You as a small business owner might find the thought of competing with large corporations – a very scary thought. This is because you probably don’t have millions of rupees to set aside as your marketing budget.
BUT
If you are able to come up with an effective strategy to market your products / services, you will not only survive, you will thrive. One of the most effective and cheapest form of Marketing which most of the Small Businesses in India ignore is Online / Digital Marketing.
To know more, let us look into some effective ways in which you can market your Small Business using the Internet.
Your Business Website
First things first – Have a website for your business, it is a window into your business. Anyone siting in any corner of your city or the world can have a glimpse into your business even before stepping in. Once your customer knows something about you, they are more likely to come to you.
Studies have shown that new customers tend to find businesses without a website less trust worthy.
What this means is that your website is one of the places you have to make a good first impression!
Your website must tell people more about your business, and your products or services.
Here are some tips that you can use to make your website better.
- Make it easy to navigate through your website and help the visitor find what they need.
- You must have high quality and unique content on your website, so that potential customers can gain more information about you and your product or service.
- Have a chat bot installed, so that anyone who has a question can immediately send you a message.
- A clean website design which is pleasing to the eye.
- A call to action button, that is easily visible to your potential customer.
If you do not have the budget to pay a web developer to build a new website. Try these easy- to-use online website builder tools like NextraOne, Wix, Simbla or Square Space.
Get on a one-to-one call with the author to get a free audit of your website.
Know your Customer
I cannot stress this enough – Always know who you are marketing to.
A benefit of being a small business owner is that you can be very flexible with your customer service.You can directly interact with the customer and that gives you a much deeper insight of who your most loyal customers are.
This way you are able to better understand them and their expectations from you.
With this valuable information, you will be able to serve them better in the future and attract more people like them.
You can use this information to even run specific marketing campaigns on ground or online as you know who your potential customer is and what they like.
Influencer Marketing
Influencers are people who are admired and respected by a large number of people.
Such influencers – As their name suggests, have the power to influence a decision making process. For example, a popular movie celebrity can be considered as an influencer as they have a loyal fan base.
Not just movie stars, with the wide spread use of the internet anyone who has a sizeable number of people following them can be considered as an Influencer!
To know who these influencers are, ask your loyal customer whom they follow on social media. This will give you an idea about whom to approach to promote your business. These influencers can review your product or service and then recommend the same to their fans or followers.
Influencer marketing is getting highly popular in 2018! Do not miss this opportunity.
Word of Mouth
Referrals or word of mouth marketing is one of the strongest forms of marketing.
A satisfied customer will always recommend your product or service to another customer. People take friend’s recommendation quite seriously. And the cost for acquiring this new customer is FREE!
With the evolution of Digital Media, recommendations have become very easy. Asking a satisfied customer to review your business online or posting something positive about your business on their social media page is Highly Effective and is a FREE form of Marketing.
OR
Brands like yours can create a loyalty program and offer an incentive to existing customers so that they can recommend your brand to their friends and family!
Building a Digital Presence
Now with everyone’s attention focused on their palms, you need to make sure that you are seen there. Make sure to make the internet your most loyal and efficient employee.
This can be done using paid advertising methods. Making sure you are the first result on Google for any query regarding your business segment will increase your visibility incredibly. This can be achieved through SEO and SEM.
Make a list of the most visited websites in your city. Using the Google display network, showing ads on these websites will greatly increase awareness about your business.
Higher the visibility of your brand online, greater will be your sales offline.
Social Media
With an exponential rise in people spending time on social media, marketing and building a social media presence must never be ignored. With 24.6 Cr users in India, Facebook is the most used media platform. No Newspaper or television channel can boast these numbers.
Social media users regularly follow brands and also report their experiences with the brand on social media.
This is a super effective medium to market your brand as a small business.
You can showcase your brand personality on social media with graphics, videos, content, contests, polls, social media campaigns etc.
You have the freedom to be really innovative and creative to engage with your target audience!
Want to know more about social media marketing, click here.
Concluding thoughts
Consumers have more options and are more knowledgeable than ever before.
So it is challenging to convince a potential customer to buy from only you and not from your competitor.
Hence, small businesses tend to struggle to compete with bigger players in the industry.
But the above mentioned tactics give small businesses like yours a means to succeed and make their mark in an extremely competitive industry.
To successfully use each of the above mentioned tips, you need to have the right skills and knowledge.
If not, you will only end up wasting your time and money.
Your brilliant idea or vision WILL NOT get the exposure it deserves and create the impact you want.
Learning these skills is very easy. By spending just 2 hours a day you can gain the basic knowledge to start your online marketing efforts.
You can also partner with Digital Marketing agencies like ours, as we are trained to create innovative marketing strategies for small businesses.
Agencies like ours have trained professionals who are experts in the various strategies mentioned above.
After all, being a successful entrepreneur is about utilizing other people’s knowledge and skills to turn your vision into a reality!
If you would like a FREE business strategy session with us, click here!