Digital Marketing for Technology Companies: 5 Top Tactics That Really Work!

by Aravinda S Shetty | Sep 13, 2021 | Blog, Digital marketing

Technology is the great growling engine of change, and it’s everywhere. The companies that make and roll out tech-based products and software into the market — the IT companies and businesses offering Software as a Services (SaaS) — need to build brand awareness and make themselves stand out. Because tech shoppers spend 74% of their time researching online versus 26% offline. It is key to make their customers — existing or potential — realize the real value they provide. Marketing for enterprise technology and software companies has changed over the years — and it now leverages the power of digital!

You’re probably here because you’re wondering how to market your software product. While digital marketing for technology companies brings plenty of scope for improving brand visibility and ensuring your services can be easily found through search — there is increased competition for attention on digital channels, and also the growing need to reach the right decision-makers on the right channels. You may be following the best marketing strategies for IT companies, but you will need some digital marketing tactics that will produce real results more easily. So, what are they? Let’s find out 5 of them that actually work!

Consolidate Your Content Experience

To start with, no matter what types of content you produce, centralize the experiences. Individual pieces of content — such as blogs, e-mailers, social media posts — should be personalized for your audience and the channel. But they should all come together in one centralized digital experience that’s connected to your brand. This will help them remember your brand.
Even before you start with your marketing, having a detailed brand manual and abiding by it for your content creation can help. You can also have a “Resources” page on your website to drive visitors into one experience, while still being able to find the information that’s most useful or relevant to them.

Create Original & Engaging Video Content

Decision-makers may not have the time to go through a product datasheet, but they could surely have the time to watch an engaging video of two or three minutes, about a product or solution that might interest them or offer their business some value. If you want to introduce your solution or talk about the benefits of your product, use original, high-quality video content as a marketing tactic. Make a video about how your company started. Or what made you develop a specific feature. Or how your product solves a common customer problem. Promoting video content on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, or even just featuring it on a website can work wonders while marketing for SaaS startups.

Storytelling is key — while using a video to market your solution, you need to focus on telling a compelling story. Marketing in the B2B enterprise space doesn’t mean you should restrict yourself to technical and jargon-filled videos. While your technology solution or product might be robust or complex, the video shouldn’t be! It can be fun and easy to understand. Engaging videos that can inform, educate and entertain at the same time are the ones that capture the most attention and brand recall. As for the product specifics, don’t go too overboard with them in the video either, leave some suspense for other content offers as well as your sales calls and meetings!

Utilize Client Testimonials

If your clients are your unpaid endorsers, that’s the best endorsement you could get! Request them for testimonials. Client testimonials serve as a reliable endorsement and are considered as a peer-to-peer endorsement by your potential customers. They make your target customer think that if your solution worked for another company just like theirs, it will work for them too. That’s how they get interested in your product, and that’s what takes them up the conversion ladder faster.
You could have client testimonial quotes on the Home Page of your website, or on the Landing Page dedicated to a product. You could also turn client testimonials into powerful videos where the clients themselves talk about your solution. Walk the viewers through how your solution helped a specific customer get from point A to point B, what pain points it solved along the way, and how.

Give Your Audience Real Value

Any killer strategy of digital marketing for IT companies or any great marketing strategies for technology companies fall flat if your audience is not getting any value from your marketing materials! By using various methods without providing them with real value, you may be able to reach them but may not be able to convert them. They won’t be led to the next stage of the buyer’s journey. They won’t hit that ‘Sign up’ or ‘Buy now’ button, they won’t ‘Swipe up’ or ‘Subscribe’, and they won’t download your brochure or datasheet.

“But what do you mean by ‘real value’?” On the surface, it is a good brand impression — which is important. On a deeper level, it is you being a trusted source of information and a subject matter expert in your domain. This is what gives you a good brand impression in the first place.

If the information and content you put out through your marketing efforts are valuable to your audience, and if you are giving out some of your coveted secrets because they can help your audience — your audience is more likely to further engage with you. Your brand name and product will pop up in their head when they want to solve a particular business problem or meet a relevant need the next time. Your website will be where they go to seek answers. Your sales representative is whom they will reach out to when they have queries. When they trust you, they will move to the next stage of the conversion process with confidence in you. And that’s a win for you!

