In the current hesitant economic climate, Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) are faced with a dilemma: they need to control their costs yet not get left behind by their competitors as the economic situation improves.
To address this challenge, SMBs need to:
· Stay agile – being able to react quickly to variations in business activity, scaling up/down operations easily and being able to fine tune investments as business dictates;
· Continue to innovate to stay ahead of the competition – and achieve this on a budget
With very limited time and financial resources, SMBs can do with some help in implementing the right strategies. A good starting point is leveraging the full potential of digital. This approach can enable companies to achieve some of the best Returns On Investment (ROI).
Using online to maintain agility and responsiveness
In today’s competitive environment, having an online presence is an extremely cost effective way of expanding your target audience beyond your immediate geographical reach. However, a website which cannot be searched for easily is as ineffective as having a shop tucked away in a back street with no signpost. About 38.5 million people use the Internet in the UK alone and consumer’s use of search engines has become the most common online activity after email. Therefore SMBs should seize this opportunity to signpost their products and services directly to their target market via Search Marketing.
Search Advertising, also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, is one of the most effective techniques for promoting your company and its offering. Search enables businesses to capture an audience which is proactively looking for your services and/or products. It also provides instant visibility into what works and what doesn’t: which keywords are converting into sales? Which keywords are great at simply driving traffic? Which days or even the time of day is your campaign delivering the most value for your business? All of this information is provided in real-time so businesses can always have a clear view of the effectiveness and ROI of their online marketing investment. As a result, SMBs can become more responsive to peaks and troughs in revenues and can fine tune their marketing campaigns at any point of time to reflect the rhythm of business. For example, turning up online exposure via Search Marketing to boost sales or turn down online advertising to save money if required when revenues are above average.
Search Marketing is also a fantastic way for SMBs to gather valuable demographic information about their customers and their motivations. This information can feed back into the services you offer and advise you on how to best interact with your customers. For example, Bing Ads offers a free ‘intelligence tool’ which enables SMBs to access actual historical search logs and identify demographic, geographic or seasonality trends on any keyword. This allows our clients to more accurately plan their campaigns before launching a full roll-out which reduces risk and minimises the trial-and-refine process. This clear, actionable insight from the outset means advertisers are able to make the most effective use of their budget based on what will work best for their Search Marketing campaigns.
Innovate without heavy investment
To stay ahead of the competition, it is also vital for businesses to continue innovating to meet and exceed changing customer demands. However, the desire to innovate usually requires a need to invest in the latest technologies. This investment can be difficult to accommodate when the pressure to reduce costs is a top priority for SMB owners. Here again, digital can be of great help.
Cloud computing is an immediate step SMBs can take to address this paradox as it allows them to benefit from advanced technologies without having to make costly, long-term infrastructure investments. By way of explanation, Cloud Computing is a general term for Internet hosted services, whether this is infrastructure, platforms or software. It is a service which is sold on-demand, typically by the minute, hour or even by usage and is fully managed by the provider. This means there is no need for expensive IT maintenance or for extra office space to store cumbersome servers. SMBs can take up such technologies as needed to react quickly to changing customer demands and readily provide improved services. This also allows SMBs to cost-effectively trial new offerings with customers and to gauge feedback – yet being safe in the knowledge that they have not committed to a long-term or costly roll-out.
Cloud Computing can be especially useful for SMBs that experience seasonal changes in demand levels. For instance, if you are a retail website owner you’re likely to see a spike in activity during the Christmas period, so you’d typically have to invest in additional servers to cope with the increase in demand. However, you are unlikely to see this high level of demand for the rest of the year, meaning such a long-term investment would be under-utilised and expensive. By using servers in the ‘Cloud’ you could add capacity to meet any rises in demand – essentially adopting a ‘pay as you go’ type model.
Ultimately, Cloud Computing allows companies to be much more flexible in their approach to business without having to make a long-term investment, which is vital at a time when budgets are being squeezed.
Looking towards the future
Instead of shrinking from the challenge, SMBs should see any downturn as an opportunity to make important business changes. As outlined, Search Marketing offers valuable insights needed to react to consumer demand. SMBs can also use online to remain agile and be more cost effective. Search Marketing provides an instant and easy option of ‘turning up’ or ‘turning down’ marketing campaigns in line with fluctuations in revenues and available budgets - this is far more difficult to achieve when using traditional offline media. Finally, SMBs should not neglect the need to innovate: Cloud Computing offers a way to capitalise on the latest technologies to stay ahead of competitors without costly, long-term investments. It can also provide an effective and economical software solution, allowing for long-term planning for the future without huge expenditure.
SMBs that make the most of these online opportunities will survive and emerge as the winners from the downturn. They will be one step ahead, with more flexible and reactive capabilities. It is therefore important for businesses to look towards the future to determine which changes need to be made now.
By Cedric Chambaz, International Marketing Director at Microsoft.
Want to hear more advice from Cedric? He'll be joining us at the Digital Marketing Show Mid Term on the 13th May to speak about the importance of search. Book now!
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