Word of Mouth marketing – a great boon for small businesses

Do you think WoM is good for your brand? Will it suit your marketing goals and help you achieve them too? If you are a small business enterprise, Word Of Mouth marketing may help you achieve many goals. A lot of brands include everything possible in their marketing plans without understanding what’s good and what’s bad for them. If you are a small business and fit in the following scenarios, then you can implement WoM strategies for your benefit. It’s free and more credible than advertising.

1.       Women Oriented Products

WoM works very well for products that are aimed at women. Products like cosmetics, hair colors, clothing line, beauty parlors, kitchen amenities, etc can be easily marketed by WoM. When women use these products, they generally discuss with friends and family. Whether or not they like the product, they definitely have an opinion about it which gets passed on to their circle. From one to another, they tend to try the product if they hear something good about the same from their trusted group of friends. Thus, women oriented products can be marketed through WoM. A unique way of doing so can be sponsoring small kitty parties where women can experience the product for free and then spread the word about it.

2.       Niche Business

Brands that have a very niche audience can make use of WoM. This is an apt strategy for those who have a much targeted group to reach out to. It is so because niche groups are most likely to be intertwined in some way or the other – online forums, groups, association, etc. If a few people use the product and have a positive opinion about it, they would definitely want to share it with the rest of the group. For example, a shampoo that is made of natural ingredients and has not been animal tested will be termed as ‘Vegan’. All those who wish to live a 100% vegan life are connected on various platforms and if even a few of them are convinced about the product’s quality and the claim of being ‘Vegan’, they would spread the good word. Also, when the target audience is niche, spending in huge advertising budgets doesn’t make sense as the RoI will be extremely low.

3.       Local Business

Local businesses which are geographically confined to a small area can use WoM to a large extent. Consider the example of Pune based the Four Fountains Spa. It started with one branch in the city and then the good word spread about it as an affordable spa that can rejuvenate you completely. Its popularity spread like wild fire as people who went to the spa shared their experiences with friends and family and started gifting spa vouchers as gifts to their parents, friends and even as corporate gifts, which fuelled the WoM even more and increased their sales. Today, the spa has expanded to various Indian cities with more than 10 branches, all this in just a period of about 3 years.

4.       No Advertising Budget

Brands that do not have any advertising budget should focus more on WoM strategies to drive the business. It is a great marketing alternative when the cash reserves do not allow for spending on newspaper ads or TVCs.

Simple Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

You have a small business and limited resources to market. Is that a problem? Absolutely not! Here are a few tips on how you can best utilize your time, effort and money on marketing your business:

• Add a personal touch: Be it a Facebook post or an email message, add a personal touch to it. Make your brand more human by giving its voice a touch of emotions and sentiments. Whatever you write or send out, even the content on your website, should have a personal touch and a human tone because It helps in connecting with your target audience faster!

• Use your existing network: Charity begins at home and so does marketing. Your family, friends, associates are the first target audience that you have to reach out to. Their support will help you get further. It’s like a ripple effect. If your network promotes you on their social network or circle of friends. Their network promotes it among their network. That’s how the word gets out! But the most important in this is how you sell your business idea to your own friends and family and make them believe in you and your product.

• Let the picture talk: A picture speaks a thousand words! It has been concluded that images can potentially attract more attention, capture mind share and engage people. Hence, use images more than text on Facebook, websites and elsewhere. It allows you to build a better positioning of the brand. Even product images should be good quality so that the user experience on your website and other online portals is enhanced.

• Contests: Small contests and giveaway are a great way to engage existing and potentials customers. Keep aside a monthly budget based on your will and utilize that money for gifts and giveaways. Such activities go a long way in increasing your number of loyal customers. And if they like what they win, they will come back to you and buy the product!

• Get together: If other similar players in your industry are also small and mid-sized, it would be a great idea to join hands for joint promotion. A combined marketing activity is a great way to increase awareness about the product segment and reduces cost of marketing. You can approach media for PR stories on all the brands together. It’s a win-win situation for all.

• Network: Networking helps increase your personal brand and generate credibility in the market. You are the brand ambassador for your product by default hence people judge your product and brand based on your personality. Hence, meet as many people as possible and create a good impression on them to be able to generate a good impression for your brand.

Use blogging to build your brand!

