We know how hard it is- you are trying to promote your modest company in the world of a multi-million dollar business and enterprises with huge marketing budgets. Your budget is limited, you have limited time, limited knowledge and a limited arsenal of tactics for implementation. What about big brands? They can do whatever they want, hire as many people as they like, and use whatever tactics they want. Nowadays, small businesses face competition in an oversaturated market.
The competition is very intense, and it has become very difficult to stand out somehow. If you combine this with a huge contrast between the budget of a small business and the seemingly inexhaustible resource of a large enterprise, it becomes obvious that the rates are not in favor of small business. In fact, finding new customers is one of the main concerns of small business owners. 66% of them say that this is their main problem. How can small businesses outweigh the scales in this contest with mega giants?
It all comes down to two strategies: SEO and social networks. If done correctly, these strategies will help small businesses compete with the “whales”. We have already helped many small businesses to do this- they excelled huge corporations in their niche. This is the power of marketing in the digital age. Everyone can compete. Everyone is able to succeed. Even someone is very insignificant. The main thing is to know how.
Leveling the playing field
The beauty of these two channels- SEO and social networks- is that they are impartial. They have no favorites. Google doesn’t care which company offers a particular product. She just wants to provide users with the best and most significant results. This also applies to social networks. It does not matter what it is about: a completely new startup and its promotion, or a company with an established reputation that has been operating for many years.
You can achieve the desired results if you understand the process and effectively use the demographics of your audience. Of course, surpassing such a giant as Amazon or Walmart in the search engine is simply impossible, and you are unlikely to succeed in attracting as many followers on social networks as these titanium corporations. But the right strategy will help small businesses stay afloat. It is a matter of introducing the right tactics. It is also important to understand the processes that really work at the moment.
Small business is very profitable if they use social networks
A 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry report showed who benefits most from social media. According to their research, 90% of respondents believe that social networks play a very important role in their business. It is noteworthy that 67% of self-employed people and 66% of business owners agreed with this statement.
When asked about key benefits, 88% of respondents said that social networks increase audience reach.
Secondly, 72% of respondents noted an increase in traffic and an increase in the number of subscribers.
About two-thirds of business owners believe that social networks are very important for their business. Thus, it becomes apparent that a good campaign will have a significant impact.
It is also necessary to take into account another important feature of social networks – this is the ability to make content viral and demonstrate it to a large number of people in a short period of time. If you truly understand your audience and know how to connect with it on social networks, you will not only achieve increased reach, but also make your audience more loyal, which will help you achieve repeat business. In theory, some nameless startup can become very famous in almost one night, attracting a stream of traffic and sales.
How to beat them in SEO?
No one will deny that search engines have forever changed the information search algorithm and influenced the business’s approach to marketing. Let’s take a look at things in perspective: “On average, Google processes over 40,000 searches every second, which is about 3.5 billion searches a day and 1.2 trillion searches a year around the world.”
Let’s be honest. Small businesses have almost no chance of winning huge companies when it comes to search terms with broad meanings. But if small businesses use smart tactics, such as long tail phrases, their chances of defeating the “whales” become much more realistic.
Ideal – Marketing on a budget
What is the main advantage of large companies compared to small ones? Money.
Of course, they have a number of other advantages. For example, brand equity, marketing, HR, and so on. But if you look at the root, then the main advantage of large companies is the ability to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on launching a marketing funnel for each individual campaign.
On the other hand, small startups can have a very tight budget- even $ 50,000 a year will seem like a luxury to them. Fortunately, legal SEO techniques and social media campaigns can be done without financial support.
Small companies will not have the money to use such expensive channels as television ads. Nor will they be able to hire influential opinion makers such as Taylor Swift to promote their products. But they can afford the use of SEO and social networks.
When a company knows exactly what it is doing, when it keeps up to date and uses the most relevant strategies, it has every chance to win a competition with the “whales” in the field of marketing.
Conclusion
We believe that the time in which we live is the most exciting for small business owners. In the past, small enterprises almost always had to play the second violin and concede to large companies, “picking up marketing balances”. But these days, small businesses can compete and flourish.
Even if you just recently launched a startup and you need to save every penny, you can move forward and achieve mass coverage for your brand. Using SEO and social networks, as well as understanding the basics of these strategies, will allow you to take a certain position in your industry and attract high-quality leads to your website.