Digital marketing is complicated, time-consuming – and a necessity. Here are the top 3 things you need in place to market your business today.

#1. A Talented Team

Many business owners have a love/hate relationship with digital marketing.

On the one hand, they love all the options for creating content and advertising to leads. It’s amazing how many ways there are to reach people today.

But on the other hand, they hate all these options because it creates work. It takes a major commitment to maintain effective online marketing campaigns.

This dilemma is why Marketing 360® exists. SMBs need robust marketing in the complex digital space, but it’s unrealistic for most of them to hire in-house staff. It’s also usually more work than it’s worth to outsource each tactic to a different specialist.

You need a team. A group with specialists in each area working in unison, all with a clear vision of your strategy and goals.

You run your business while a dedicated marketing team drives you business.

#2. Multi-Channel Platform

As we alluded to, marketing today – even for small, local businesses – goes way beyond buying an ad in the Yellow Pages.

We refer to the different platforms, devices, and modes of communication as marketing channels. For instance, Facebook Ads is a social media marketing channel. Google is a search marketing channel. You area Chamber of Commerce is a local networking channel.

With digital, there are simply far more channels than there used to be, and your potential customers are on them. And by them, we do mean channels (plural).

It’s hard to compete if you’re not delivering your message where your customer base is.

Today, that base is spread across online platforms. Much of the content is experienced through phones. Local businesses can even target ads on TV streaming services like Hulu.

Channel management is a great place to put software automation to work.  Marketing 360® is specifically designed to centralize the management of online marketing channels so a small business owner can see how all these pieces come together.

Throw-in integrated payment solutions and CRM/Email software, and you have one tool that can do a lot for your business.

#3. Budget

You have to make your business known to potential clients. That’s the essential mission of marketing.

At the same time, other businesses who want your clients are also making themselves known. That’s the essence of competition.

With respect to visibility on digital platforms, you have to plan a competitive budget. Our marketing consultants can run budget estimates for you (for free). This will give you a sense of what you need to budget for each platform you target.

You must have a sense of what your competition spends because ad platforms like Google and Facebook run on auction systems. In order to be visible, your bids must be in a competitive range.

Remember that marketing is an investment, not an expense. The idea is to get a return on that investment. The point behind all this, after all, is to run a profitable business.

Budget-wise, it’s conceivable that you could invest as much as possible in your marketing (to the point of saturation) and so long as that investment is delivering a return, it’s worth it. That’s how a business dominates market share.

Don’t sell your business short by skimping on budget. Jump in with a full team. You won’t win if you’re playing two guys and your competition is playing five.