Remarket to Existing Customers

Unless you’re entirely new in the market, you are bound to have some existing customers. How about increasing revenue through marketing efforts that are targeted to your current customers? You will most likely have a database with some required details about them, and you can build campaigns and systems that enable you to retain these customers along with upselling and cross-selling your products, services, solutions and features to them.

Customer remarketing also makes you stay top-of-mind with them and this also increases their brand recall and retention. Moreover, as they’ve already done business with you earlier, they will be more likely to trust you again if you’ve provided them with value the last time. You can also run remarketing ads via platforms like Google or Facebook for those who have visited your website to know more about you or your clients. This can also push people towards conversion and bring you more sales.

Some Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. How do you digitally market a software product?

A. To start with, have proper and well-planned digital marketing strategies in place and follow some tactics that work. Create a comprehensive knowledge base to support your customers with your content offers. Also, consider offering free demos or free trial versions of the product.

Q. How do software companies get clients?

The first step is to identify a specific niche to target and have a content marketing strategy. The content you promote should be targeted to a particular audience and provide them with real value — to convert them into clients. Establish yourself as a subject matter expert and reliable resource for information to gain your potential clients’ trust. Getting referrals from previous clients is also a good way of getting new clients.

Q. How do I market my software house?

Invest in getting a dynamic, fast-loading and mobile responsive website design. Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your content offers and opt for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising to generate leads. Social media marketing is also a great way of marketing your software house or company to increase brand visibility.

The competition in the B2B Tech industry is fierce. So take advantage of what the online world and the social media platforms have to offer. You may find an untapped source of clients looking for your services. No matter how new or old, big or small your company is, you can outrun your competitors with the right approach to digital media. And if you’re an IT company or a SaaS company looking to buff up your marketing strategies and tactics to make more profits, reach out to Alter Marketing Solutions at 099864 60086 or email us at [email protected].

Effects of COVID-19 on the Digital Marketing Industry

by Aravinda S Shetty | Jul 13, 2021 | Blog, Digital marketing

Most industries took a major hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, the digital marketing industry too could not escape its effects. When big businesses took a hit due to massive fluctuations in the market, they looked to cut their expenses and run the show keeping expenses minimal. In most industries, marketing and advertising are considered as a luxury and not a necessity. Thus, the major budget allocations for marketing expenses were cut down and survival expenses were concentrated on. 

Project Inflow During the Pandemic 

As we are a digital marketing agency in Mangalore, we have been seeing the ups and downs when it comes to clients’ approaches and the effectiveness of the Ads we run. When the pandemic just began in India, it was announced that there will be a lockdown for a week. Later, it was extended for several weeks.

For the first 15 days, all clients were in what we could call the “waiting mode”. Just trying to understand how long it would take to go back to normal —   and then they slowly started adopting what we could call a “survival mode” of business operation. When the situation continued for more than 15 days, most small scale industries, small businesses and mid-range players were instructed to stop all marketing activities till further notice. This greatly impacted revenue figures for us. After another three months, with hopes of a vaccine and the decrease in the number of cases —  most businesses and the economy started slowly picking up. Around September, the business graph began going up and come December, it was almost back to normal.

Changes in Digital Marketing Results

For a small number of clients who had high hopes and expectations,  the journey began with cutting down more than 50% of service fees for them. The strategy changed to fit minimal costs and maximum gains, along with highly optimised campaigns. The cost of advertising has been reduced to almost 50% from the pre-pandemic days. In the auction insights, we do see fewer clients running ads. At the same time, there are issues with conversion and reasonable closing to show sustainable value. The main revenue source of advertisement for Tier-2 cities like Mangalore is via education, hospital and tourism industries which have been going through a lot of uncertainty. Even the end consumers are not sure about making buying decisions at that moment. Still, we continued on our journey and brought about note-worthy results. Metrics have hit the record level of optimisation. 

What did businesses gain by marketing during the pandemic?

Even though many businesses had incurred losses and were functioning with a lot of uncertainty, some mid-range businesses with slightly deeper pockets took advantage of the situation. 

• As we mentioned earlier, advertising costs were almost 50% lower than pre-pandemic days. So, businesses could gain extra mileage by spending less. They could also gain a better bargain in terms of service fees.

• As competition had fallen, marketing platforms were not stuffed with too many materials and ads.