Did you know that there are specialized bloggers who write about particular subjects and are great influencers when it comes to guiding people through their purchase decisions? For example, there are tech bloggers who review every new gadget and publish it on their blogs. Those looking out to buy a new gadget, look up their blog and decide which one to choose. If these bloggers write a positive feedback on the product, the brand will be benefitted manifold.

Blogs have a far greater reach when it comes to search engine results. A blend of SEO techniques and relevant content can do wonders for a brand.

Consider the following ways in which brands can get themselves to be talked about by bloggers.

1.      Blogging Contests

A brand can announce a blogging contest and get bloggers to generate content in the online space for itself. The blogging contest can be given a well-defined theme, like the USP of the brand, etc. When a good prize is attached to the contest, bloggers would automatically be willing to participate and write about the brand in their blog.

For eg, recently, Dove held a Real Beauty blogging contest where in the bloggers were asked to write about what real beauty meant to them. It had huge cash prize attached to it. It created a lot of hype around the brand. These contests can be announced through various blogging directories or social networks for bloggers.

2.     Blogger Meets

A brand can announce a blogger meet where in the city based bloggers can come together and experience the brand first hand. This can include seeing the product, using it and learning about it. The bloggers can then go back and blog about their experience. This creates a valuable user generated content for the brand.

3.     Company’s Blogs

A brand can have its own blog that can not only talk about the brand itself but about other things related to it. For example, a cosmetics brand can write about various beauty problems, prevention and precaution, etc. Along with it, it can write about the brand products, their usage and how it can help solve those beauty problems.

4.     Celebrity Blogs

These days a lot of celebrities maintain their blogs. If a brand can get a celebrity to publish a post about its products and the brand experience, it will immediately generate a lot of publicity for the brand. It will be like having a celebrity endorsing the brand in the online space. Celebrity blogs are closely monitored and thus have high readership.

5.      Micro Blogging

Micro blogging platforms like Twitter can also help in creating a viral or an instant publicity for the brand. There can be contests especially for those using Twitter. With the use of hash tags and the brand’s Twitter handle, consumers can post a lot of content about the brand that can be read by their followers. This is a great way of engaging consumers as tweeting requires very less time. However, the shelf life of a tweet is very short.

Challenges of a trader and how to handle them

B2B is an acronym for Business to Business. There are over 10 lakh B2B traders in India and the number is increasing as you read this. These B2B traders want to connect with each other to form win-win partnerships so that they can benefit and grow together.

A B2B trader thus has unlimited opportunity to grow and capture market however there are a few hurdles that he faces on the road to success. These hurdles are specific to the B2B sector:

1.      Different target audience

Since the target audience for a B2B trader is not the final consumer, the marketing techniques cannot be the same as those used by a retailer or a B2C trader. This means that the marketing communication strategy for a B2B trader has to be different and most traders do not know how to develop the most efficient marketing plan for them

2.      Lack of budgets to develop an online presence and branding

Most traders do not have the budget to set up an online presence for their brand. In fact, they are unaware of the benefits that they can derive out of ‘branding’ initiatives.

 3.      Lack of skilled man power

B2B traders do not have the skilled man power to develop a team that can handle sales through direct marketing. Thus, they need an alternate sales channel that is cost effective, efficient and easily manageable.

 4.      Buyer decision making influenced by online search results

These days, all prospective buyers do an online search before approaching a seller. This means that if somebody wants to buy a raw material, he will look for that online, see which traders are offering it, at what price. There will also be a comparison based on quality, credibility and brand recognition of the seller. Based on this preliminary research, the potential buyer will approach a potential seller. If both agree to each other’s terms and meet each other’s requirement, a B2B transaction takes place.

But what if your business is missing from the online search results or has not online presence at all. In such a scenario, you are completely losing out on a huge set of potential buyers who are looking for the product that you are offering. A B2B trader might be aware of this but does not know how to go about in setting up an online sales platform for its business.

5.      Too many products

A B2B trader usually has hundreds and thousands of SKUs and finds it difficult to maintain the online presence for those because they are so high in number and do not have readymade software that can come their rescue.

6.      Competition

There is a lot of competition based on price point and thus all traders of a particular type of product offer similar products at a similar price point. To make a mark in the buyer’s mind, a trader needs to develop his brand and most of all, create an online presence.

