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?

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.

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.

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.

How to Increase Sales & Profit?

There are certain initiatives that you can take to directly generate sales and stretch your profits. These initiatives (which may be social in nature) need to be strategic moves so that they can be purely used as a marketing tool and the business can make the best use of them. Consider the following ways in which you can, as you grow along, maximize returns:

1. Socially Responsible Investment Portfolios
Due to the increase in preference for Socially Responsible Investment portfolios, more and more investors are willing to give money to ‘social entrepreneurs’. In fact, there are certain venture capitalists that now have a separate fund for energy efficient projects. Thus, having a social outlook while planning a business can open up more capital avenues for the company.

2. Increase Brand Loyalty Of Consumers Through CSR
More and more consumers want to buy from brands that are socially responsible. Thus, when a brand associates with a CSR activity, it develops an affinity towards itself among the potential consumers. This builds a brand loyalty among the consumers as they like to associate themselves with a brand that is sensitive to the society. In such a scenario, they do not mind making an extra effort to buy the brand’s products or even to pay a slightly premium price for the same. Thus, brands that have CSR plans are easier to sell and market.

3. Reduce Cost By Going Local
Cut down on unnecessary cost by switching over to local B2B suppliers. This way you save on time, transportation cost, inter-state taxes, etc. It would also mean that the products are supplied smoothly and without any hassle. It also gives ease of operation, liberal credit terms and higher quality assurance since you can check the credibility of the supplier by yourself.

4. Retain Employees
Be sensitive to employee needs and take extra care of your employees so that there is a very low attrition rate. Employees choose to stay with companies that are honest and consider individual employee needs in consideration while making bigger corporate decisions. This results in employees that work for very many years with the organization and understand the organizational practices, processes and philosophy well. This also results in employees that know how to deal with customers; they often build relationships with customers and that drives the sales a lot of times.
This also implies lesser resources spent in employee hiring, training, etc. These costs saved add up to the profit of the company. Also, it means greater employee loyalty towards work and the company.

5. Gain an Edge Over Competitors
We are living in a time of price war where every competitor is willing to offer a similar product or service with matching quality at the same price. Then how do you differentiate from the competitors? Companies that have a social and sensitive side tend to have an edge over competitors in many ways. First of all, they are favored by the customers when it comes to buying. They are also a preferred choice by the government as they support the government’s social development policy. The government might give these companies a tax exemption, grants, access to other essential resources, etc. These companies also get noticed by investors who wish to invest in socially responsible companies that use clean technology, work in the energy efficiency sector or are working towards achieving a greater social benefit.

B2B Marketing – What is it?

B2B is an acronym for Business to Business. There are over 10 crore 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 ready-made 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.

CSR for Internal Marketing

CSR can give the employees a sense of pride. They feel they are working with a responsible organization. A lot of organizations are now realizing the importance of internal marketing for higher employee retention and internal brand building. CSR comes as a great tool of internal marketing and employee development in the following ways:

1. Self Enhancement
CSR initiatives in an organization provide for self enhancement opportunities to employees that helps them with their personal and professional growth. They learn to be more sensitive towards the society along with displaying the attributes of being a responsible citizen. CSR initiatives can sensitize them to the growing societal concerns that demand attention. Employees appreciate that they get the opportunity to work towards these causes through their organization. As a result of this, they develop affinity and respect for their employers.

2. Work Life Integration
CSR initiatives help employees make meaningful integration between their work and life. It is observed that by indulging in socially responsible practices at work, employees find themselves capable of blending work and life seamlessly. While employees try to keep the two separate, it is practically impossible to do so. Although some employees might be interested in getting involved in social work, they may not find time and right space to do so. In such a scenario, if employers provide that much platform, it keeps the employees motivated. This is another way CSR can help the organizations in internal marketing.

3. Higher Self Perception
When employees get involved in socially responsible work, they develop a higher self-perception about themselves. When organizations enable them in these kinds of activities, their connection with the organization becomes stronger and goes beyond just employee-employer relationship which helps the organization in bringing the employees together and building a more profound internal team. This also goes a long way in keeping the employees motivated, as their respect for themselves goes up. They feel a sense of satisfaction by contributing to the society.

4. Internal Team Building
CSR initiatives can be a great team building tool as well. Organizations that take up activities and involve their employees directly in implementing them on field can succeed in making the initiative a team building exercise for the employees that brings them closer and helps develop informal groups within the organization. This can result in a congenial working environment and smoother work flow too. For eg, a field visit to the village which the organization had adopted or a trip to the school which the organization has established can bring the employees together to do something apart from the official work. Something as small as visit to a local NGO can help organizations in taking their internal marketing a step further.

5. Employee Needs
Certain CSR initiatives are focused towards employees of the organization. For eg, health camps for employees, relevant employee training and development, special activities for employee’s families, etc. These initiatives help the organization in fulfilling employee needs by way of CSR. These policies differ from one organization to another.