I don’t have enough funds for now to afford a WEBSITE!
This the most common reason why every small business owners don’t feel like creating a website for their business.
Small Businesses has multiple challenges and the most important one is the financial challenge. When your business is small, or you are just starting it up most important decision you need to figure out was how to manage the finance of the company and hence tend to take decisions which are financially suitable irrespective of whether it is important or not.
So here are a few important steps you can do to create your online presence effectively and ultimately grow your small business within the limited budget
1. Create a website in the cheapest way
For creating a website, you may need to hire professionals which can be very convenient but not cost effective. The cost may range from INR 20,000 to 50,000 depending upon your business needs. However, there are alternative options available which are not that costly, and you can hire freelancers/graduate student who has knowledge of creating it to create a website for you. Also, there are other options too available like you yourself can create a website by using free online tools: WIX.com, Google Business Site, Strikingly.com etc. For E-Commerce, various platforms are available today which gives you installment based website designing services like Zepo.in, Shopify. Yes, you do need to have basic knowledge of web backgrounds if you plan to do it yourself.
Check out your options and evaluate it yourself based on your cost and features requirements. This will be your stepping stone towards creating a strong online presence but in future, you will have to jump back to a professional to get it done in a professional manner and we hope till that time you will have successful business growing.
2. Write precisely about your product and services
Strong online presence needs strong content which should precisely reflect your uniqueness about your company, products or services. Creating clear and crisp contents for your websites will fetch you correct customers who actually needs your services. No other company or person will know more about your products and services than you, so if you yourself or your team can create contents for your company it will be better. You can refine the contents using Microsoft Word or tools like Grammarly.
3. Social Media Presence
Once your website is setup with clear and crisp content, its time to market it. The easiest mediums available today to market your brand or company is through social media.
Various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter can be utilized for free marketing. All it requires is regular activities over the channel by publishing relevant contents/ posts. You can also integrate Messenger with your page to get instant response of interested people and respond to them. Remember one thing, people over social media doesn’t want to hear about your marketing posts/contents, so we need to be smart about how and when to do it. Simplest 80:20 rule will be helpful for you to do it. 80 percent of relevant and engaging contents and 20% of your product/ service marketing.
4. Social Media Paid marketing
The most traditional way of marketing have used Pamphlets, Bill boards etc for many years. But evaluating the results from these are nearly impossible also you tend to invest a lot with non-targeted marketing.
While with Social Media Paid Marketing, ROI (Return on Investment) is quite good.
For us (WEQ’s Facebook Ad) has below results:
- Amount Spent: INR 660.63
- Total Impressions: 26,849 (Ads was viewed this many times)
- Reach: 18,975 (Unique people that viewed the Ad)
- Ad Clicks: 397
So, the result was viewed approx. 40 times the amount invested. This is the power of online marketing.
The results are subject to your target and goals as well.
There are various forms of advertisement you can put on Facebook depending upon you. goals: Traffic, Engagement, Leads, Brand Awareness, Reach, App Installs, Video Views.
5. Online reviews on Google+ & Facebook
New customer comes to you with either the reference or advertisement. But to build their trust in you customer’s review is going to be very important. Once you have served your customers well and they are happy enough, its good practice to ask for their reviews.
If your business is listed on google, do ask for reviews from your customers. This shows up directly when someone searches for your company over google.
You can also ask your customers to review your company on your facebook’s page.
If you already have page and google business already setup, go ask for your customers review today.
6. Have your business listed on various business directories
There are various websites which has its own visitors and the number of visitors are huge and also they belongs to the one you business serves. Do create your profiles over these directory listing websites to get found and noticed.
Below are few of the important directory listings you can do it for free:
1. Just Dial / Sulekha – For any kind of business
2. Urban Clap
3. Zomato – If your business is restaurant
4. Amazon/ Flipkart – If you run an e-commerce business
There are various others available over internet today. For better results some of them above have charges associated to boost your business on there channel. You can decide which channel to go ahead with based on business type and your personal preference by speaking to their business representative free of cost
These were the critical and most cost-effective ways of creating your online presence strong. Anytime is good time to start working on your business goals and get it done. You need not necessarily wait for “The Good Time” to come, its never going to happen. India is one of the fastest growing country with “75% of small business owners see internet marketing as an effective or very effective tool to attract new customers”.
Get your business online today if not already and achieve your business goals in the most cost-effective manner.
Sahil Shaikh
Digital Marketer
Digital Marketer & Analytics Dashboard Expert at WEQ Technologies. Working on Voice search and SEO, analysing future impact based upon voice search.
