Communication & Technology – A must for an SME trader

Do you know that almost everyone looks up the internet in the following situations?

• Making a purchase decision
• Start a new business
• Look for a new supplier
• Business joint ventures
• Sourcing raw material
• Sourcing packaging material
• New buyers
• Comparison of products
• Product reviews
• The list goes on!

Since internet is easily accessible and more and more business is taking place online, it has become a necessity rather than an added advantage to make an online presence for your business.

But how easy or difficult is it to get online? It takes a lot of effort in making a neat website, update the content, put the right kind of images and keep the website updated all the time. Plus, because of the plethora of websites, you need to invest in SEO, SEM, social media marketing, etc.

Usually, since traders and other business people do not have the expertise to handle all of it, they go for one of the following two options:

1. Outsource the entire activity (which comes at a high price)
2. Do it in-house to save on cost (but the outcome is quite bad because of lack of knowledge and expertise)

This is a fix that many traders face. Add to this the fact that traders have not one, or two, or three products but the SKUs run in multiples of tens or hundreds. So it’s even more difficult to manage the operations.

Is there a way to avoid these problems and still get to the ultimate objective of having an online presence?

The answer is a product from bizporto.com, the bizTrader. bizTrader is a specifically designed product for SME traders that can not only manage inventory but upload all the product information online and maintain it, get you SEO and SEM traction, bring you on Google, Yahoo!, bing and other search engines and also maintain your online presence without you having to do anything. You can purchase the product at a very economical price for 12 months and stay relieved about your online marketing.

You need not put in any effort in managing it, all you have to do is prepare yourself to handle the business that will flow in after you begin using bizTrader.

bizTrader will change the way you do business. It will expand your market presence, increase your sales, give you a well defined space in the online market and benefit your business overall.

What are you waiting for?

A trader in the SME sector? You need to read this!

Today, SMEs have the maximum opportunities because of the fuelled growth in all sectors. There is a lot of business waiting to be captured but the SMEs are not able to utilize all that there is. Do you also feel that there’s something missing which, had it been available, can actually help you do your business in a more efficient way?

With the growing entrepreneurship, there is a growing need for B2B traders too. But there is a huge gap between the demand and the supply. And this gap is not because of less supply but because the right people are not connected at the right time.

Most SME players start small and grow over a period of time and gain expertise in their area of work or the sector they operate in. However, most players deal with a large number of SKUs and categories of products. In which case, the inventory management poses a big problem since day-to-day transactions are high in number, there are many returns, many suppliers, many buyers, credit periods and what not!

In such a case, the trader not only has to ensure that all the transactions, big or small, are accounted properly but also that he knows the status of the inventory. Mostly, it is quite difficult to ascertain how much stock is available at any point. Without this knowledge, the trader cannot commit to new leads immediately. Also, in case a minimum balance is not maintained, a sudden order may not be fulfilled which means giving away business to a competitor.

Thus inventory management, though seems like a small part of the business activity, is actually a very critical element in the smooth flow of the business.

Since a trader may not have highly skilled staff, it might be quite difficult to use complicated accounting softwares.

bizKontrol is an inventory management plus accounting software that can be used easily by anyone who has the basic computer knowledge. It gives the traders a clear picture of the level on inventory, all the buyers, all the suppliers, accounting, etc. The software has been designed after a lot of research into the specific requirement of an MSME trader. The design is sleek and neat with easy to view options which makes it simple to understand and operate. 

Why you need to be on Google?

It’s true. Google can make or break your business. It’s safe to say that Google can be a sturdy back bone to your business and help you achieve success that you could not have imagined with the traditional marketing efforts.

Still not convinced why your small business needs to be on Google? The answer to that is simple and complicated. It is simple because Google is our answer to every question. Did you know that 62% of searchers never go on to the second page of the results and 90% do not go after page 3? This also means that one has to be on the first page of Google search results to be really able to make a possible mark into the target audience’s mind.

Here are a few reasons why your business needs to be in Google‘s good books:

1. Huge market

There are billions of searches happening on Google every day. Some of these searches might be pertaining to your business and if the search leads to your company website, you might get a small share of the big pie.

1. Local searches

If your target audience is city specific, then Google is even more effective and affordable. In case you are planning to advertise on Google for reaching out to potential customers in a specific city only, you might have to spend less and get a high ROI.

2. It’s complicated!

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to understand Google and make it work for them. If you can do it for your business first, you will be beating a lot of competition even before they think of getting there. Hence, start now and understand how you can get there. An easier and effective way of doing so is to enlist your business on a B2B product search engine such as bizporto.com.

Bizporto.com spends a lot of time and effort in making the website very search engine friendly. Once you are listed there, you will be on Google’s first page result when a potential buyer is searching for your category of products.

