Whether at a low cost or for a fee, there are myriads of sales and marketing technology tools available for forward-looking small and medium sized businesses of today.
By the myBusiness techblog team
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are typically more cost-conscious – a common challenge is deciding what to spend on, and how much to allocate for sales and marketing efforts. The good news is that technology offers some low cost or practically free ways to help build your brand and reach out to your target audience.
Before exploring and deciding on using any technology, take the time to think about and develop a marketing plan. A plan will help clarify your objectives, detail how to reach customers and how the marketing plan is to be executed.
Next, find out about the technology that is available to help achieve better results. Done correctly, these solutions can enable company of any size to market itself quickly and affordably to thousands of potential clients.
1. Sharing Content on Social Media
Use social media to attract customers with content. The idea is to offer free information that is useful to potential customers, to position the company as part of the community or an “expert”. This involves creating and publishing content to influence and educate potential customers.
Content can be easily published online on blogs like on WordPress, mojoPortal, or Tumblr. Social media avenues such as Twitter, Facebook or Google+ can be used to share such content as the posts are easily recommended and shared. This is also a good way to find out what your audience likes based on their response.
The content that is published can be in the form of news articles, case studies, videos, e-books, how-to guides, etc. Done well, attractive content on social media can further your reach to more customers.
2. Going Direct with SMS/MMS Blast Promotions
Sending an SMS/MMS can allow you to connect directly to customers. An SMS/MMS promotional blast is basically about sending an advertisement or promotion to customers via mobile phone messages. These SMS/MMS blasts are sent to a database of people, and can spell affordable marketing costs and improved connection.
However, you need to be mindful of the new data protection law that came into effect on 1 January 2013. The Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) will be implemented in phases with the main data protection rules coming into force in mid 2014. There is also the Do Not Call (DNC) registry, which also allows individuals to opt out of unsolicited marketing calls, messages and faxes.
You will need to ensure that when sending marketing messages – whether a voice message, fax message or text message – that such messages are not sent to Singapore telephone numbers registered with the DNC registry. More details can be found at www.pdpc.gov.sg.
3. Building Relationships with Customers Through Email & E-Newsletters
Another effective marketing tool for SMEs is email marketing. The email sent can have a wide reach, and can include an advertisement, or a promotion to build brand awareness. Email marketing databases can be bought, or built. Building a database is the more affordable option, and it can be done by using your existing customer list and offer visitors to your content marketing site the option of receiving email updates. This can be the start of building your own email marketing database.
Email marketing can include e-newsletters – a fast, efficient and cost-effective way to get information into the hands of customers. E-newsletters offer an excellent channel to reach potential new customers while building a relationship with existing ones. The emails need to be targeted and relevant to the readers, and can include discounts, special offers, useful articles, case studies, tips and how-to guides. When it comes to which content to feature in emails, take the cue from customers’ interests through the pieces of content that they read or respond to.
To ensure readability, try to minimise the use of images, as most recipients will not see the images included in the email, and make sure that your key message is seen in a 600×200 pixel space as most readers will view the email in a preview pane. Given how the use of smart mobile devices has skyrocketed, it is wise to optimise your marketing email for mobile devices, suitable for all screen sizes.
Ensure that your database is kept up to date, with remove addresses that bounce, or have chosen to opt out. Failure to do so can have a negative effect on your company reputation, and may infringe the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), and too many undeliverable addresses may make email providers flag your emails as spam.
4. Sales & Marketing in the Cloud
For SMEs who desire more enterprise-class sales and marketing functionality, cloud-based services are an ideal choice to provide affordable access to sophisticated sales and marketing software at a fraction of the cost. One of the biggest attractions of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for SMEs is the possibility of having reduced IT support costs as the hardware and software maintenance is outsourced to the SaaS provider.
These on-demand services can be accessed via a web browser and a secure Internet link. This is a software delivery model where the software and associated data are centrally hosted on the cloud, ensuring affordable costs and for SMEs to always get the latest and most updated software.
SaaS solutions for sales and marketing include Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and sales force automation services, and covers different aspects of pre-sales, sales, marketing and service. For free trials of sales & marketing SaaS solutions, click here.