7.      Traditional marketing does not help

What works for retailers for mass marketing – such as newspaper insertions, point-of-sale display, banner ads, etc will not work of B2B traders since the target audience is not mass but niche. Hence a specialized approach is required when planning marketing for B2B sellers.

8.      Tedious business operation

The day to day operations in any trading company involve high number of transactions and high levels of inventory to be managed. This creates a lot of confusion and is a tedious process to manage on a regular basis. It consumes a lot of time and leaves little room for other tasks such as business expansion and marketing.

What is the way out?

At bizporto.com, we understand the pain points of a B2B trader and have developed a comprehensive solution that addresses all the above mentioned problems as well as seamlessly blends a traders offline store with its online presence.

Why do you need biztrader?

Inventory Management & Accounting

• Complete business accounting
  (Sales, purchase, vouchers, credit / debit note, etc)
• Automatic inventory management
• Access to reports of your business and operations
• Alerts and information on stock

Online Sales Channel

• Take all your products on Google search resultd in one click
• Sync  all products in your inventory
• Receive genuine inquiries
• Grow business ‘glocally’

An easy-to-setup and economical solution specifically for traders.

Negative Publicity – How to deal with it?

The impact of negative publicity is much more than that of positive publicity. A negative word against your brand’s product or quality can hurt – the marketers, their marketing plans and even the sales to a large extent. Marketers must understand that nobody generates negative publicity for them but themselves. Customer experience can make or break them. Brands can handle negative publicity for themselves in the following ways:

1. Be nice to your customers

This is first and the foremost way of avoiding negative word against yourself. Be nice to your customers, take care of their needs and serve them the best you can. Nothing flatters customers more than the service provider/seller treating them with dignity and respect. Make sure your front desk staff or salesmen are well groomed and well equipped to give your customers an experience they would find hard to forget. In certain Indian restaurants, you will find the owner himself serving the customers along with the crew, especially during rush hours. This only shows that the owner is concerned about the guests and not just leaving it to the waiters to handle them. Even if the food is not appealing to the taste buds of the guest, they would think twice before saying anything negative about the restaurant.

2. Don’t fake it

A lot of companies themselves write positive testimonials and good comments about their brand on review websites, blogs, feedback columns on the company’s website, etc. One can usually make out what is genuine and what is not if there is an only positive review to be found. Another way of doing it is paid advertorials which may not be as appealing either. Try to avoid that, instead wait for genuine feedback from clients which are believable and the exact expression of their experience with your brand.

3. Accept criticism positively

When you hear a negative word about your brand doing rounds, analyze what is triggering the bad word. The criticism should be taken positively and the changes be implemented based on the criticism. This will only make you realize what your weak areas are and where the competitors are scoring over you.

4. Show that customer’s feedback matters

When you hear negative review of your brand, try to ascertain what will make the pain areas go away. Take the feedback seriously, acknowledge the negative word and work on improving the brand. When the customers know that you have taken serious efforts to work on their feedback, they will only respect you more. For eg, when Cadbury got in trouble because of the worms and everyone started talking about how unsafe it was to give the chocolates to the kids or anyone else, they launched a campaign which clearly stated about the packaging and safety measures that Cadbury had implemented post the crisis.

5. Improve your SEO

The negative reviews, blogs and comments can help you find out what are the key words associated with your brand in terms of negative publicity. These can help you do a better keyword research for online ads, response strategy and website content.

6. Future strategy

A negative review of your brand can help you make a more profound marketing strategy and product innovation strategy for the future. You can learn from the mistake and come back much stronger and better. Usually, brands are advised to go for a small test marketing of the new products to avoid mass negative feedback, if any.

bizporto.com Featured in “SME Channel”

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Over the last three years with bizporto.com, we have come a long way and achieved many milestones. Together we have created something that is helping not just individuals but also the economy on the whole. We have always believed in us and today we have been recognized by the industry as well. The April 2013 issue of the magazine SME Channels has carried a two-page interview of bizporto.com “MD. Suresh Salunkhe”. SME Channels magazine is a leading IT magazine in India. The focus of the magazine is to disseminate information about the use of IT and Communications in a most prudent manner by the SME market in India. The magazine includes all the stake holders starting from manufacturers to distributors, dealers, SIs, solution providers, cloud infrastructure and applications providers, hosted solution providers, service providers, etc. to help SMEs utilize IT for optimizing their efficiency.