3. New business

It is estimated that for every 10 online searches, 7 searches happen on Google. Thus, if those 7 people cannot reach you website when looking for your products or services, you are allowing potential customers to go to your competitors. Don’t you think you should do something about it?

4. It’s worth it!

It might seem cumbersome and tedious and too high a cost, but investing time and money on Google pays off. Imagine being the top search result for your business on Google. Business will go exponentially and all the efforts will then seem worth it.

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.

7 mantras of successful positioning

Positioning is about building a brand image and sustaining it. Brand experts often find themselves wondering as to what is the best way possible for positioning a brand that captures the mind space of the potential consumer. While every brand has its own course to follow to build an impactful positioning, there are some basic mantras that can help put the brand on the right track.

Here are some tips that one should keep in mind while setting out to implement a positioning strategy:

 

1.     Aim to be different

You have to position yourself something different from what already exists in the field. There are various products in the category, why should they choose you over the rest? If you can answer this question, you have a focus as to how you want to position yourself.

 

2.     Find your core competence

You will find that there is an advantage that you have which your competitor doesn’t. Figure out what it is – what are you able to do better than the competitor, and focus on that while positioning.

 

3.     What do you stand for

If you had to describe your brand in one word, what would it be? When you say ‘Tata’, you invariably think of trust. That’s what they stand for, what do you stand for? When you know what you stand for, you get more aligned with your positioning strategy.

 

4.     Competition monitor

You know what you stand for, but do you know what your competition stands for? Your positioning should be stronger than your competitor. But for that you need to overrule what your competitor already positions it to be. If Idea stands for social causes, Vodafone stands for best Value Added Services. Both have made a very strong positioning for themselves, and both have their own audience to appeal to.

 

5.     Customer’s Quest

Do you know what will make your customers happy? Do some firsthand research, talk to people and see what they are missing in the options available to them. When you know what your customers want, you can easily align your offering to their needs. And that will be your positioning guiding light.

 

6.     Stay Focused

In all your communication with the existing and potential customers, hammer only what your key positioning is. There should be a very clean alignment between all forms and medium of communication when it comes to the message you are giving out.

 

7.     Relevance is the key

Your positioning should be relevant to the product as well as to the customer. If there is no relevance, establish it. Again, look at Idea. It has made social causes relevant to the brand, thus generating a soft corner for itself in the minds of the people. Now everybody perceives Idea as a brand that is very sensitive to social issues. The positioning is relevant to the Indian consumer.

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.

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.

What is PR and how can it help you?

Public Relations or PR is all about building a positive brand recall. The benefits of PR can be seen only in the long run and one needs to be consistent with the PR efforts to be able to reap its benefits. Over a period of time, PR helps a business in the following way:

1. Increase the credibility of the brand, business service/product and the entrepreneurs behind it.
2. Increase the brand exposure and build the brand name in the chosen target market.

A big benefit of media PR is that it is free of cost. Hence, if you can utilize this medium properly, it can give you long term brand credibility without costing you anything. Advertisements come and go but PR stories are archived and remain forever.
So how do you initiate PR for your brand?

1. Understand how media works
A newspaper, magazine or a TV show wants to present content that is worth the time for their readers. Any story which is fresh, newsworthy and interesting has a good chance of getting published. Hence, give the media something that their readers what like to read and not what you would like them to read. Is your product / service / brand doing something that has not been done before? Is it a new trend that hasn’t been spoken about? Is it something that is relevant to the media you are speaking to? If yes, you stand a good chance to get published.

2. What is your target audience reading?
This question is important for you to decide on your PR strategy. Is your target final consumers or trade associates? If you want to reach out to those in your industry, look at trade media, financial papers, and business magazines. If you want to reach out to the final consumers, explore opportunities with popular national dailies, magazines, etc. If you want to reach out to people in a specific geographic location, look at local newspaper and regional media.

3. Story ideas
You cannot possibly go to a journalist and say, “here is the information about my business/product/service. Write about it!” You have to give them a story angle that they would like to write about. May be an industry trend, or how it is helping the people, how it is a breakthrough in a certain way, what it aims to achieve, etc.

4. The Pitch
This is the most important part of any PR activity. A journalist is bombarded with emails and phones every day. How do you ensure that he/she notices your pitch? The answer is to think like a journalist. Give them crisp information which is to-the-point and simple to understand. Keep it as minimal as possible with an eye catching subject line.

5. Follow Up
As mentioned before, a journalist receives tons of emails and phone calls in a day. They might not remember to call you back even if they agree that they will. Thus, it’s a good practice to keep in touch with the journalist and follow up on the pitch, but only if they show interest in your story idea.

6. Don’t pester the journalists
Do not chase the journalists. Respect their time and don’t waste it. Even when they show some interest in your story idea, be very precise and cooperate with them through the shaping up of the story.

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.