is “best” for their

immediate needs. In fact, firms that analyze

buyer reactions to their marketing strategies

have the greatest success. Posing questions

such as what drives the customer to make

a purchase and what factors influence

their choices, help firms better predict

how successful their marketing strategies

are, and how well consumers respond to

them. What this essentially does is save

time and cost towards a more efficient and

successful marketing gains.

In a Nutshell

Once you know your ideal

customer and their needs,

you will be in a better position

to influence their buying

behavior and convert them.

Digital Engagement

Now that you understand your ideal

customer and their needs, you are ready to

digitally engage them. There are 4 essential

elements that form the foundation for a

comprehensive digital engagement strategy.

Without these 4 cornerstones, you cannot

build a truly effective digital presence. All

your strategic planning will be focused on

directing traffic towards your website,

which will be the core of your digital

business identity.

So, first, you must have a perfectly

engineered mobile-optimized website; then

you must incorporate a combination of:

1) Search engine optimization to promote

your website and business,

2) Engage your customers on selected

social media channels, and

3) Strategically adapt your content to your

customers through Email Marketing.

Perfectly Engineered

Mobile-friendly Website

This process of engineering a professional

website depends on the clear definition of

your selling proposition, which includes

what your business strengths are, your

services, who your ideal potential customer

is, why they should trust you and seek your

services, and what makes you stand out

from hundreds if not thousands of

other competitors.

For example, it is not strategic to list 20

types of services; it will confuse your clients

and overcrowd your website. You have to

decide what are you best at, because your

competition is most likely offering the same

list of services. Therefore, strategize and

know what makes you better than your

competition and list that! One way is to look

at your last 12 months of revenue to know

which services are best for you to focus on.

The absolute foundation of any digital

engagement strategy is your website.

However, digital engagement is not just

having an aesthetically attractive website;

being online means competing on a global

scale, so your website must provide world-

class customer experience.

Studies show that it takes online visitors 2-5

seconds to decide on whether to continue

viewing a website, and 40% of people will

abandon a website if it takes more than

3 seconds to load; therefore, if visitors’

experience navigating your site is not

pleasant, they will not persevere. In addition,

more than 50% of all searches are now done

via smartphones and increasing, so if your

site is not mobile-friendly you could lose half

of your potential customers. Therefore, your

website must:

1) possess a clean, uncluttered and

professional design,

2) embody your brand essence and unique

business selling proposition, and

3) engage your target market’s needs.

The next step is to ensure the credibility of

your website, which should be at the

forefront. In other words, it must convey the

high quality that your company aspires to

by providing a professional design that

exhibits authority and excellence. You must

make sure that you incorporate a design

with relevant content that is uncluttered,

easy to use and delivers the most important

messages without confusing customers

with too much information.

To achieve this, you must pay attention to

how your language appeals and caters to the

needs of your customers; therefore, having

the right design and content will help

establish this essential rapport with your

customers and prospects. Some elements

that will fortify your credibility and trust

value is providing success stories and

testimonials.

This ensures that your visitors understand

the benefits of working with your business in

a succinct and efficient way. Once they are

reassured of your credibility, they are more

likely to take a form of strategic action, such

as buying, downloading content, or

subscribing to your services.

Food for Thought

No matter how awesome your

website is, if customers can’t

find it, it doesn’t exist!

SEO is a strategy that focuses on having your business at the forefront, so that all digital roads

lead back to your website and business. So, this process is vital to any business because it

affects the visibility of your website in search engines (Search Ranking). Keep in mind that 2

billion online searches are performed worldwide on a daily basis. The average Australian visits

91 different websites each month, so your business must compete for high rankings for it to be

found in this digital maze!

Search Engine

Optimization (SEO)

All Roads Must Lead to Your Website!

89% of customers start their buying

process with search engines; however,

SEO drives 51% of all visitors to Websites.

SEO, although tough, will deliver good

outcomes in bringing more visitors from

search engine users to your website and

increase traffic exposure to your brand.

Additionally, this particular service will more

likely generate real business since potential

customers are the ones generating interest

in your business by searching for specific

services; therefore, they are more likely to

engage your service offers.

