Digital Marketing – WHAT TO DO?

In Bangalore there are more start-ups and scale-ups happening. I find a pattern of questions that most of the business owners have with them concerning digital marketing. Let me see if through this post I help answering those questions that they have.

As a start-up, Is there a need to invest on branding at all? A simple focus on product/service is much better. Isn't it?

Take it from me, its one of the fundamental aspects any company (be it start-ups or scale-ups) needs to get right. Branding activities help communicate your business idea to your prospects in a way they see your product/service as a value proposition. Investing on digital creatives like logo, website, social network profile images, email designs and your digital stationary – mail ids, flyers and ads will pay you huge dividends in future.

I have a great website that has all information my clients & prospects need to know about our product/services. But it's not SEOized. Will SEO really help?

Again any business- small or large has one never ending requirement; Finding a prospect. Thankfully, search engines allow a prospect to find products/services they want. SEO is an art and a technology to ensure your site ranks higher than your competitor's. Higher the ranking better the traffic density. Now the only other possible way to get such traffic is by way of Ads on Google, Yahoo or Bing. As you all know the average cost per hit is around $4 for any industry. If 1000 visitors hit the site then company ends up paying $4000. By SEOizing your site, over time you end up with zero costs for a similar or a higher traffic. Considering that most business owners don't have time for learning SEO and implementing on their site, its still a lot cheaper to hire a SEO expert and reach the goal. So you do the math and see if SEO really helps. It occurs to me that SEO is the best investment online. SEO is like a hen laying golden eggs. Why not have it then?

Will social media benefit business? Is business possible on social media?

Never doubt that! One of the primary benefits of social media is its a great way to find and connect with your target audience (market). More people today spend at least an hour on social media every day. Would you not like to use that opportunity to connect with them? And also let's face this. Human being relate to another human being. You and I connect with people/faces much better than connecting with a logo/brand name or any other thing. So being social is in trend and its something no business owner can ignore any longer. Benefits like the ability to have global/local visibility, providing value with posts, blogs and tweets to prospects/customers, listening to and instantly serving a customer make business owners embrace social media with much stronger appetite. Always understand “Business is driven by relationships; being social, being engaging and being responsive always builds relationships”.

I can add more to the list of questions. But am sure this is good to go. If you have any particular comments or questions, please get in touch with me. I would be glad to answer those for you.

Try digital marketing and see how your business benefits. If you are looking for digital marketing experts- check http://www.ubheda.com

Why's of a website...

Dear Business Owners,

How many times have you been involved in one of these conversations below?

• Website feature is what am looking for my business?
• Can you give me an idea for the cost of the website only?
• We have a limited budget for our website? We just need someone to make it look the way we want. Can you?
• We want a website to only put some info of our products/services. Can you build a static website?

Am sure you would have probably encouraged and engaged in one or more of such conversations for your own business websites. Nothing wrong. Its usual and its in trend also.

In many of my interactions while prospecting, I have invariably come across situations involving me to fend these questions. As any respectable business should, I try my best to understand the client's perspective and bring in awareness of the web as a technology partner than just a feature for their business. If they don't see the value, then politely I send them on their way.

While I understand having limited budgets, digging deeper I’ve found many companies have “limited budgets” simply for the fact that they still don’t see the value in a website. Limited budgets often mean, “we don’t want to spend the money”, Not, “we don’t have the money.” Chances are you have the money, you’re just spending it in areas that you shouldn't be and not saving more in other areas. The web and its technologies allow you to save money.

But the fact of the matter is business scenario around you is changing and changing big time. Today web is changing and challenging the way people do business.

For those who think they have limited budget for their websites – I will enrich you with probable advantages you can have with a strategy embedded in your website development.

• Well designed websites can reduce lot of desk work you do otherwise.
• No hiring people to send emails, company profiles and spending a large amount of business hours in talking about services/advantages.
• Hiring different people to work in different time zones & be skilled in different languages.
• Lean staff means salary savings and office space available for more skilled workers.
• Blogs can sell much better than a marketing person.

Are you still thinking you have limited budget? Think again.

And for those who do not know the power of web/internet and are clear that website is just an online presence or an added feature that has no ROI – WAKE UP!

We're no longer in the era of fixed appointments and elevated pitch opportunities. Today, we run to the search engines for info on product/company/services. We turn to collaborative consumption before making trusted decisions. Decisions are made on real responses and reviews from real people who bought your service/products. Now if these were available for your business online, can ROI be measured?

Ubheda's Golden Advice - “SPEND SOME MONEY. EXPERIENCE THE POTENTIAL OF ONLINE BUSINESS. A good website works hard for your business. Infact, much harder than your employees.