Over the years I have worked with different small-size companies to improve their marketing efficiency to generate new leads for their business and understand digital marketing for small business is not the same for different levels of companies.
Irrespective of which industry I have worked for, most of the small companies have a similar kind of problems which reduces their marketing efficiency compared to their successful competitors.
Some of the common problems I have noticed in them are listed below:
- Small team.
- Traditional mind-set behavior, not ready to open up to new digital trends.
- Lack of digital skills.
- Never takes branding as a serious thing.
- Lack of time.
- Do not want to spend more budgets on recruiting an expert digital marketer; instead, they hire an intern or fresher who doesn’t know much about digital practices.
Start-up companies or age old small companies have to get one thing clear that the world is moving faster, there is no time to sit back and decide whether we need to be aggressive on digital presence or not. The moment companies wasting on trying things on trial and error basis, they can actually take some wise decision in getting an expert advice on this subject.
How digital marketing can be beneficial for a start-up owner:
Unlike traditional media advertising which needs more budgets, digital marketing for small business has got various channels where new start-ups companies can advertise their product or services in very less budget and also the conversion is higher compared with traditional media advertising.
Key points:
- Needs very less budget.
- Easy to handle.
- Better conversion rate.
- Can communicate with customers immediately.
- Easy to monitor.
So far we have seen the problems faced in implementing digital marketing for small businesses; even sometimes it applies start-up companies too.
Inspite of having many benefits still it is harder for small or start-up companies to implement a digital marketing strategy because of the lack of digital skills and time they need to be competitive in digital channels.
Digital marketing became competitive; reaching our website in top search result is not easier like olden days. Google algorithms became more and more tough. We need more access to different marketing and analysing tools in order plan our strategy accordingly.
If the start-up or a small company spends more time on learning these skills on their own, it will affect the efficiency of their business.
Most of the start-up companies initially have 2-4 employees who can handle their business processes. They will be already occupied with multiple responsibilities, if companies force them to take care of online presence, it will be a burden to them and at the same time it will not be efficient.
My best suggestion for companies would be to hire an expert freelance digital marketing consultant who has knowledge and access to different tools. Work with them for a couple of years until you reach a position your team is trained and your business has grown into a position that you can hire an in-house expert for digital marketing.
About Me:
I am a freelance digital marketing consultant based in Chennai, India. I would be happy to set up and implement your digital marketing strategy for any English and French language market. I majorly worked for Indian market, U.S market and for European market (France).