SEO is not related to paid, but rather organic

search outcomes where your website

appears on the first page of a search engine

results such as Google. So to begin, you

must list all the online directories and link

your business to all of them, to make sure all

roads lead to your business.

In the past, SEO companies depended on

dodgy strategies that relied on the redundant

uses of keywords. Today, search engines

are more advanced and have significantly

curtailed this practice by punishing websites

that employ “black hat” or this poor and

frowned upon SEO techniques.

The World Wide Web is a

powerful platform to deliver

your content to your

ideal customers!

share, comment and click, which will do

most of the advertising work for you. So,

think of content as asset.

However, you must not just focus on the

type of content and ignore the quality;

content should be both consistent, fresh

and genuine. Companies that create average

content and try to amplify it themselves will

struggle. The key is creating genuine content

with value to target market, and it will be

amplified (shared) automatically.

Variety in content is also the key factor in

amplification because it allows users to

share in different platforms.

Additionally, networking your business with

the influential bloggers in your industry

could prove to be a great asset. Contacting

bloggers, engaging with them through social

media, commenting and sharing contents

with them will also bring in significant traffic

to your website. Likewise, find out the most

important online and offline magazine in

your industry that customers read, and share

your articles with them.

SEO relies on content; therefore, you must

make that content original and relevant. In

a nutshell, you want to create awareness

about your product, and content creates

that awareness. So, when it comes to digital

engagement strategies, businesses must

really earn online traffic to their websites

and get creative with their content to attract

customers. Therefore, it is important that

your brand is presented in an interesting and

approachable way. In fact, the importance of

content written, video or social form cannot

be overstated, which could be anything from

lead generation reports to brand awareness

pieces such as “7 Keys to Successful

Business Planning” or “The Most Influential

Fashion Trends of 2016”.

So your goal must be to create meaningful

and relevant content, such as blogs, videos,

articles, newsletters, press releases…etc.

that is valuable for the customer; and most

importantly to do so regularly, and not once

every 6 months! Bottom line is, having a

great website and SEO is not enough. You

need amplification through relevant content;

the better the content, the more people will

Content

Australian users, making Australia one of

the largest consumers of social media in the

world. This in turn ties in with the important

role social media plays in SEO because of its

capacity for message amplification through

the numbers of shares, comments

and clicks.

Almost 3 out of 4 social media users read

online reviews before making a purchase, so

a customer-oriented strategic approach will

be of great value to any business. Therefore,

a good marketing strategy is to determine

which social media channels are most

relevant to boost customer engagement

and garner more brand exposure for

your company.

In the old marketing world, customers

needed to see your brand 6 times before

making a decision. Today, due to the small

attention span and constant bombardment

of information, your brand must be seen

a minimum of 16 times before brand

awareness is created. So, when planning

your strategy it is important that your digital

brand does not only occupy your website,

but also all the channels your prospective

customers frequent. You can achieve this

through social media engagement.

There are hundreds of millions of users on

social media portals such as Facebook,

Twitter and LinkedIn, which makes them

excellent channels for brand exposure. In

fact, social media is frequented by 95% of

Social Media

Engagement

• 3 in 5 Australians interact with companies

via social networks (primary source of

info is company website).

• Australians spend more time on social

media than any other country in the world.

• 74% of social media users read an online

review before any purchase, and 58% of

them result in purchases.

• There are 1.3 billion active users of FB

with 13.2 million in Australia (most of

them 55-65 females).

• FB accounts for 27% of Internet use

in Australia.

• There are 27 million pieces of content

shared every day. Clicks from shared

content are 5 times more likely to

result in purchase.

Facts

Bottom Line, knowing your target market is

essential to your digital marketing strategy.

So, knowing where your customers are,

when they are online and what they are

talking about will help you strategically

influence their communication to match

your target consumers’ requirements. Social

media provides the perfect platform to

monitor brand activity and gauge customer

satisfaction. It also helps with providing

consumers with a platform where they could

express themselves; hence, social media

engagement is a dynamic and never

ending process.

