101 DIGITAL MARKETING FOR SOLO & SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS 2023

How many of us want to take our businesses to the next level?

How many want our products and services to be loved and in demand?

If you hear your mind scream “YES!“, then my friend you are in the right place to begin this journey with Marketing!

Like many MSME business owners, I was very reactive when it came to Marketing. I was waiting for leads to come my way, had no control on my goals and relied too heavily on word of mouth. This meant that I was barely scraping by, hoping and praying that customers would magically discover me. If this even remotely sounds like you, we know what this leads to. Disappointment and dejection!

We need to understand that we must move to being more proactive and creative when it comes to Marketing. And the first step to that is dispelling some prevalent myths MSME business owners have and understanding how Digital Marketing for Small Business Owners can work for you.

The Myths of MSME Marketing

Myth #1: Word of mouth is good enough! And I already get enough business from my existing customers!

Truth:

While word of mouth is an effective means of marketing, it’s hardly effective at the starting line. Word of mouth gets wings when there is enough marketing momentum lifting it. With long time existing customers, it’s often a case of having low bargaining power in the relationship. In the long run this strategy is dangerous, relying too heavily on existing customers to bolster your business, should things take a turn for the worse.

Myth #2: Ours is a small/traditional business. Large players can expend on marketing, money that we can’t spare for marketing.

Truth:

Most small businesses stay small because they don’t invest in marketing. The latitude for success through marketing is much higher when it comes to traditional businesses since most of them are not! Honestly, not marketing costs businesses way more money. It also needs to be stated that investment in marketing needs more skill, effort and ideas than just money!

Myth #3: We tried doing marketing but didn’t see any results.

Truth:

Marketing isn’t an activity that starts and ends when we most need it. That’s a purely reactive approach which hardly garners dividends. Marketing needs to be consistent. The results of marketing are the outcomes of a proactive system.

Some Fundamentals of Marketing:

With these myths out of the way, let’s get to what the goal of marketing is. The management guru, Peter Drucker puts it best –

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well, the product or service fits him and sells itself. The aim is to make selling superfluous.

Peter Drucker

Marketing is the science of adding value to customers before, during and after they buy. The process of marketing starts before building products and services. It begins with understanding the customer and their needs. Armed with this information, businesses can build products that are the right fit with their customers. It also is a means of developing mass trust, gaining brand credibility and dominating a position in the minds based on your business niche.

While Marketing may precede and succeed products and services, it is imperative to ensure that marketing should never take precedence over the product. As business owners, ensure you don’t overplay the importance of marketing. Great marketing for a bad product only serves as its death knell. 

A great product sells itself, and makes loyal brand ambassadors of your customers!

In summary, as a first but fundamental step – invest in understanding your customer, their needs and detail the 4P’s of marketing – Product, Price, Promotion and Place. You could also add 3 more Ps – People, Process and Physical evidence, if it makes sense to your business. Pour this knowledge into your products and make them no-brainers for your customer. Invest in marketing to accelerate Visibility, Credibility and Lead Generation.

Traditional versus Digital Marketing Channels:

Once we get into the mindset of Marketing, let’s talk about what marketing in India looks like today with Traditional and Digital channels. 

• TV can reach 800 million to 1 billion people
• Radio has a reach of approximately 650 million Indians
• Newspapers reach 465 Million people
• Digital has the reach of about 100 million users

Based on the numbers it is clear that if you have generic products that cater to large audiences traditional marketing means are the way to go. However if there is a need to reach specific audiences, to be able to reach the right people with the right message at the right time, digital should be your gig. So choose wisely!

Marketing as a Success and Wealth accelerator:

There is an equation that helps make sense of the above statement.

Wealth = n^CATT where

•  n – Niche

• C – Content

• A – Attention
• T – Trust
• T – Transaction

In simple terms it means – 

With the right niche(n) for our business, products and services, as we consistently create 

Content(C) that adds value through videos, blogs, lead magnets, webinars etc, 

we attract Attention(A) using SEO, Social Media, Ads and so on

build Trust(T) with marketing automation, tripwires and retargeting

it creates Transactions(T) that convert leads into customers.

Thus making Success and Wealth inevitable.

Integrated Digital Marketing for Small Business Owners for the Win!

Many MSMEs pick and choose what channels to use for their marketing. This minimalist approach, while easy to manage, doesn’t cover the ground required to make businesses successful. The eagle eyed amongst you must have noticed how there are a variety of components in CATT like videos, social media, automation, SEO, ads and so on.

This is called an Integrated Marketing approach where one communication touchpoint feeds the other, creating a marketing ecosystem that works for your business.

This is what an Integrated Digital Marketing Framework looks like:

Don’t be intimidated by the image. In reality, it is a straightforward system which will take the customer on a journey. Integrated Digital Marketing frameworks help unify marketing efforts to tell a clear and consistent story to build brand awareness, increase ROI and establish brand loyalty.

Personal Branding: The Marketing edge to lift your business(es)

While Integrated Digital Marketing Frameworks give your business a fair shot of increasing their visibility and credibility, there is another BIG asset most businesses own that is under-utilized as a marketing vehicle. That is you, the business owner! This is where Personal branding comes in. To utilize your expertise to promote your brands.

Let me draw your attention to people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Anand Mahindra, Richard Branson, Elon Musk and so on. These professionals arguably have larger followings than the businesses they own. These, and many other professionals, are experts in their own right and have made the effort to be the voice for their businesses and their beliefs. 

There is a fair bit that goes into creating Personal Branding strategies for MSME business owners, but lets cover the basics right here.

Right at the get go professionals/business owners who want to create Personal Brands, follow a Mass Trust Blueprint in a cyclical manner starting with 

Learn: A new skill is learnt through understanding concepts, remembering facts and practicing procedures.

Work: The theory learnt is put into real world practice to understand the process, benefits and pitfalls. 

Blog: Business owners write their experiences and share the nuances of their learnings and specific use cases.

Consult: Through consultation businesses expand their base of knowledge and application with others who have the similar needs or challenges that need to be overcome.

Mentor: The noble pursuit of helping others learn from your experiences and mistakes. Mentoring helps scale the knowledge base to an entirely new level.

Startup: This can be a start to a great product or service business, with the level of understanding and trust a professional has garnered through this journey.

Wrapping things up:

There is a joke that goes “Googling symptoms only tells you which diseases have the best SEO”.

While it’s funny, this goes to show how powerful Marketing truly is. Multiple mentors have told me:

The best known always beats the best!

Let’s round it up. I encourage you to train your mind and practice marketing on the basis of the following:

Marketing is the science of adding value to customers. 

Invest time, effort and resources in marketing to accelerate Visibility, Credibility and Lead Generation for your business.

Traditional vs Digital: Select channels of marketing that resonate with your customers.Success and wealth are directly proportional to your business niche, Content created, Attention generated, Trust built and Transactions earned.

Integrated Digital Marketing frameworks help unify marketing efforts to build brand awareness, increase ROI and establish brand loyalty.

Utilize your expertise to promote your brands to the next level with Personal Branding using the Mass Trust Blueprint.

And we are just getting started. I will jump into more detail as I surf through my own Mass Trust Blueprint wave. Like, share, subscribe! Stay with me on the journey and get more on board!

P.S. I would be amiss if I don’t share my gratitude and give much due credit to one of my mentors Digital Deepak, whose marketing theories have been mentioned here.

Please follow him for deep dives and marketing gold!