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.

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.

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!

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.

Online Presence – Integral to Business Success of Indian MSMEs

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, also referred as MSMEs, are called the backbone of GDP of India. The SME sector is extremely important and beneficial to the Indian Economy because of the exceptional rate with which it is growing.

Here are some latest figures and statistics about the SME sector in India:

–          There are around 29 million MSME units in India and together they produce more than 8000 products

–          The SME sector contributes around 40% of the total output of the country

–          In India, 90% of the Industrial Units belong to SME sector

–          The SME sector employees 60 million people and creates close to 1.3 million jobs every year

With such encouraging numbers and statistics, there are very high expectations from SME for contributing in the economic growth of India. To make this possible, it is important to have a look at the problems faced by the MSMEs.

Apart from the problems such as non-availability of funds for technology upgrade and adaptions of modern amenities and limited access to modern management practice, the more important problems are ineffective marketing strategy, identification of new markets, constraints on modernisation & expansions and non-availability of suitable technology.

MSMEs are mostly pressed on time and resources. They do not always have heavy budgets for hiring and training a team of professionals for expanding the business. They also don’t have enough bandwidth to establish a presence in different cities and create identify and brand beyond local boundaries.

Here, Internet has come to rescue of the MSMEs. MSMEs have started utilizing Internet as a medium to do online business, reach out to customers beyond local boundaries (within India as well as globally), do branding and advertising.

As per the industry reports, the number of internet users has gone up a whopping 650 percent from less than 25 Million users in 2002 to 187 Million in 2010. SMEs have slowly started recognizing the potential of Internet as a medium to promote business.

It is no wonder then, that Internet is being used as a very effective medium for marketing and advertising. Marketing over internet, also referred as Online Marketing, has catching up as a preferred method for branding and advertising by MSMEs.

Over the last few years, India has seen very rapid growth in terms of online marketing. Management experts predict that the segment is likely to be worth Rs 2,000 crore by 2013. In 2010, Indian online marketing industry managed to draw nearly US$71 million investment, as against US$58 million in 2009.

In today’s world, when we are living in the 21^st century, having a robust online presence has become not only important but also necessary to ensure business success – especially when the business environment has become so competitive globally.

The number of SMEs in the country is growing very rapidly and many of the new age SMEs are becoming internet savvy.  The basic requirement for being able to do business online  and grow it is website. Surprisingly, while quite a few SMEs so understand the importance of website, it is also observed that a majority of the chunk still does not pay enough attention to this aspect of establishing an online marketing  presence through website. In this process, they are restricting their business growth.

A website can help SMEs in providing all relevant information about a company, including its details, business information and contact details. The website can help a company reach out to many prospects and future customers at one go. It is a very cost-effective way of promoting the business without spending too much money. Research has shown that having a website enhances the prospects of improving business revenues by several notches.

One of the primary reasons why MSME’s are preferring to go online and use online marketing mediums is because it helps companies in reaching out to masses at very competitive rates. Many MSME’s in India have already start establishing significant online presence and improving their visibility through non-conventional sources of advertising.In a recent, first-of-its-kind study named ‘ICT adoption among MSMEs in India’ conducted by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India, it was observed that 99 percent of B2B suppliers on the internet are already making use of online B2B marketplaces.  Majority of the SMEs are convinced that ICT usage is helping them increase their productivity and competitiveness. The Indian government has earmarked a budget of Rs 160 crore to develop and facilitate ICT applications for MSMEs.

Gone are the days when it was alright for SMEs to only vouch for quality, scale and global manufacturing practices.  In today’s world, that cannot be the line to draw. They are risking to remain a faceless nameless and low-profiled enterprise.

The business can happen, but if you want to have more visibility in front of a larger audience – both domestic and global, you need go online marketing.