Nursing is not a choice. It’s a must, an inescapable responsibility. So is digital marketing. As known and believed, the benefits of nursing a new-born are far beyond basic nutritional values. Similar is the essence of digital marketing for SMEs. Needless to mention, traditional promotional tactics are the first things that might pop-up to mind first when a small business owner thinks marketing. A print advertisement, a direct mailer, a television or radio commercial are but a few ideas that he might think of spending on. After all, they’re acquainted and profound. On the other hand, the term “digital marketing” can feel frightening and vague, especially for less tech-savvy business owners. While you can hold a door hanger in your hand, a display ad that appears on one or a few websites, or a plain-looking text ad among hundreds of search engine results, might seem inconsequential or camouflaged. There is drastic shift in consumer psychology over past a decade or two. With increasing use of Internet and fast-growing market of mobile, one may witness people being preoccupied with technological gadgets like anything. Perhaps sometimes frustrating – most of us must have probably found ourselves at least once or twice being stuck behind a parked car because the driver is too busy texting to notice the traffic light has changed. For small businesses with minimal or negligible advertising budgets, it befits to be targeted – spend where your customers are. With the market’s deepening obsession with digital technology, a digital marketing strategy has become absolutely miss-not for small businesses. Without a well-planned digital strategy your business is likely to skip on new customers, increased business, big opportunities and much more. Believe me or not, your existence comes to a doubt, if being a new business or a small business you don’t have a digital presence. When most consumers hear of a new business, the first reaction that’s expected and observed is to look up for your website and social media presence – a casual way to dig more of you. To locate you or on their way to reach you, they plug your address into their smartphone and use Google maps to get there, that simple! With no second thoughts to it, People expect you to have a website. If you cannot be verified digitally, customers hunting information doubt your existence and legitimacy. A Digital Marketing ‘Mix is a business’ unique way of reaching out to, engaging with, creating its presence, and promoting its products and services to existing and prospective customers using digital channels. The mix includes the pillars of digital marketing like – website, mobile apps, ecommerce platform, SEO, SEM, email marketing, webinars, content marketing, SMO social media marketing and promotions, display advertising, web analytics, and more. It’s much of understanding the legion of options, tools, and tactics; decoding which are right for your business with consideration of your target customers and the markets in which you operate. Further, more complex is boiling to a realistic budget, properly estimating the potential conversion rate, resulting return on investment, and last but not the least executing the strategy. It’s quite crucial to understand the goals and bottom line of your business, in order to design a digital strategy that outlines how the business will use digital technology to achieve its annual sales targets. It is also equivalently important to strategically develop it to deliver value to your customers while simultaneously strengthening your competitive edge. Consider where the potential customers spend most of their time. With goals in place to work towards, it will be easier for you to determine what makes the most sense, and which are the right investments of your time and money. Developing and executing a digital marketing strategy may seem to be daunting but like traditional marketing, the goal of digital marketing is to attract and engage with new customers. It is about effort. That means the more you put in, the better your results will be – in terms of growth, efficiency, and awareness. The fixation around connecting with and consuming technology of Indian consumers actually offers abundant opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Among few advantages of digital marketing is the size of the audience that small business owners can reach, as well as the possibility to target specific types of people in a considerably less expensive budget.