Marketing refers to management process that identifies and satisfies customers’ needs according to their requirements. Marketing also refers to the supply of its consumption needs and creating transactions that results in exchange and consumption.
Marketing a great way for SMEs
For small businesses or business starters, a lot of business owners tend to think that marketing is a waste of investment. This is because, while it helps to get the word out, it might not show tangible returns in the short or middle term future.
How important is marketing to an SME?
To say the most, marketing is a great opportunity for SMEs to gain more prospective clients. To ensure the smooth running for your business, you need to begin with the perfect marketing solutions that best represent your products or services. This has a very thorough thought-process which requires a lot of planning and consideration.
Tips for starters
To strive for a successful marketing plan, here are some tips to guide business starters without a marketing plan.
- First and foremost, create a distinguishable and memorable brand identity. This helps as clients can easily differentiate between you and other competitors
- Then, establish a powerful brand identity to market your products or services. You need to plan in detail before launching any marketing activities.
- Note: in most cases, if you can engage a media or ad agency to help with this, it would do wonders. However, as an SME, the investment might be high. Hence, doing some initial research on choosing the best agency or using the best media might be your first step. Then talk to the experts and find out more about ROIs.
Connecting with your customers
It is always important to create a connection with target audience. Try to relate with the existing clients by fulfilling their demands and requirements within your capabilities. After all, you need to know what you can deliver and what you cannot. Understanding their background and preferences before designing a marketing strategy would be the best way forward.
Knowing the background of your client
When creating and designing a strategy for your product or service, consider opinions and ideas from your existing clients to refine and improve on your tactics. Research on your target audience and interpret the collected data systematically to produce a better marketing strategy that best suit your existing clients besides trying to garner more prospective customers.
Design and develop a workable and effective marketing plan
The objective and purpose of your marketing strategy is to increase awareness for your products or services that will boost the sales volume. An effective marketing plan covers four Ps that are promotion, product, price, and place (distribution). Consider all these aspects before forming a plan to market your products or services.
Drive your message home
Lastly, create offerings and promotions that touch your customers. Most of the time, customers purchase your products or services due to emotion. It is always want versus need. Therefore, persuade customers to make a purchase by tapping into customers’ emotions.
Putting it all together
To have a successful marketing strategy, small businesses and business starters need to take all the above tips into consideration in order to produce the best marketing plan to promote your products or services.
While it might not be possible to include all into a single marketing strategy, integrating them in phases might be more practical.
As an SME, marketing is crucial and having a marketing plan to guide you along the way will help you get to your customers better and quicker.
The 4 GO’s for SME marketing
The market in Malaysia is a dynamic and fast-growing one. For SMEs in particular, it might be challenging to go against the big boys but that does not mean you do not have the ammunition to do so. While you might not be able to compete on a level playing field due to limitations of funds and such, there are certain areas that you can focus on.
Go digital – SMEs benefit greatly through digital marketing because of its affordability and cost-effectiveness. It is easier to enter the marketing realms with a limited budget while getting the word out through digital platforms. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are readily available that can do wonders for your brand.
Go mobile – More than 60% of Malaysians are connected to the internet in one way or another. Within this group, a large community are on mobile devices, spending an average of 30 minutes per day communication and connecting with others. This is the platform that will let you reach out better and further.
Go live – Video ads are huge! They are cheaper to produce and easy to launch. All you need is to have a plan of where and when you want your ads to appear. Whether it is Facebook, YouTube or TikTok, there will always be a platform for any target market of your product. You can organize webinars, live feeds and just about any form of real-time communication with your customers and start selling.
Go influence – One of the most economical means of marketing your products is to use influencers. When you work with distinguished individuals with a large following who promote your products, they get better CTAs and definitely more positive feedback. What makes the difference here is that you are more targeted with your advertising and not into the mass market anymore.
