We are ambitious Entrepreneurs with unique capabilities. But, how do we grow?

Style of doing business has changed from what our predecessors practiced.  

Are you getting a feeling that your business is on a downhill? And that survival in future is going to be tough?

Think again!!

We are today in the Information age, having crossed the Industrial Age. However, that doesn’t mean that we have to put up the shutters to our businesses or modify them to survive. The MSME’s remain to be the backbone of the Indian Economy. We are a part of every product produced in the country today. Then why is it that we are bleeding? Despite having the best Technical skills in the world; why are we strained for work/orders?

Let’s start from where it all started - the Industrial Era. It was this age that defined to man what he truly was capable of. The continuous innovations and inventions were followed by vigorous manufacturing and trading of goods. There were new businesses releasing to support the growing demand; and they too grew fast. “Demand was in excess of supply”, which gave birth to the export culture. Everyone was making profits. It was the golden era for businesses across the country.

But soon, to further increase profits & market shares, the companies had to start competing with each other - by cutting costs and providing better products. The only way to survival now was to advertise ourselves and our products and demonstrate how we stand out from the crowd.

Traditionally, marketing was mainly the word of mouth. Later it moved to print media (ads in magazines, brochures etc.) followed by tele-media (where voice helped carry the message further). Today we have exhibitions being held where companies display their products and services directly to prospective clients on a one-to-one basis. But this consumes a lot of time, money and effort. Have you ever thought how much impact does it create on your audience and how long does it last or whether it reaches your desired audience at all? In short whether it has been impactful in generating the end result that it’s meant to – i.e. convert leads-into-enquiries-into-orders.

Marketing had its biggest shift in the 1990s once internet came into existence. On October 27, 1994, the first online ad was posted……….  1995 gave rise to keyword ads online.

Another breakthrough came out in 1996 with the tracking system of ads, through which the companies could track how many times their ads were actually seen and how often they were clicked. Now the companies could see if their money was being spent well.

In 1999, came the Dotcom burst, the rise of the search engines which connected with companies to generate paid search advertising. With Businesses being global, usage of Internet is very common and is the fastest and the cheapest way of communication.

Today, several tools and techniques of internet marketing like Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing etc. are available and all these modes of Marketing can be analysed through automated reports and your ROI can be easily calculated. The principle followed at World’s Biggest Domain Registrar GoDaddy is most apt for all startup’s and SME’s “Hustle, adapt, listen. Repeat.”

According to statistics from Google, 86% of the businesses use Social Media Advertising, while 80% of the businesses use Display Ads and 66% of companies use Paid Search. These spends on advertising, according to Analyst at Sageworks, is a mere 1% of an average small business’s revenue and thus falling comfortably in their affordability bracket.

You can today connect with people across the globe through your mobile phone and showcase your products and capabilities from the comfort of your office/home.  You can have a 2 way communication system which can be automated and have a greater visibility. With so much of information on the internet, marketing in today’s world is very important to stand out from the crowd and the noise. “The best and the cheapest way is being online.”

 B2B marketing is becoming extremely strong online and with the automation tools lead-generation, capturing and interacting with your leads is much easier and faster than earlier.

This is the right time to rethink your marketing strategies and step into the new world of technology!