Read The Complete Interview Here

Success Mantra: Retain customers than acquiring new ones!

Every small business must understand the importance of retaining the existing customers. Most small business owners get into aggressive customer acquisition and invest and all their marketing efforts, time and budgets to getting new customers and do not take any initiatives towards retaining the existing ones.
A repeat customer is good for any business but more so for a small business because of the following:

1. A repeat customer is as good as a new customer. Instead of going to the competitor, if the customer comes to you, it means you get a customer without any new investment.

2. Acquiring new customer is far more expensive than retaining an existing one.
Your competitor may take aggressive steps towards acquiring new customers and take away your customers too. Hence, once you have a customer, take extra steps in retaining him. On an average, it takes a small business at least 10 times more to acquire a new customer than retaining an existing one. Hence, the key to saving cost and growing a stable business is to retain the existing customers.

The following are the simple initiatives a small business can take towards retaining customers:

Be their support system: If you are a small business, you have a great opportunity to know your clients / customers personally. Give them individual attention and understand their specific needs, business requirements and feedback. If you make them feel important and valued, they will return the same gesture to you by sticking around.

Be responsive: the single most important key to retaining customers is to let them know that you hear what they have to say! Even a minor customer complaint or issue or feedback, if acknowledged immediately, helps the customer in developing the trust towards you and more importantly towards the brand.

Keep in touch: Make it a point to keep in touch with your customers / clients on a regular basis. If you don’t hear from them in a while, drop in an email asking if they are doing well. You can also send out periodical emails, newsletters, company/product updates on a regular basis to remind them of your presence.

Reward them: Reward your customers / clients for being committed to you. An annual discount, loyalty bonus, a public acknowledgement of your association with them, priority service, etc are all ways to give your customers more reasons to stay with you instead of wandering away.
Acquiring customers is important and a necessity for any business to grow but retaining the existing ones is critical for it to stabilize and have a higher return on investment.

LinkedIn for MSMEs

Is every social media network for your startup? Every small (and big) company can be found on Twitter and Facebook. While this could be a must-do for most companies today, little do they have clarity on how is it helping them and what objectives they are trying to fulfill by exploring social media networks.
A big company which has an established brand name might use Facebook and Twitter as a two-way communication channel with customers. Most companies can be reached through these networks by customers with complaints , suggestions and other messages. However, a startup or a small business may not be known by consumers and the utility of these networks may not be very high for them. In such a scenario, a professional social network like Linked In is a great place for entrepreneurs, traders, dealers and even other small business owners to learn about how to grow business, managerial aspects of business, various tools available for business operations and connect with others to build business partnerships, etc.
Linked In, if utilized in the right way, can prove to be very helpful for any small business owner. Here are a few insights about this wonderful social network exclusively for professionals:

1. Great with Search Engines: Most LinkedIn profiles turn up on the first page of Google when looking for keywords in your profile or your name. This is a good way to increase your visibility on the internet.

2. Linked In Company Pages: They are a great way to showcase your company’s offering, brand, product details, services offered, key specialties and what not! Thus, once a user reaches your Linked In, he can access complete company information in a neat and clean, standardized Linked In format. You can even upload images and give an enhanced user experience to the viewer.

3. Search for people you cannot otherwise find: Let’s say you need a contact person in a newspaper or a magazine or a big company or a smaller company that operates in the IT/ITeS sector or any other sector. All you need to do is search with the specified criteria on Linked In and you have the profiles of people based on their geographic location, employer, sector, etc. You can even see if they are connected to someone you are already connected with. You can ask your common connection to introduce you to a certain person over Linked in. All this within minutes and you know have the contact details of someone you did not know a while ago!

4. Ask for recommendations: You are starting a new business and nobody knows you in the industry. But your previous work experience counts a lot in adding to your credibility. You can ask your ex-colleagues, ex-box, college professors, ex-business partners or even your existing and past clients to give you a recommendation on Linked In. This recommendation can be a long paragraph about your work qualities, your attitude, your strengths, etc. This adds a lot of weight to your Linked In profile.

5. Display your past and present: All your awards and certificates, trainings and internships, work-ex and educational background can be displayed clearly on Linked In. This means that anybody who you want to business with can have a look at your professional profile and gain trust in your abilities even before meeting you in person.

