Small businesses today have tremendous opportunities to gain ground on their larger competitors. The question remains however, how many will step to the plate? The information evolution, driven mainly by the Internet and social media networks have created a level playing field for those who choose to participate. Sharing expertise, exchanging ideas, providing solutions and answering questions allows for building customer relationships – one of the key ingredients to small business success.
Digital and social media’s level playing field does not however ensure victory – they simply allow you to compete. Those of us who participate in or follow competitive sports know that talent, decision making, execution, and desire to win all make the difference once the game is on.
In today’s information age, relevant and compelling content is the key to engaging target customers and thus becomes the talent in our sports metaphor. Creating original content on your website and increasing online visibility via inbound marketing strategies all contribute to establishing your company’s digital presence.
Choosing media channels and topics of conversations to connect with your target customers are significant components in the decision making process. Writing blogs and e-Newsletters, using Twitter, Facebook or other social media networks all can be effective tools for small businesses to compete if used in proper context.
Frequency of producing content becomes the execution piece to the equation. How often you update content on your company’s website and chosen media vehicles is essential to managing your online presence, maintaining the interest of your customers and maximizing SEO.
Small businesses that provide useful, transparent information become relevant and credible. This increases their ability to influence perception, and ultimately the behavior of target customers – the obvious desire to win reference.
Many small businesses possess the expertise of their products and services as well as the passion for providing solutions to their customers. This is the beauty of doing business with these organizations. The small business challenge however, is how to participate competitively on this newly created level playing field of connecting with target customers.
Is the talent within your company to communicate effectively? Can you afford to assign someone the time to focus on the marketing strategy? Can you afford not to?
The game is on – is your company participating?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
One of the biggest challenges we face as a small company is maintaining enough content that is relevant and timely.
Within our organization, the majority of the push comes from the Marketing side as these techniques are part of integrated programs with measurable goals and companion pieces. However, we need to remain flexible enough to respond to the immediate needs of sales (a recent news item or market mover).
To be better prepared and consistently refresh content, we cycle through four to six core writers and solicit articles/opinion from select partners or customers. With about two weeks of writing in reserve, we are able to keep up with demands, repond to issues like posters who “forget” about their content, and we’ve reduced the risk of burn-out. That having been said, for all the planning, we’re a small group (practically everyone writes) so we haven’t eliminated the midnight posting sessions, yet.
Without question the internet provides an enormous opportunity for small businesses to compete. However most companies do not have the staffing or the proper talent to conduct internet marketing in an effective manner.Does it make sense to hire an outside agency or consultant to handle this task?
From my perspective, it can be a great aid to hire an agency to assist with these tasks. An agency should provide a strong content partnership that can manage (among other things): Content direction, ideally mapping to a sales and marketing plan, free critical staff for more essential tasks (like running the business) and can add professionalism to the content.
With so much going on in the day-to-day, it makes more sense for our CTO and Sales VP to be helping to close business than writing blog postings–especially when a talented agency can interview him and shape his thoughts into great content.
Much like a traditional marketing and advertising campaign, a talented agency partner can provide direction, creation and execution of a client’s content marketing, inbound marketing and social marketing strategies. Regardless if its online or offline marketing, a good marketing partner can establish a company’s identity as well as design a communications strategy which engages the client’s target customer.
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