Choose Your

Platforms Wisely

However, there are more platforms than

just Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, and

understanding which platforms best suit

your business is essential to reaching your

demographic. For example, marketing

specialists are paying lots of attention to

Pinterest and YouTube, which are growing

in value for marketers looking to grow their

audience and prospective customers. In fact,

video marketing establishes authority and

fosters trust in your products, especially with

YouTube being the second biggest search

engine online.

Consider the fact that Pinterest alone

drives more website traffic than Google

and LinkedIn combined. In fact, since the

greatest majority of Pinterest subscribers

are women, this platform would be more

beneficial for retail fashion boutiques that

could post (pin) photos of their products,

which will be sure to attract substantial

traffic by potential customers. Thus,

planning a focused marketing strategy

that includes a multi-channel marketing

campaign will harness such platforms and

use them to your business’ advantage.

Your goal should be to inform

prospective clients and create

a community of interest.

etc.) content-rich targeted newsletters will

engage customers like nothing else; plus

they are easily forwarded and inexpensive.

Like other social media outlets, email-

marketing results can be easily tracked to

get insight into your customers; which could

in turn be tailored and designed to suit your

target groups and promote your brand

more effectively.

However, there is a difference between

directed, strategic Email marketing and

spam! It is essential that your customers

give their consent and permission to receive

these emails. Bottom line, people want to

be informed, not bombarded with unwanted

emails. So, think strategic marketing, and

don’t abuse this marketing tool.

Half of the world population use emails, so

it is a powerful asset for promoting your

business; it delivers your messages directly

to your target audience and it is inexpensive

and flexible. Consider the fact that 91.66%

of all Australian emails are opened within

72 hours. In fact, in the US alone, according

to Direct Marketing Association, email

marketing yields an average 4,300% return

on business investment. In addition,

according to Hubspot, companies that use

email marketing generate 50% more sales

leads at 33% lower cost. That is why

marketers keep ranking emails as the single

most effective and inexpensive marketing

tactic for acquisition, conversion and

retention of customers.

So, consistent and regular (daily, weekly...

Email Marketing

Inexpensive?

Effective?

Email Marketing!

Research shows that only 16% of Australian small and medium sized businesses have full

digital engagement, which means the remaining 84% (a staggering 1.7 million businesses) are

missing out on over $350,000 of revenue per year from digitally engaging their customers and

connecting with potential prospects. In fact, small businesses making full use of the Internet

experience 20% faster growth per year than their counterparts, which is quite significant. So the

real question is, why aren’t more business owners taking advantage of digital engagement?

The Six Traps

Small Business

Owners Fall Into

The main hurdle for most business owners

is lack of awareness on the impact digital

engagement could have on their business,

which ties in with their general lack of action

to get the professional help their business

needs to excel.

In most instances, they try to put together a

website using online tools, not knowing that:

1) a good website must reflect the

professional standards and quality of

services, tailored towards a target

market demographic for their

business specifically,

2) no matter how wonderful their website

is, if people cannot find it, it is

meaningless, and

3) there are tools and strategies that

underlie this process that make it work.

Consequently, they end up with a product

that is unprofessional, does not reflect the

essence of their brand or business,

and which does not stand out from the

competition.

In other words, you could end up with an

online business identity that does not reflect

your offline reputation and professional

standards. For example, a famous qualified

professional (i.e. doctor, lawyer…etc.) that

provides high quality services in reality, but

who has a badly designed website that does

not effectively communicate that standard,

might convey a dodgy, unprofessional

image, which adversely affects his business

prospects. Hence, it is important for a

business owner to have the right mindset

and understanding that there is a strategy

that underlines an effective, professional

digital engagement to truly reap the benefits

of this technology.

1. Awareness

The Know-How

Another misconception is that digital

engagement is too expensive and will not

have significant effect on sales. Business

owners often don’t realize that this applies

only when they seek the services of digital

agencies focused on larger businesses.

One way that some business owners try to

sidestep this hurdle is seeking the services

of freelancers to save on cost. However,

no one person has all the skills involved to

provide a business with the comprehensive

strategic planning and professional end

product they need. Therefore, a freelancer

might deliver on design, development or

strategy but rarely the world class user

experience and digital engagement of

customers your business deserves.

