8 important things for SMEs in the Digital era

8 important things for SMEs in the Digital era Mars664

8 important things for SMEs in the Digital era

SMEs: Digital Era

1) We need to start self-learning…

We all know that in this digital age everything is completely changing, from how business is done to how we have fun and communicate. That is exactly why we need to be documenting ourselves more and more. There is a lot of information and tutorials online that talk about new trends and ways to promote your product and company.

So let's not just leave it to the marketers, but every SME owner should also be soaking up what is happening. And you achieve this if in your daily life, when you exercise or drive to work, you start listening to a podcast or a video on YouTube. No major diplomas or master's degrees are required, just a desire to incorporate daily learning into your life.

2) Take action…

All of us over 40 have seen a large number of management trends throughout our lives. All of them come and go depending on times of abundance or crisis; However, the digital age is here to stay... sometimes I see many colleagues frozen because they don't know how to get into it. The millennials that we saw very involved in everything digital today are already making decisions in companies... that is, technically they are already in their 20's - 30's sitting at a desk and searching for a product or service on Google where they will surely We are not going to appear in the first places. Therefore, it is very important to take action and accept that every day there are more people making educated decisions, comparing and learning about a product or service before purchasing it.

According to Google, 33% of visits fall to first place after ads. 17% fall in second place. So here we have important traffic that may be going to a competitor since the other 50% remains very pulverized and does not reach the second page of the search engine.

3) My product is not sold online…

This statement is true in many cases. However, those large and expensive products such as heavy machinery, capital goods, etc. That you would not buy it through a credit card or PayPal if it is being sold online through a quote and personalized contact. That is, many of these companies that sell these types of products typically put up an institutional page where they talk about the history, mission and values. However, they spend very little effort showing their machines, having videos, explaining their advantages in detail, etc... and in the same way there is no contact format that takes you directly to request a quote.

It is incredible how today our sellers are less and less welcomed, since they visit clients who at that moment do not have the need, however, when they do, they know that they can do a search on the internet and they will find what they need. That is why it is very important to have an effective page that helps us inform and sell, that generates leads or contacts from potential clients. I have seen clients that all the traffic of their business comes from a good page with a complete catalog of products where they receive calls or emails and close the business with personalized treatment. Furthermore, an efficient page is much better than a magazine or an expo since your You are present 24/7. The magazine is seen less and less every day and at expos the cost-benefit is starting to be very expensive.

4) I have my page, but I haven't received any clients.

This is also very common, there are many reasons why SMEs are struggling online. First, many of these pages are very nice, but behind that there is no real strategy. That is, what do we expect from a website? The first thing is to bring us sales, for this it requires a series of things:

  1. Be on your own domain
  2. Can be opened and navigated quickly
  3. Be visible in the first places
  4. Have interesting content that adds value to the community of our current and potential clients
  5. That we are constantly measuring it with Google Analytics
  6. It is supported by SEO, SEM, SMM campaigns... it means that we are promoting it effectively on networks and in AdWords. Even if there is a strategy to place it in the first places on Google.
  7. What a tie with the objectives of our company
  8. That produces conversions. Typically they are 1% to 6% depending on the product and its positioning of the total visits.
  9. That these “conversions” or clients requesting information are attended to by professional sellers – closers.

Therefore, this rarely happens and due to lack of knowledge it only works for the most documented SMEs that are doing it correctly. And the truth is that the wave of digital clients continues to grow... we just need to see our teenage children accustomed to demanding more and better service from this new era where they were born.

5) Where should I place my investment in advertising?

There are many SME companies that see their expansion as in the old days... opening more points of sale, larger warehouses and growing my army of sellers. It's not bad but business is becoming different. That is, with all that cost invested, how do you compete on price? Everyone knows that if you see something in a department store you should double check online... because the online model is cheaper... for the same reason, no one wonders where the Amazon warehouses are... What I mean is that every Today, investment in advertising must be to attract digitally. Position yourself with your brand in the first places, be present consistently, provide fast and effective service.

It would seem that our salespeople should now be used less to open doors and more to close sales. Have a more sophisticated marketing team that can achieve this... that can show off your products with intelligent images and content and that are able to measure what happens to continue experimenting and implementing.

Today digital marketing has more science than ever, today you can know everything about your client and know everything that is happening on your page... The marketing that told you about the circulation of a magazine or the radio listeners it could capture is left in limbo regarding what you can know today... Eg. Visits to your site, conversions, average time on page, bounce % (exit without finding what they are looking for), time in cart, cart abandonment, source where they came from, search keywords, number of times a person searches for something with a certain keyword by state or region, words and synonyms most suitable to enrich your content, ranking of your page in Google according to your keywords, etc... with all this information You can estimate sales based on your marketing investment and you can win wars before you fight them...

6) Today digital investment can give you much more.

Today many businesses are flourishing that already understood how the digital age works... They are creating incredible photos of their products, making videos, asking for reviews, inviting influencers to promote their brands, making investments in social networks and multiplying their followers and customers. Many of them very young and with 7-8 figure incomes.

This was very difficult 10 or 15 years ago, you needed a location in a good location, investing in radio or television campaigns, press, panoramics, etc... today all digital marketing can cost much less than what was previously required... today it does. It is possible that with a good strategy and good products you can open the door to a very successful business. But as we said in point #1 we need to start understanding how the digital era works for my company... and remember that what we already do well today will change tomorrow and we have to be attentive...

7) Observe your client and think of a strategy.

There is a great confusion of media... where should I advertise? Whether to use social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… do it with Google AdWords? Have influencers? Create content… post everything? Am I the public figure? Etc... What does not change is that in the Digital Age we also need a strategy. A plan that does not consider your customer or your competition is simply a plan. In strategy we have to know our client. What keywords do you use to search for our product? Do we have information from our agency or our Marketing team? How many searches does that word have on Google by state/region/country… and what position is my page in? How many people entered my page and left without doing anything... that is, what is my bounce rate? (if the bounce is high, your page is not achieving its objective, you must redesign)

On the other hand, what media do my clients frequent? How much do campaigns cost there? What type of content are they interested in... should it be more branding or are my products so specialized that we should have videos and tutorials? In the end we must think about building a strategy like in war... how many prospects we should attack, how we are going to measure if we are getting there. And for this you have to create a strategy with an appropriate team of people.

8) Pareto's law in the Digital era.

Just as we were taught about the 80% – 20% according to Pareto, there is also a very direct relationship between visits to your page and conversions. Typically they should range from 1% to 6%. Where the standard is almost always 3%, which is conservative and is a good conversion number. Now if you have 10,000 visits a month you must be receiving 300 contacts asking for additional information, asking for a quote, purchasing or leaving their information in the newsletter to continue receiving information from you. All of these types of “interactions” are conversions. Therefore, if with digital campaigns you begin to expand the base then your number of conversions grows. Who are the ones who achieve these benefits? They are almost always companies that were building their page so that it reaches the first 3-5 places on Google with an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy and other supporting strategies.