Getting Ahead with Marketing

However unnecessary it may seem at the onset marketing has its crucial inputs critical to any Small and Medium Size enterprise. As it is the channel that shouts out aloud about your business. The very route required to make known your business to everyone.

You can’t be present personally everywhere. You also can’t pitch to 10 clients at one time. Very reason you need a website. This is the first step in marketing wherein the ultimate objective is to generate intent to buy the product. Your website will speak about you to hundreds of viewers at one time. Thus, it can create awareness amongst the buyers about your business and entertain queries. It further allows you to have 24X7 global presence which is cost-effective and efficient. Also these days, having a website means being in trend. If you don’t have one you are considered outdated. It helps SMEs create branding for their businesses. Moreover, it adds to their credibility, which is imperative for conducting businesses.

1)What your website should entail
a.User friendly navigation
b.Light in data so that in can open on mobiles
c.Format it in html /dhtml so that it is easily picked up my search engines
d.Complete info about your business, credibility, quality & requisite certificates
e.A little history and references would be great
f.If you have any licenses / creditworthiness then put it up

2)Newsletters and e-mailers
Next step is to shoot your newsletters and e-mailers. These have to be content rich with images and something new to read. Shoot these to your database and be on the look out to add more relevant email ids to your database. Put in offers and discounts in these mailers making them interesting and genuine.

3)Social Media
Your marketing has to be everywhere so get into social networking. Log into facebook, flickr, orkut, myspace, linkedin, indiamart.com, youtube etc. Meet likeminded individuals here and discuss your business. This kind of word of mouth spreads faster than fire. Blogging is another avenue for you to dig deeper into marketing. You can chat and resolve issues and display your prowess.

4)Measuring traffic
With the right application you can know the number of people that visited your website. This way you can know where the maximum hits come from and when – weekdays or weekends, office hours or non working hours. It will give you an idea of who are logging on to your site. SMEs can utilize Google Analytics which is a free tool for measuring traffic on to your website.

5)Directory listing
Listing your business on the directories of B2B portals will make you visible in the search results of your target audience. As these are the people that are searching for a particular type of machinery or material, plastic cans or pressure cookers. Also these directories have credential seals like the TRUST SEAL given to some members who meet the reliability requirements at Indiamart.com. Besides, this is the place where international clients too come in to find supply of their demand. Making it a perfect international platform to grow your business.

6)Search Engine Savvy
Everyone loves to Google on things they are not aware about. Here they get options and relevant data. For your website to come up in these searches content on your website has to have keyword rich articles. For eg: if you are a travel tour company then your keywords should be: 1) travel and tour services 2) Vacations 3) Holidays 4) Luxury Travel 5) Budget Hotels – etc
As these are the common words an individual would enter into Google.


So if you want to get ahead of approximately 20 million SMEs in India with profits for the financial year, besides concentrating on product, quality and net profit among the zillion other things on your mind set aside time and budget for online marketing. Some ideas may not bring in benefits immediately but marketing as we know is a slow and steady process which will always win you benefits in the long run.