• Many businesses used the little extra money they had to create brand awareness and leave a lasting impression on customers’ minds —  which will yield results in the long run.

What changed in the advertising industry?

We strongly believe that the end users/consumers have changed their mode of engagement from hoardings and newspapers to digital platforms. The traditional media like Television, Newspapers and Hoardings require heavy one-time investments. Businesses are looking for cost effective, easy to start, and ROI-centric solutions to spend their marketing budgets. At the same time, users have also turned their interests towards digital marketing. 

The industry is moving towards an exponential growth in demand for digital marketing. Especially with the Tier 2 cities, the marketing expenses have been moved to the digital space.  As a large population of consumers are active on digital platforms, the effectiveness of digital marketing via various platforms has been increasing in this pandemic duration. 

Now that you know what has been the journey, the effects and the current situation, you will have to make the choice of finding the right media for your business’ marketing. We at Alter Marketing Solutions, a digital marketing company in Mangalore, can consult you for digital marketing and take the responsibility as an extension of your marketing team. We handle end-to-end digital marketing solutions without any hassles. Contact [email protected] or call us at +91 99864 60086.

Marketing Strategies During The COVID-19 Pandemic

by Aravinda S Shetty | Jul 12, 2021 | Blog, Digital marketing

The world is facing a crisis that is unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes. Most businesses are struggling to stay operational and many are facing a lot of uncertainties in terms of jobs, consumption, demand and supply. And the worst part is that we do not know how long this might go for. People who have been running businesses smoothly for ages are struggling now. 

But does it have to be this difficult? Not really. We have to play our cards smarter and keep the game going. Before the pandemic, you might have been using one or more of the following methods to gain market share:

1. TV ads
2. Newspaper ads
3. Paper insertion
4. Pamphlets and flyers
5. Hoardings
6. Direct sales
7. Referrals

It’s time for us to analyse how well these techniques are going to work in the current situation. Most of these techniques are either expensive, ineffective, not measurable, do not compel people to take action, or do not fulfill the needs of the customer.

Due to the lockdown and pandemic situation, we can see that people are slowly changing their lifestyle in terms of content consumption and buying behaviour. Don’t you think as a business, you also need to change the way you reach your customers and get them to consider your brand as part of their buying decision? 

How To Market During A Pandemic

Focus on brand awareness

Most people are not ready to spend money until the uncertainty is over, except for items and products that are essential. But when things do get better, people will come back again to buy. Many brands make the mistake of completely stopping all the marketing thinking it won’t help at all at this time. But this is the best time to build brand awareness with your consumer. Moreover, advertising is cheaper now than ever before! 

Go online – It’s now or never!

We all know people are spending a lot of time online for entertainment, learning, and many other activities. No matter how small or big you are, it is time for you to take your business online. This is the only option that you have to boost your business. Create your online store by building a website, an online catalogue site or just using WhatsApp business or Facebook marketplace with zero investment. But act now and go online!

Use digital marketing to make a mark

Traditional marketing approaches like hoardings, flyers, newspaper ads, have lost a lot of their reach and scope.  At the same time, there has been a significant rise in engagement on social media platforms — an increase of 30% to 40%! This means that people are spending a lot of time on social media. As the rule of marketing, we need to put more effort and money where people are more active. Social media, digital content creation is cheap and the best way to market your product right now. If you have a good budget, consider running paid ads and create original content showcasing your product.

Take it one step at a time

If you are a small business trying to go online, it’s better not to burn your hand by putting a lot of money on advertising. Instead, start generating simple content about your business and start using the power of WhatsApp and other popular social media. This will be a good first step to taking your business online. 
We definitely can’t generalize marketing approaches and strategies. But no matter what business you run, this will be a good starting point for you. Strategy can be finetuned and improved by taking into consideration the nature of the business, budget, resources availability and other factors. At any point of time if you think you need our help in improving your strategy reach us out at 099864 60086 or mail us at [email protected].

Making a Digital Marketing Strategy For The Real Estate Industry

by Aravinda S Shetty | Jul 9, 2021 | Blog, Digital marketing

The real estate industry in India has evolved over time. Like in every other industry today, this industry’s organizations and properties also need an online presence. Thus, one thing that has surely revolutionised the sector, is digital marketing – and it can very well lead to the buying and selling of real estate properties!