6. Linked In Groups: Join relevant groups on Linked In for discussions on topics that interest you or to learn about something that you wish to. You can even ask specific questions or give answers to the ones that other post. This will increase your network and knowledge at the same time.

So what are you waiting for? A free Linked In account gives you many benefits and a paid one can be even more helpful as it has many options that can be utilized for the benefit of a small business. It’s really a small price to pay for the numerous features it provides.

It’s a good idea to provide a link to your Linked In profile in your email signature. But make sure your profile is regularly updated and is complete.

What can Facebook do for me?

Every business, big or small, is investing time and money on social media. Are you doing that too? Most companies get on to social media without thinking what it can do for you. Without clear understanding, the expectation from social media and the actual results sometimes lead to disappointment for companies, especially startups.
Social media should never be seen as a sales channel or one should never expect direct increase in sales due to social media. It should purely be look at as a brand building exercise that will add to your brand image and consumer engagement. It can also serve as a source of company information or industry insights.
Why Facebook cannot generate sales?
Research shows that a Facebook user likes 200 pages on an average. Let’s say one of the pages is your company page. In your understanding, the user is a ‘fan’ of your brand and everything you post on your page is keeping him in mind. However, the remaining 199 brands feel the same way about him. But if you ask that user, he probably doesn’t even remember all the pages that he has liked or if he knows the names of all the brands that he is a ‘fan’ of.
Also, everything that you post does not show on your fan’s newsfeed. So there’s a good chance that they may never even see what you are writing there. Another important thing to keep in mind is that not everyone who is a fan of your brand on Facebook is your target audience. The person liking your page may not be using your product/service at all. But here’s the catch – he is aware of your brand. And if you are posting interesting content on your page, he might engage with you in conversations or share your content. This is a slow step towards building your brand.
And this is what social media does the best. It builds your brand. It makes you well-known; it gives a platform for the general public to reach out to you.
A Facebook page can be used to:

• To share content about the industry
• To share content about the company
• To showcase the product / service
• To engage with the fans through interesting / humorous content
• To open an channel for interaction with the consumer

There are applications that you can install on your Facebook page to set up an online store that operates from the fan page. This tool can be used to generate sales but for that the brand will have to promote or advertise the Facebook store.
Thus, when you take the decision to invest on Facebook, understand what your objective is and plan the strategy accordingly. Knowing your social media objectives will help you in setting your expectations right.

Twitter for MSMEs

Is Twitter for you? Well the answer does not depend on whether you are a big company or small but it depends on what is your objective to be on Twitter? If the objective is to increase sales through Twitter, you might be disappointed in the short run. But if the objective is to build a brand name over a period of time, Twitter is the place for you! Here’s how you can use Twitter for your small business:

1. Use and follow Hash tags
The best part about Twitter is the hash tags – the words which are used with ‘#’. For example, you are looking for ‘internships’ in ‘Mumbai’ in ‘marketing’. In such a case you can search for #internship #Mumbai #marketing together and you will see relevant search results. Similarly, for businesses, if you are looking for new employees in Mumbai for Sales, you can post a tweet with the hash tags: #job #Mumbai #sales together.

2. Follow the influencers
Find out who are the influencers for your industry or your business type on Twitter. For example, if your company works in the auto mobile domain, search for people whose opinions are sought after and valued in the auto mobile sector. Even following journalists who cover stories on your sector will help you in the long run as you will be aware of what kind of stories they are filing, latest trends in the industry, etc. You can even follow research organizations who conduct research in your domain. That will help you in keeping a tab on the latest industry numbers.

3. Have conversations
Just following influencers and other will not help but having conversations with them around the subject will be beneficial. This will bring you in their notice and they might endorse your views and points that you are discussing with them.
Even when you tweet something and that gets a reaction from someone on Twitter, respond to them with appropriate answer. This will help you gain credibility over a period of time and also gain you some followers.

4. Focus on your area of interest and expertise
Don’t go haywire with your content on Twitter. Focus on your area of interest and tweet around the same topic so that people can follow you for updates on a particular subject. Overtime, they will trust you as a reliable source of information on all things related to that subject. Plus, you will gain a targeted set of followers audience that would be interested in what you have to say.
Start tweeting! You can begin by sharing this article on Twitter!