From Leads to Sales: Why your MSME needs Social Media in the pandemic
Businesses have evolved over decades & centuries towards trading profits and creating a market for themselves. And so have their business models. Wikipedia defines a Business Model as the way an organization creates, delivers, & captures value, in economic, social, cultural or other contexts. And well, why would MSMEs (Micro, Small, & Medium Enterprises) be any different when it comes to adopting strategies that steer them towards capturing their market & customer base? If yours is one such wonderful business or an upcoming or growing MSME, here’s what you would be curious to know why your MSME needs social media to flourish & thrive. Especially, when the pandemic has spelt a completely different era & pace of how businesses operate.
The realm & ambit of MSMEs in India is so enormous that the government of India has an MSME dedicated portal for this powerful sector.
The Evolution of Business Models
Before the era of World Wars, the goal of organizations was only catering to the Production Vs Supply gap. And as the 1950’s set in, when competition between businesses spiked, business models began to focus on prioritizing market research & marketing campaigns, as much as on production.
With the 90’s & the spurt in technology, advertising emerged as the grub of survival for companies & businesses alike. And so did concepts of brand imaging & customer loyalty actually gain importance, with electronic media & even the Internet.
Today, as the world experiences the most rapid trasformations in technology, the role of Digital Marketing & social media for MSMEs has to be deciphered & implemented with much needed impetus.
Why your MSME needs Social Media Marketing?
According to Hubspot, around 74% of marketers across the world are investing in social media marketing for their business enterprises.
Before we delve into the dynamics of different digital strategies that you can adopt for your start-up or business, let’s first streamline WHY social media marketing is the way forward for YOU!
According to a report by BackLinko, as of 2021:
- There are over a 4.48 Billion people using Social Media (which is, 56.8% of the world’s population)
- In India alone, an average social media user has 11 accounts, while in the US a user has about 7.
- 40% of the world’s social media users use it for work purposes. In India, this percentage is 47%.
- The top-most platforms are FB, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, of which FB, Instagram, Pinterest are more popular among females.
Don’t these statistics look of tremendous potential to MSMEs?
B2B Vs B2C Marketing: The Riveting Dichotomy
Regardless of the difference between the marketing ideologies of B2B (Business to Business) & B2C (Business to Consumer) companies, based on their target audience, the fundamentals of digital promotion do not vary much drastically between the two.
Nevertheless, the curation of content & plaforms, which convert for both B2B & B2C are of vast significance here. Let’s quickly look at these.
Content Type
- Since B2C clientele like to consume content in a casual, rather unpretentious format, the most penetrative types of content ideally include short slideshows, image-, audio- & video- heavy content. Simple yet conversational blog posts or Podcasts focusing on your company are also a classic hit when it comes to impressing your audience.
- While B2B companies are traditionally accustomed to implementing a professional & thus, informal way of communication with potential customers, there’s a pool of innovative content types that can not just attract but also convert potential clients.
- Infographics – Nothing is as crisp as all statistics & analytics of your company put together in graphics.
- Case Studies – Nobody is actually interested in knowing about the inception & work ethics of your organization, no matter how sincerely you intend to put it across the world. But proof of what has worked with even your few clients is sure to hit the bull’s eye! Changing the narrative from a business-centred introduction to a customer-oriented record is always a great tool for LEAD GENERATION.
- Webinars – Free webinars are the perfect way to consentfully get your potential customers on board with their sign up information, which you can treasure to nurture their leads, study their interest-related acquisition & cater to what they perceive as a good sale from you in future. Not just that! The content you gather from webinars can be re-purposed in a hundred ways for your other social media platforms; into case studies, e-books, infographics or used as feedback.
Remember, whether your MSME is a B2B or B2C concern, always make your content SHAREABLE! Because, reach & virality are metrics that can NEVER be ignored. Reach is always proportional to more BRAND VISIBILITY & CONVERTIBLE LEADS.
Social Media Platforms
- LinkedIn, FB, Twitter have remained effective staples of potent B2B communication.
- Interestingly, although FB began as a fun place for personal networking, it has been the #1 platform for both, B2B & B2C marketing today, empowered by robust algorithms, AI & even the recent acquisition of other prominent social channels by the social media giant. Besides, YouTube & Instagram have also emerged as authoritative social media channels for B2C marketers today.
Coupling MSME and Social Media
Here are various ways in which you can leverage the latitude of social media if you own an MSME.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
If your MSME caters to a specific audience/customer base, SEO & SEM can work like a charm!
For this, the most you’d require is a website that represents your service or product range.
SEO focuses on attracting your target audience organically to your website through keyword optimization via SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), SEM relies on both, organic traffic & Paid Ads.
While organic traffic is gold & is almost fool-proof if your website explains your service exactly the way your customer would want to know about you, Google Ads also work excellently as a Paid Digital marketing strategy.
With Google Ads you can pretty much level up with your competitors, where you get to embed a code into your site, that helps you to track who & how many people from different geo-locations visited your site, showed interest in your ads, clicked on PURCHASE & then left, & who actually made a purchase!
Google Analytics has similar features too. This way, you have a complete control over monitoring conversions & leads for your business, being empowered by metrics quantifying audience behavior & interests.
Facebook (Meta) & Instagram Ads
Statistics have demonstrated that potential customers are always responsive & receptive, whenever they encounter FB & Instagram business ads or sponsored content. That’s because, these social platforms are delegated with complex & effective algorithms & AI, that identify one’s niche audience based on personal data & targeting them specifically with tailor-made aspects matching your service/product!
This definitely results in cost-effective & a more psychographic reach for your MSME brand. What more could one ask for, when it comes to cutting unnecessary promotion costs?
PR Marketing
This would require a medium to an extensive dependence on PR (Public Relations) agencies or professionals as you outsource the task of curating campaigns designed to amplify your brand visibility. Again, this would also heavily hinge on social media, where PR campaigns are bound to levitate brand value & convert to sales, as well.
Collaborations with influencers or bloggers pertaining closely to your niche would be a gold mine here.
For instance, if yours is an MSME handling cookware, you could outsource a PR professional/agency to get your campaign across the engaged audience of Food bloggers, Food YouTubers & Instagram influencers through their collab content with you.
E-mail Marketing
E-mails & Newsletters have been touted as evergreen ways to connect with & nurture your loyal customer base.
That’s because, their email addresses land in your subscriber list mostly out of their compelling desire to know more about you or get a freebie that they REALLY loved to have from you!
So, with this format of communicating with your potential clients, you can always promote your new products, offers & releases to them & also score benefits of them spreading your word to their contacts. That’s because, they’re usually loyal towards what you create, promote & have benefitted from your service.
Now, let’s SUM UP why your MSME needs SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING with the help of what looks like a GREAT Sales Funnel!
And all you’d need is some time to identify which platform(s) will work BEST for your business.
Wishing you all the SUCCESS! 😀
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