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How can SMBs create & carry out sophisticated marketing strategies given their resource constraints?
Given the new age of cloud services, low cost advertising and social media channels, what are the most effective ways for SMBs to execute sophisticated marketing strategies given their resources constraints?
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5 Answers
The most important thing I find is putting forth an effort in tracking whatever strategy you are using for education and measure of effectiveness.
Some interesting strategies to utilize that are cost effective, which immediately come to mind are:
-Social Media (Such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare)
-Text message marketing (To enhance your current client base)
-E-mail marketing (Whether it is done on your own, or through a partner company such as Constant Contact)
-Business to Business networking events/groups (networking still works.. you just have to invest a lot of time!)
When utilizing these methods, it is important to utilize such things as QR codes and special deals that occur only on certain channels will help you track how well it works.
Ex: On facebook, ONLY give out a certain type of deal, on your website ONLY give out a certain deal, and on your text message marketing service mention a way to save money and you will be able to get a rough understanding of how well something is working.
Each social site, each marketing medium has its own primary benefit, if you utilize these mediums, make sure you use them properly for the best results.
Some advise:
Free seminars are everywhere! Utilizing events/free seminars that are in your area covering basics for CEO's happen all the time - just do some google searches!
These are some tips to help you get started. Internet marketing can be very confusing, but it is currently the MOST effective way to benefit your business, and NOW is the time to do something!
At its core, marketing automation technology is a more effective solution for executing marketing strategies, from the simple to the sophisticated.
Marketers can now accomplish with technology what has previously been largely impossible, due to the cost and amount of effort/human capital required to market effectively. Companies just weren't able to generate the results that are now achievable with marketing automation functionality.
Solutions are available that make marketing automation accessible to businesses of all sizes, even those with resource constraints. Full disclosure, I work for Net-Results Marketing Automation.
Use your customers as a marketing channel. Empower them to share your message to those in their networks.
Outsource as much as possible. Leverage services such as eLance and TimeSvr to get more work done, build better lists, and automate more of the daily tasks required to successfully operate proven marketing channels.
Measure, optimize, then do less. Figure out what's working, quickly. Do more of it. Then do less of what you can't prove. Do less, get more.
Here's a case study for how a single person marketer for an IT consulting firm uses marketing automation to stay top of mind. It's great from the standpoint of limited resources, and using marketing automation in a smart way.
https://www.genoo.com/case-study/small-business-lead-nurturing
Hope this help!
Kim
Genoo.com
InternetMarketingCompete.com
The only thing I'd say about social media is to point out the facts revealed in a 2011 survey conducted by Demandbase, which shows a breakout of the top sources of leads. It shows 23% come from a company's website, followed by email at 14%, online ads bring in another 7%, and social media is bringing up the rear at just 3%.
So before you start investing tons in social media strategies, it might make more sense to pay attention to how well your website engages and converts visitors into leads, then work on your email approach and engaging leads with great follow-up, and once you have that foundation, you'll be able to branch out into social media and other venues to build more awareness.
Since SMBs can not waste resources, and struggle to have enough resources for their marketing, focusing on conversion and lead generation, then nurturing and follow up make the most sense if you want results in the near term.
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