Small businesses all around Charleston are feeling the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. Some are having to shut their doors forever while others are trying to adjust to the “new normal”. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, 92% of small business owners are being negatively affected by the pandemic.

While many are in recovery mode, we spoke to Charleston Digital Agency CEO, Wesley Donehue, on the major role digital marketing can play in this phase.

More than ever, small businesses are flocking to social media to post updates on reopenings, adjusted hours, sales and specials, new menus, and all other updates. The problem with this, according to Donehue, is the average consumer is being overwhelmed by the amount of content being thrown on their social feeds that small businesses aren’t capturing the attention they could be.

So how can a small business breakthrough all the noise when every small business is trying to get a word in and big businesses are shouting?

Donehue says they can start by cutting unpaid organic content. He says “if your company is still posting organic social content in the 21st century, you are wasting your time and money.” Every piece of content should have money behind it to promote it to a specific audience according to Donehue.

When small businesses post organically, they’re only reaching a small percentage of the people who already like or follow them and are leaving out potential customers who don’t like or follow them yet.

Donehue says he’s been in contact with many small business owners who are paying marketing firms heavy retainers to maintain their content production to create and post MORE content when in actuality they should be paying less for content creation and more on getting the content they have in front of their target audience.

He says, “Instead of spending resources on producing content every day, you should be producing less content and putting resources behind paid content promotion to your target audience.” To unpack that quote, you have to understand the business model of many marketing firms. What Donehue is arguing is that money well spent in digital marketing is toward finding your audience.

Another factor to consider is other ways to talk to potential customers outside of social media. Many small businesses and marketing firms are only thinking of social media rather than standing out and trying to reach people online in other ways, says Donehue.

Donehue, who is already the CEO of the successful digital marketing agency, Push Digital, decided to create Charleston Digital Agency after hearing the concerns of many local small business owners. He said many of them were concerned with the money they were spending on content and weren’t seeing any benefits from it. That’s when he decided to create an agency that models Push Digital’s success with global brands, campaigns, and causes, on a local level.

Officially open for business, this data-driven, audience-focused agency is the solution to all things digital marketing in Charleston, SC.