Internet opens up national & international markets to SMEs

Sridhar Seshadhri, Head Online Sales, Google India.

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Sridhar Seshadhri | 28 Jun, 2010
To say the Internet will fundamentally change the way businesses operate and go to market would be disingenuous. The Internet has already revolutionised the business marketplace. There are now over a billion people online – all connected, creating, communicating and searching for information, offering enormous opportunities for small businesses to reach new customers and grow exponentially.

Only 10 years ago, it was difficult for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to compete with their larger, more established rivals. National print and TV advertising was only a option for companies with a sizable marketing budget, while smaller companies could only afford local advertising, generating only local leads, and thereby limiting growth opportunities.

The Internet has levelled the playing field. Not only has it cut the costs of logistics, distribution and service, but it has also opened up national and international markets to smaller local players. Consumers of every product and service are now searching online in their millions before they buy, and by being 'found' online, small businesses can quickly win new customers outside of their traditional markets. Think about how quickly eBay emerged and rewrote the rules for auction houses, or how companies like Expedia revolutionised the 'established' travel business.

As well as the opportunity to grow existing businesses through easy access to new customers, the internet also enables previously unviable businesses to thrive. With access to a national or global market from day one, very niche businesses can now generate enough custom to succeed. Look no further than Policy Bazaar, now one of India’s leading online insurance aggregators chose the online medium for cost effective lead generation. To Leverage the opportunity of providing professional guidance to the online visitors who wanted to buy insurance immediately the company started dedicating 95 per cent of their advertising budget to the online medium.

At the other end of the spectrum, since a web site has no size restrictions, product range is no longer limited by shelf space. Previously, businesses could only stock products they could physically display in store. Now online stores can 'virtually' stock an almost unlimited range. Take Akbar Travels for instance, with over 30 years of industry experience and 80 branches in India launched their online portal akbartravelsonline.com 2 years ago and now trails 20 per cent of its sales through online bookings. According to Rachit Dalal, Head of Business Development, Akbartravelonline.com, “Google AdWords is easy to use and very dynamic. We can control and manage our campaigns at any time. For example, when we want promote a new special deal, we can update our campaigns and in less than 15 minutes, our special deals are launched being promoted.”

For small businesses looking to leverage the web, search marketing is a great place to start. Advertisers can bid to appear only against specific users' search queries, thus targeting a captivated and interested consumer, and ads are ranked not only by how much businesses are willing to pay, but also by relevancy. Most importantly, with programmes like Google AdWords, advertisers only pay when a consumer clicks their ad, meaning the model is fully accountable, with no minimum spend. And while the Internet opens up national markets, if a company only serves a local area, it can ensure that its ad is only shown to people searching in that area.

Even the smallest company, operating out of a garage, with a marketing budget of a few pounds a week, can tap into these new opportunities. So experiment online, and find out what works for your business.

Five tips for success with search marketing

Target
Search marketing allows advertisers to target ads to a captivated consumer by matching ads to search queries. Advertisers enter a list of keywords related to their business and can bid to trigger an ad when a user types in that query. Advertisers only pay whenever someone clicks on their ad.

Test
Start with a small budget and see what works for your business. Experiment with different creative texts and strategies to see what works and optimise your campaign as you go. If something doesn’t work, change it. If it does, improve it and make it work even better to grow your business

Control
Online advertising allows you to spend as much or as little as you want. Programmes like Google AdWords allow you to lower and raise your daily spend with a simple click to reflect your business needs. For example, if you see beds and you want to empty the warehouse to make room for a new delivery, increasing your daily budget to increase traffic to your site could increase sales.

Analyse
Online advertising produces a wealth of data for analysis (but don’t be put off by this, it is extremely user friendly!). Rather than simply looking at the volumes of traffic arriving to the site, analyse conversions and the customer journey through your site, which allows you to improve campaigns and their profitability

Mix
If you’re running an offline media campaign, support this with an online campaign that mirrors your offline messages to ensure that consumers get consistent information about your brand wherever they are searching.

* Sridhar Seshadhri is the Head of Online Sales, Google India.
* The views expressed by the author in this feature are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of SME Times.