How To Use Digital Marketing To Boost Business
Hi Nitin,
You must be wondering that your friend has gone crazy. Because a lot of people have lost job and many small businesses have put down the shutters during this 15 months of Covid 19 pandemic and here I am talking about boosting the business at the time when you are not allowed to go out, forget opening the office.
This pertains to our talk last month when you had told me that your business is not doing well due to restrictions put to control Covid 19.
I would like to tell you that it will be great if I can be of some help to you in this demanding time when the offices are not allowed to run and your monthly overheads are as it is.
Well, I would like to tell you that recently I joined an online course of digital marketing known as “Digital Deepak Internship Program” and would like to share some learning to help you boost your business during this difficult time.
Here I would like to share a few things that I learnt in my 2nd week and how it can be helpful in our quest for survival in this difficult times.
Basic problem with us is that we never think of marketing during the normal times when a business is doing well and at times tend to be complacent and think that our business is doing well as we are selling good products or we have monopoly and nothing is going to affect our business. But, it makes us realize that one’s business depends on multiple factors, a good product though very important, is just a part of the whole picture. A successful business is dependent on many factors like
· Good product
· Exclusivity of product
· Price in comparison with similar products
· Location of your establishment and proximity to bus or railway station
· How well your staff handles customers
· Availability of product
· and how you are creating demand for the product
But, it is evident that a traditional business survives on the fact that client should be able to reach the establishment to get the product /services. Also, one can cater to a very limited audience as you will need more staff and more frontage to serve more clients. Huge cost makes it unviable to expand the business by investing in a bigger space and more staff.
Do you think it will be good if you can promote your business 24 x 7 x 365 without losing your sleep and without incurring huge expenses?
As you know marketing unlike earlier times has become a well-researched field and like science if you follow certain formulas you can get precise results. Marketing is quite essential for survival and expansion of any business.
One very important aspect of marketing is identifying customer’s need and designing a product according to that. If a product fulfils the need of a customer or makes his life easier, it will never fail. A business is not just about selling, it very important that you are selling a quality product and keeping your customers happy by providing a good after sales service. A happy customer is your biggest brand ambassador, if he is happy he refers more customers by word of mouth. Also, a happy customer will give you recurring business by buying the same product again or your new products.
It is also very important to understand basics of economics to run your business well. If you have heard recent news that India’s population will surpass China’s population in some years. Though it can cause a lot of problem for already over populated country like India, but there is a silver lining to this cloud. The increased young population means an increased demand and more dispensable income and means more production and more consumption.
Also, you can understand that if your business survives this recession it will emerge stronger and well equipped to weather out any difficult situation arising in future.
A traditional way to market your product will be to employ few sales person who will either go door to door or will do cold calling to generate leads and in turn generate business. A very important aspect of selling is to convey quality and the USP of your product and how it fits the client’s requirement. Here sale depends on how sincerely your sales team works and generates business. If few of them are not working sincerely they will not produce the desired result for you. Also, if you have a product that has demand on national or global level, it can be very difficult and expensive to send someone physically to cater smaller orders.
There are few modes of marketing.
1. Newspaper: An advertisement in a newspaper can be used to target a particular set of customers based on location and language.
2. Hoardings/ Billboards: It is one of the medium that has high visibility but for limited crowd and in particular territory.
3. Radio: Radio is a medium of mass advertising and has the maximum reach as it reach to masses.
4. TV: Most effective medium to reach masses with additional benefit of creating visual impression.
5. Digital Marketing: Most effective and cost effective mode of marketing.
If you see above modes of marketing, 1 to 4 are relatively old ways and is out of bound for MSME (medium small and micro enterprises) businesses due to its prohibitive cost. Whereas the digital marketing mode may be relatively new but can prove very effective if used systematically.
Some great benefits digital marketing can provide are as follows
· It has a larger reach without any boundaries of time or geography.
· It allows you to interact with your prospects and allows you to improve your product and presentation by getting feedback.
· It enables you to reach more customers for less money compared to traditional marketing methods, hence enabling even smaller business to go online and compete with larger companies.
Digital marketing unlike conventional marketing can be used effectively to reach target customers with fraction of a cost of TV, Radio or Newspaper cost. Whereas on the other hand now even big businesses are also employing digital marketing to canvass and boost their sales.
The biggest advantage of digital marketing is that you can reach target audience directly. It allows you to convey your message to a large audience by giving an impression that you are talking to them individually.
There are many forms of digital marketing like Website, SEO, email marketing, SMS marketing etc.
You know the very essence of marketing is to identify a buyer’s need and provide a product accordingly or identify and target a set of suitable buyer for your product. Digital marketing does the same by using the CATT funnel.
CATT Funnel
Content : It is said content is king and the same applies in marketing. You have to create and post a very creative and useful content which strikes a chord with the reader and brings him to your blog again and again.
Attention: Good content is of no use if people are not aware about it, does not read it. You have to employ the techniques such as Email marketing, Search Engine Optimization, social media marketing to draw attention and build a base of dedicated followers.
Trust: It is very important to build trust with target audience because a happy and satisfied customer will be with you for life and will bring in many more by word of mouth publicity. As discussed earlier apart from a good product it is very important to convey that you will be there to address her queries/problems as and when needed.
Transaction: Trust built over the period transforms into transaction resulting in financial gain. A happy customer will be buy multiple products from you and thus reduces your average cost of marketing.
Integrated Digital Marketing
Integrated digital marketing is method of marketing that employs multiple forms of digital marketing put to work in tandem to maximize the conversion of lead into customer.
Digital marketing includes pay per click advertisement on search engines like Google and Bing and different blogs which in turn can bring traffic to your website or blogs. This process is enhanced by support of SEO (search engine optimization), advertisement on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram or email marketing.
Personal Branding
Personal branding is a very important aspect of marketing. Do you remember standup comedian Kapil Sharma? Can you recollect on which channel his first show was aired? And on which channel it is aired now? Well, this is one of the powerful example of personal branding. Kapil Sharma started on Colors channel with “Comedy Nights with Kapil” and moved his show to Sony in some years under the name of “The Kapil Sharma Show”. People are not bothered on which channel his show is aired, they will subscribe to whatever channel he goes to.
A strong personal brand will remain in people’s mind regardless of where you go and what you do. Personal branding makes it easier to start other venture.
Mass Trust
To gain mass trust it is very important to learn something new, work in that field and gain practical knowledge , write about that topic in your blog and impart knowledge, after gaining more knowledge give consultation to people and in process refine your knowledge, do mentoring, and increase the audience by creating a startup. This is an ongoing process and continues in a circle.
In the end I would like to summarize that digital marketing is the most economical and innovative way to reach mass target audience. It also enables improve your product by receiving feedback.
Hope this helps you to scale your business to new heights.
Please feel free to revert about what you feel about digital marketing.
