Google’s 10 Tips for SMEs to Leverage Digital Marketing

In Singapore, 88 percent of consumers used a store locator on Google to find a business, and look to the Internet to find a place to dine at or to purchase a particular product. With the growth of search and social, it has become increasingly important for SMEs in the Asia Pacific, to leverage the digital platform well to increase their scale and reach.

Google has shared some tips with Digital Market Asia on how SMEs can reach new customers in Singapore and export their products and services globally.

1. Get online
The most important step in going online is to make your business discoverable by your customers. Google My Business, a tool by Google, provides SMEs with a free listing and simple website that will help them show up on Google searches and drive traffic to their stores.

2. Make your mobile experience great
According to recent research, 50 percent of people expect a site to load in less than two seconds. In Singapore, the average site takes 9.32s to load on mobile, which puts Singapore behind the rest of Asia Pacific at 8.48s. Not having a mobile-optimized site is like shutting the shop front door to customers, just because of the device they’re using. Google’s Test My Site is a free, online tool that provides businesses with a detailed report and specific steps on how to make websites faster.

3. Keep an eye on the trends
When it comes to content – be it for marketing or for information, it is important for SMEs to know what’s popular. Google Trends allows SMEs to see what people are searching for in Singapore and worldwide, which can help you understand the popularity of different topics and products.

4. Broadcast your business
Three out of five users in Singapore find YouTube useful to search for products and 41 percent are influenced by YouTube on which brand to buy. With the growing popularity of videos, it has become a useful medium for SMEs to engage and find new customers.

5. Invest in paid ads for new customers
After a business has established an online presence, many will want to promote it. Paid ads on platforms such as AdWords can help businesses reach potential customers worldwide when people search, watch videos, and browse online content relevant to their business.

6. Promote goods to customers using e-commerce sites
Google’s Shopping Ads are image-based ads that help shoppers find the products they’re searching for and quickly connect with the merchants who sell those products. Small businesses that don’t have an e-commerce platform on their website can partner with online retailers to list their products for them.

7. Identify new markets for expansion
Google’s Global Market Finder tool analyses data from Google Search, Translate and AdWords to help SMEs compare the cost of acquiring a new customer and helps them to determine if exporting to a new market is a good idea for their business.

8. Measure your online marketing
It is also important for SMEs to measure their marketing activities to know what works and what does not with tools such as Google’s Analytics.

9. Training for digital leaders
Google has launched Squared Online for SMEs as a training programme developed by Google and AVADO covering topics across social media strategy, digital advertising and data analytics.

With support from SPRING Singapore and the Infocomm Media Development Authority, SME-sponsored trainees may claim up to 90 percent of the course fees on successful completion of the course.

10. Join export masterclasses
Small businesses looking to expand their footprint overseas can sign up for free export masterclasses led by Google and its partner agencies.

Source: Bizbilla Blogs

Why should SMEs Go for Digital Marketing?

In the today’s fast-growing economy, digital presence is a critical requirement for any business. However, many businessmen think that they don’t need to know about Digital marketing and choose to ignore its existence as they feel their enterprise does not require a Digital platform. if your business belongs to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s), and if you wish to survive in this competitive world and you want people to know about your business, then Digital Marketing is the way to go.

You want people to know about your product and offerings and how they can benefit from it. So, if you follow the traditional marketing methods – newspapers, TV, all of which is still in the market today, but doesn’t have as much as an influence on people as digital marketing – which is also a cheaper way of spreading your name in the world.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is promoting and showcasing your brand through a medium that requires the use of electronic gadgets – PCs, cell phones and other amusement consoles to connect via different platforms like Google, AdWords and Facebook.

Digital Marketing is growing very fast, FICCI-KPMG’s Report on Media and entertainment 2017 has projected the growth of Digital Marketing over the conventional medium @ 31% CAGR for the next five years.

As per the last annual report of IAMAI and IMRB on the Digital Marketing Spent in India, the amount spent on Digital advertising was INR 70 billion.

Mobile Internet Users:

The report specifies that 276 million individuals in India, or 21% of the populace, got to the web on their telephones in any event once every month. Of this, urban India represents 197 million clients with the rest originating from country zones. In urban territories, 94% of web clients got on to it by means of a cell phone, 64% got to it from a portable workstation/desktop gadget while just 20% got to it through tablets. 69% of urban clients logged on the web once a day.

Among the provincial web clients, 60% principally logged on to the web utilizing their cell phones, 23% through a gadget introduced in their home, while just 6% of the general population got to it through Community Service Centers (CSCs) encouraged by the legislature. Curiously, the utilization of the CSCs has fallen strongly from a year ago when it was the primary purpose of getting to the web for 26% of rustic clients.

Social Media in India:

For some internet users in India, access to the Internet is essential to access web-based social networking systems. As per a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), 66% of the 180 million Internet clients in urban India routinely access web-based social networking platforms. The most common practice that internet users in India follow is to maintain a virtual profile of their own on various platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which they then use to post content, consume content posted by others and also react to it. While understudies (33%) frame the biggest statistic of dynamic web-based social networking site users in India, working ladies and non-working ladies comprise only 7% and 11% of the given data, respectively

What SME’s can do through Digital Marketing:

1. They can increase Sales
2. Increase Brand Awareness
3. Reach new client fragments
4. Drive client engagement
5. Gain client experiences
6. Cost reserve funds/Productivity Improvement

They can utilize different types of Digital Marketing Strategy tools, which will help them increase their presence in the digital world:

1. Make your own website and Social Media Page
2. Run Email Campaigns for Marketing/Promotions
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
4. Blogging
5. Share Videos and Photos of their product and services
6. Search Engine Marketing – Paid flag Ads
7. SMS or Messaging apparatuses like WhatsApp

Do you still think of SMEs can do without Digital Marketing?

Why digital marketing is mandate for SMEs?

Having an online presence and digital marketing has become a compulsory one for the every business in this digital era that too mainly for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) in order to succeed and grow. 

Are you a small or medium business owner?

Do your business have online presence?

If you are not online, you do not exist. However, a lot of enterprises and business owners today still feel that they do not need to know about digital marketing. But remember that digital marketing is a mandate one to enhance your business and thereby to succeed. 

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