Consider that you’re living in a village. You are not content with your life and think you’re meant for bigger things. So you decide to move to a city. There are two routes that lead to the city. The first route is a regular road. You can use this road to drive to the city in minutes, but you won’t see a great deal. The second route is a bumpy zig-zag footpath. You can only walk along this route, but if you do, you will see; a stream, flowers, birds,green pastures, frogs, cows, sheep, horses, goats… You get the picture.
The first route is the path most people take to market their business. They need a so-called “proven” plan, a Dummies Guide – something they can follow without too many surprises, something that is risk-free, something that makes them feel that they’re playing safe. The second route is for the adventurous souls in business, who continually look for fresh, innovative, out of the box ideas and new ways to reach out to their prospective clients. If you’re one of the first route takers, no need to read ahead, you can exit here….
Still reading? Time to make you explore the second route. To begin with…
Throw that old marketing guide where it belongs, the bin!
The first and most important step-throw those age-old, conventionally safe dummy marketing guides in the recycling bin! You need to innovate and figure out what works today. Today, when even the startups can advertise themselves to millions online for less than the cost of a Parle-G biscuit family pack, the revenue you put into marketing is insignificant.
Internet marketing
Almost everyone now uses the Internet to run a crosscheck on the credibility of a potential service provider; before proceeding to do any business with them whatsoever. Most newbies are unaware that they can expand their arena of prospective clients if they’ve a professionally designed website that has been search engine optimized by a proven SEO expert. (See a recent article we published on the importance of SEO)
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.
Blog
Don’t even think about having a small business website without a blog. It’s rare that a blog wouldn’t benefit a business. Your blog should be hosted on your website. WordPress is the most preferred blogging platform that can easily be installed and integrated into your website by your web designer. Then use popular keyword phrases that people are searching for in your niche and use them in the title of your blog posts so you can rank for those terms in the search engines . Update it regularly with simple tips, articles, insights or info about your products . E-mail your subscribers when you post and encourage people to subscribe to your blog feed.
Social Networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,Industry specific online gropus
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 market yourself properly without social media. According to our recent case-study, everyone is using social networking sites these days, but not always effectively. Here is a basic social networking process to increase the results you get: 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. The flowchart below will give you a better idea:
There are many online networking groups that are focused on a specific industry, profession or interest. LinkedIn, for instance, has thousands of groups in every imaginable category to choose from. Join a group if the members are your target market or the members have clients in your target market. Participate by posting e-mails to the group that offer valuable information or comments so members get to know you. Then after a while you can offer them your products and services and they’ll be willing to take a look.
Email marketing
The single most powerful marketing tool available to small businesses. One thing we strongly recommend is that you build your own email database, rather than buying one from one of those list broking companies. The best way to start building your subscriber list, is to ask all your existing clients and contacts if you can have their email address. Then, ask if you can contact them from time to time via email with a newsletter or special offers or announcements.If you add people without their permission, they will regard your emails as spam. This gets you your initial list to get started with.
Also, ask your readers to forward your emails on to their contacts. If the content is information rich and they do have someone in mind who might find it useful, they will. Keeping in mind that those who get it via friend might find it interesting, always provide a link on newsletter for the sign up page on your site.
Word of Mouth publicity
Let’s say you want to go to a restaurant, or buy a new smartphone-what will you value more while making the choice-an online review or a suggestion a close friend makes to you? The latter, I presume. The age old word of mouth—product or service recommendations made by friends, co-workers, or neighbours you know and trust, still tops the online reviews, advertisements and sites.
And remember, there’s no single formula for word-of-mouth success. Word-of-mouth referrals stem naturally from an unparalleled customer experience that fosters clients’ identification with your brand.
And unparalleled customer experience stems from innovation and originality. If you want to attract the best clients and the highest fees, you need to understand the commercial value of originality. Be innovative. Look for ways to offer a uniquely valuable service, rather than toeing the line and doing what your competitors are doing. The ever-changing marketplace values originality and attaches no value to copycats.
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