Small and medium businesses can carve a niche through internet marketing and make use of the limitless possibilities the internet provides. MSMES can advertise themselves to millions online for less than the cost of a Parle-G biscuit family pack and mail a million potential clients in a few hours for just pennies. And the best part- you don’t even require any manpower for it.
So how do you start with it? Well, to begin with..
Website Marketing: Most small businesses are unaware that they can receive stacks of high quality enquiries, leads, phone calls and sales from interested prospective clients; if only they had a professionally designed website that has been search engine optimised by a proven SEO expert. When you’ve a professionally optimized slick looking website, with content which is creatively written and more informative than the typical material found elsewhere, provides quality information about your product , whilst offering them the opportunity to purchase goods and services on the spot, it’s like moving your little shop from an unused dirt road in the middle of nowhere and relocating it BANG IN THE MIDDLE of Connaught Place, New Delhi.
Social Media Marketing:
You build your professional website, make a blog and totally forget the social media media aspect.Well, it’s like… you’re making a biryani and you’ve got the meat, you’ve got the spices, you’ve got the salt and the potatoes, but you forget the rice.
You can’t make biryani without the rice. And there, you can’t make market yourself properly without social media. Complete your business focused profiles at Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Have your RSS blog feed connected to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and make sure that all these social media platforms are also interconnected, so that each time you post all the profile pages are automatically updated.
Email Marketing:
It’s a fact: Email marketing is extremely cost effective and one of the most powerful marketing tool available to MSMEs . Ask all your existing clients and contacts if you can have their email address. Then, contact them from time to time via email with a newsletter or special offers or announcements. You also need to have an email sign-up box on your website. This needs to be easy to read and positioned in an uncluttered area of your site, which everyone will see.
Ad placements: This involves placement of advertisements by selecting correct locations based on demographics of the audience it is meant for.
Press releases : There are literally hundreds of websites that accept free press releases for inclusion in their online publications or directories. Every newsworthy occurrence in your business warrants a press release—some examples would be a new website, new corporate client, upcoming event, new product or service or new employee.
So, there you go, incorporate the internet marketing into your marketing budget, because , remember, it always helps to reach segmented customers faster than conventional means of marketing.
Any interesting tips you think we might have missed? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comment below.