2. Cost

Launching a business off the ground and

working towards growth, while managing

family responsibilities and a social life is

time consuming. Needless to say, when you

try to do everything on your own, something

is bound to suffer, be it customer service, or

service design…etc. Therefore, it is important

to know what you can and cannot do, and

look for experts that can help you to achieve

your goals to a budget.

3. Time

Some small business owners fall into the

trap of soliciting the services of offshore

providers, or larger digital agencies that

cater to larger corporations and end up with

either poor quality work, or paying an arm

and a leg with mediocre results. Needless to

say, communicating with offshore digital

agencies and freelancers is difficult due to

language and cultural differences,

which often affects quality and causes

unnecessary delays. But most importantly,

their services may not cover the local market

targets that your business needs.

In other instances, research shows business

owners use family members or friends who

provide unprofessional and amateurish end

products. Thus, this popular misconception

robs most business owners of opportunities

that could substantially help their business

to soar, especially when in this present-day

disruptive world experience, there are

affordable options for small businesses

to consider, such as cloud-based services

tailored for small businesses.

4. Provider

A fundamental factor in your success online

is getting the strategy right. This is about

understanding your ideal client, what is

special about your business, why should

anyone buy from your business when there

are so many alternatives, and how do you

create rapport with your prospects on your

website or social media platform. Therefore,

no amount of investment, action or design

could help you if you don’t have a strategy

to propel all these elements into one

comprehensive, focused, and

meaningful plan.

5. Strategy

Managing the process of building a world

class website is complex as it requires the

skills of multiple parties including

strategists, designers, developers and

clients all working in sync. Our research

of over 8000 small business have shown

this is an area many have faltered in, since

knowing the process of managing an online

marketing project is crucial. The wrong

process could end up wasting your time

and costing you a lot more money than you

could afford, not to mention result in all

the wrong outcomes, which could set your

business back significantly.

Many small business owners attempt to

manage this process themselves, but fail

because they don’t realize that they can’t

get results by managing what they haven’t

mastered. Therefore, even if you sidestep the

above traps, you can’t survive a competitive

business market in the long run if you

don’t know how to bring everything

together correctly.

6. Process

It’s about getting the right help. Speak to

our Digital Strategists on a guided plan

that focuses on achieving the financial

goals of your business.

Chapter 2

Increase

Traffic to

Your Website

and Business

By now, you understand that digital

engagement represents the core of the

marketing world. Your aim should be to

have total web engagement for your brand

This can be achieved only if you shift your

thinking and your marketing strategy to

propel from its digital center outwards and

not the other way around. That is why, most

businesses, regardless of industry, are

becoming O2O (online to offline) businesses

focused on enticing people online to

engage offline.

Today’s business owners must formulate

their marketing strategy with digital

marketing at its core by creating the

foundation that could carry their business’

brand into the next decade. Thus, every

website relies on lead magnet strategies to

attract consumers by alerting them to your

services and enticing their interest; which

means you must have a basic version of

your business that they could experience.

LEAD

GENERATION

BOTTOM LINE

There is art and science in lead

generation. The end of lead generation

is to achieve your annual sales goals,

nothing else.

Facebook Ads, which is second only to

Google allows you to select the type of

demographic you want to target, such as

certain ZIP codes, couples, book clubs…etc.

And even though Google AdWords is the

most expensive of the available tools, it does

provide results when done intelligently with

the right keywords. However, the traffic to

your website that this tool generates comes

at a price; meaning that its benefits halt

as soon as you turn the tap off on Google

AdWords advertising; which is a drawback

that needs to be considered when setting

your SEM strategy.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a

discipline that incorporates pay-per-click

(PPC) listings. It involves promoting your

website through optimization and paid

advertising. It is a widely-used tactic for

customer acquisition that is effective, as

more than 3.5 billion daily searches on

Google demonstrates. The fact that it is

controllable and measurable makes it a good

lead generating tactic.