An integrated digital marketing strategy can work wonders, with great return on investment. 

The Catch

Often, real estate sellers directly jump into selling their property online. The cost for each lead in the industry is comparatively higher compared to other industries in the market. If you are the owner of a real estate business or trying to sell your property online, the clear setup of your property and online storefront is very important. Your digital marketing performance will also depend on the capabilities and competence of your online salesperson. He/she should refer to your website, media materials like photos, videos, online brochures and data points. Keeping them updated, attractive and presentable will definitely get better results in all your digital marketing efforts.

The Strategy

Let’s throw some light on the different platforms we can use to reach people over digital marketing. As an example, we will focus on Tier 2 cities and how people react to digital marketing efforts.

• Social Media Marketing (SMM)

This platform considerably delivers greater performance compared to all other media. I am talking about Facebook and Instagram, which are mainly targeted and precise in terms of delivery. Here are some areas to consider when it comes to SMM.

Be Specific, Be terrific. Social media Ads are highly targeted and communication can be directed towards the target audience. For example, if you are trying to sell a commercial property to the target market of Chartered Accountants, you should create an Ad addressing the focal points for Chartered Accountants. Don’t make the mistake of creating one single generic Ad about the property and showing it to Chartered Accountants, Doctors, Financial Advisers, etc. It could be confusing and not be as effective as it was intended to be. Talk about what kind of benefits a Chartered Accountant can get by investing in your commercial property. 

Build a proper sales funnel. No one would buy any property or high end asset without having complete knowledge on what they are buying. It is a very conscious decision anyone would make. So instead of Direct Selling, you should have sales pitches with more information. And not bombard them with Ads

.

Try to communicate in local languages with the local audience. One of my strategies that has worked to reduce the cost per lead by about 60%, is using local languages. This local flavour could feel personalized and help you resonate with your target audience. Quality of the prospective leads might also be ensured by asking the right and specific questions in enquiry form, so we get filtered leads.

Keep updating and trying new methods of communication for the new set of target audience. Try out plenty of experimental ways to make sure that you are on the right track. Analyse each decision taken, before acting upon it. 

• The Google Ads

Google sure is an essential and worthwhile platform giving fruitful results for the real estate industry. There are few important aspects to understand while entering into real estate selling digitally – 

Use PPC ads for real estate. This is a technique through which you can reach people when they are researching properties similar to yours. This is the high potential audience, meaning the conversion rate of these audiences is very high compared to social media. 

Go for long-tail keywords specific to the search query. Leverage these keywords for efficient use of Ads.

Try to compete for the first preposition. This helps you increase your click  through rate by more than 35%. The conversion rate for click to lead can be anywhere between 20 to 30%, which is huge. It may not help you in collecting intended leads, but it helps you to directly reach people who are researching –  creating more touch points.

Use Remarketing on Google. So you can reach back to the people who already know your property but have not bought from you yet. This is very cost effective and creates a good touch point for second level funnel audiences.

Explore Display Ads. You can have Ads run in the local newspapers and YouTube channels, and engage with the local audience better. It also helps in increasing brand awareness. These will definitely give you more credibility over the market, and create more digital touch points.

• SEO and directory listings.

Create specific online content. Generating enough relevant and trustworthy content helps to build visibility and trust in the digital space. 

Submit your property listing in all possible free property listing sites, properties, hotels and local directories. Posting in the Facebook Marketplace also helps boost visibility. This not only helps you in building trust from the SEO perspective, but also creates multiple touch points with people who are researching properties online

Optimise your website and landing pages. And do so in such a way that Google recognises your website for organic ranking. This long-term strategy will bring you wonderful results, even after a certain amount of time. Focus more on long-tail keywords which will make it easier to rank the site higher locally.

Though it could seem like a high level strategy breakdown, the major technique is to leverage possible digital media for boosting your real estate sales. The strategy definitely needs systematic execution and trained professionals, to generate fruitful results. At Alter Marketing Solutions Private Limited, we have expert professionals who specialise in specific areas. For guaranteed real estate sales and lead generation, contact mangalore.alter@com.

Digital Marketing For FMCG Brands : 6 Tips To Build A Million-Dollar Business In 2021

by Aravinda S Shetty | Jun 15, 2021 | Blog, Digital marketing

Yes, we are in a time where the entire country and the world is going through a very difficult time with the covid-19 pandemic. People are unable to reach the retail stores and business outlets to pick up their favorite products for their daily needs. Do you agree that everyone is going through an online mode of purchase sitting at home looking for alternative solutions for their day-to-day shopping? I believe it is a great mistake as a brand if you don’t present yourself in the place where your audience is.

Surveys and reports say that there was a 40% growth in the E-commerce segment in 2020, crossing 38 million dollars. This is indicating that users are still purchasing and consuming the product but just the shift in the mode of purchase has been changed. Honest question to you — how much are  you ready to change your mode of sales? Are you doing anything about it or are you just saying the market is bad?Here are a few techniques that will help you to take your FMCG brand online and establish your business much stronger!

Build Social Media Presence

Due to the lockdown, a lot of people are at home and spending a lot of time on social media.Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are great social media platforms for engaging with your targeted audience. You need to show the goodness of your product and build a persona behind the product so that people start connecting with your brand. Have regular engaging content on these social media pages as well as run small campaigns like a contest, giveaway, etc. which will give a great boost to the brand-building exercise.

E-commerce Platforms

As mentioned earlier, people have not stopped purchasing or consuming FMCG goods and that has changed the way of buying. Even if you have a great distribution network, it is very important that you have your products listed on E-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, etc. You can also explore bulk buying platforms like IndiaMART, Amazon business, etc. It is not just about how much money you make by selling your products on E-commerce platforms, it is about increasing the Brand Visibility that you get for free of cost on these platforms as they have millions of visitors browsing on their website. This also becomes a marketing cost. So don’t think twice before listing your products on E-Commerce platforms, just go for it !. If you are a niche-based seller you can also choose local online aggregators and specific product E-commerce platforms. ( For example, if you are selling soap you can also so check on medicine-related E-commerce platform to sell your product online )

Content Outreach

It’s not just enough if you talk about your product, your main aim should be for people to talk about it. Nowadays reviews given by people are helping customers to consider purchasing online. As  everyone spends a lot of time online, maybe reading blogs and articles or watching videos that are generated by people is going to add a lot of credibility to your brand. Just to give you an example, if you are a masala brand,then you can reach out to homemakers, YouTube influencers etc. — and they will post a cooking video with the masala powder and will endorse the same. This will create a community and  there will be trust built on the market which will help you establish the brand.

Go for online Paid Marketing

As the  lockdown is on and businesses are down, the online media has become a more viable and much cheaper option for brands to showcase their product to a targeted audience. Due to the lockdown, it is observed that there has been a decrease in the cost per paid media and this is because larger brands spend on digital media.And accountability is much higher when it comes to digital media paid advertising. You can micro-target your audience and communicate based on the buying stage that they are in. We believe Advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, Google display and Youtube work really well to establish your brand as well as pushes people to buy your product online wherever it is available. You can start as small as Rupees Hundred per day and target as small as one Kilometre of radius. Don’t you think it is a great option to put your product in front of people who are ready to buy your product? I believe in that too.

Go for Product Innovation by people

Recently we have been experimenting with the FMCG brands that we  handle digital marketing for. We approached our followers and consumers to come up with the innovative product that they can make  using the ready made product that we delivered to them. Just to make it clear, there is a lady who made wonderful donuts out of gulab jamun mix which is one of our products. We never even imagined you could make delicious donuts out of gulab jamun mix. This gave a different perspective about what we can do with our own product and people loved that too. Since people have a little better time than before they find happiness in doing things differently with very accessible products that they have. This kind of user-generated content will make the brand stand out in the market. 

We are sure there are many more avenues to market your FMCG products digitally and it definitely requires experience and investment in time and money. This is the best time to experiment and find out how it works for your own brand and products.  If you think you are facing a crunch of time definitely you will have to seek help from people who are experts in the domain. We at Alter Marketing Solutions Pvt. Ltd. work with  a lot of FMCG brands which are accepted worldwide and make  great use of digital marketing for market expansion. Our approach of hyperlocal communication and domain expertise helps different types of FMCG brands.We’ll help you make your product a digital rockstar! You need any help to take your FMCG product digitally, please reach out to us at [email protected] or give us a call at ‎+91 99864 60086.