For example, Pay-per-Click (PPC)

advertisements such as Google AdWords

enables you to boost online traffic; however

Search Engine and

Social Media Marketing

Retargeting ads is focused towards

converting window shoppers into actual

buyers. Generally, only 2% of first time

visitors to your website become buyers,

and retargeting ads is what converts the

other 98%. They work by tracking visitors to

your online store/website and anonymously

placing cookies on their browser, which

retargets you ads to them as they visit other

sites. This method is known to generate

sales by keeping the brand in the forefront

and drawing back window shoppers once

they’re ready to buy. In addition, it helps

your brand gain attention and recognition

because of how it is displayed. In other

words, the more people will see your brand,

the better the chances of their conversion.

Retargeting Ads

Convert

web visitors

to customers

Public Relations

The ultimate goal is to increase traffic

to your website and convert visitors to

customers. PR is a low cost tool that is

very credible and highly effective yet it is

often underutilized by small businesses.

Successful PR will generate positive

publicity and brand awareness; however if

people reach your website and find it dodgy,

the PR will go to waste.

You should consider generating positive

press by building strong ties with key local

journalists, which could potentially be a

powerful game changer for your business.

One way is to commit to building regular

announcements and monthly small stories

relative to local press interests. Also, you

should invest the time in developing your

business core story that documents what

makes your business different and how it

approaches customer service…etc.

The next step would be to transform

your point of view into workshops or

presentations that generate and nurture

leads. A value packed session that is

packaged and ready to market for people

(online and offline) will establish the

networking foundation with other business

owners and customers that might need your

services in the future.

Finally, measuring results is a valuable tool

because it provides clear evidence that your

online marketing tactics are cost effective

and generates real leads. There is no one

universal digital marketing strategy, so

results measurements help with monitoring

your activities and gauging if you are going

in the right direction.

For example, Website Analytics helps you

identify which referral sites provide the best

leads by looking into visitor data to see

which ones actually use your services. The

logic is that knowing which sites generate

5 buying customers for your business as

opposed to 50 window shoppers will help

you determine the best location for your

ads. Google Analytics, for instance, is a free

service that helps you determine where your

buying customers are coming from.

Another tool is Click-through Rates that

measure how many people click on an ad

to visit your site, which helps you measure

online ad impact and website placements

accordingly. Additionally, the number of

visitors that click on your ads and convert

to buyers helps you determine which efforts

and ad locations are cost effective, so look

into your Conversion Rates.

Additionally, pay attention to your Landing

Pages, which is the lead page in your

website that traffic is directed towards to

prompt a specific action. So, keep that page

simple and make buying the focus of that

page, which means eliminating distractions,

such as webcasts, blogs, or Facebook

update links…etc.

Result Measurements

CONCLUSION

In summary, it is no longer an option for any

business to sit on the sidelines when it

comes to digital engagement. The greatest

majority of consumers use search engines,

social media, and other platforms such as

Pinterest, Facebook, Ebay…etc., as their main

shopping resource to research products

online before buying. So, when they do their

online research, they should not only find

your website, but they should also find a

credible professional website that is

engaging and easy to use.

Bear in mind, that potential customers

will not just visit your website, but your

competitors’ websites, online review portals,

and social media snippets as well. Therefore,

your goal must be to understand the needs

of your consumers so you know how to

attract, influence, convert and retain them.

We have listed the essentials to help you

plan and launch the right digital engagement

strategy for your business. However, fortune

favors not just the brave but also the savvy.

Your business has to adapt and recognize

opportunity as it presents itself. And building

a digital marketing strategy requires a team

that is just as flexible and knowledgeable as

the changing digital world. So, this is the

time to think about finding the right partner

and business provider who could help you

launch your digital engagement presence in

the most cost-effective and efficient way.

NetStripes is a tech startup company

transforming the way business owners

create their digital presence with the right

tool and strategy. Our innovations enable

small businesses build big business like

digital presence and capability within weeks

and at a fraction of the price.

We use an integrated, end to end approach

to help small business owners build vital

knowledge and confidence, tailored digital

strategy and then go to create a successful

digital presence that connects with large

number of sophisticated customers which

helps their businesses grow.

www.netstripes.com

P. 1300 10 8880 | E. info@netstripes.com

55 Pyrmont Bridge Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009 Australia

The Small Business

Digital Engagement

Manifesto