Is Your Small Business Destined To Fail?
The social web is rapidly creating a tipping point for some small, traditional businesses. These are businesses that have not taken advantage of business building opportunities in the past and show no signs of embracing social media currently. Simply stated, they are in a vulnerable position as digitally savvy competitors take more customers and market share from them.
Here is a 10 – point checklist of business areas and actions in the social web that can swing the fortunes of small businesses from failure to success.
1. Marketing: Do you understand and embrace Inbound/Pull marketing and its advantages over Outbound/Push marketing?
(See Slideshare presentation of Inbound Marketing.)
2. The New Buying Cycle: Power is shifting from the seller to the buyer as buyers leverage online information. Regain the edge by first creating a superior buying experience. (From Rethinking The Sales Cycle by Holland and Young)
3. Persona: Do you have a well-crafted persona that helps you lock your sights on your ideal prospects?
4. Content: Is content king in your company? Without content you cannot compete on the web.
5. Digital Culture: Do you have a corporate culture that welcomes and supports digital skills? Make digital skills part of your hiring criteria for all future positions.
6. Internet Efficiencies: Are you taking advantage of Internet efficiencies like integrated marketing software that seamlessly unites many features (like blogging, analytics, and lead generation), does not require IT expertise, and eliminates the need for new hires?
7. Online Conversation: Prospects want to be listened to, not sold to. But are they hearing only “buy, buy, buy” and leaving your website?
8. Sales Building Tools: Is your marketing and sales toolkit capable of tracking and maximizing online visits, leads, and conversions/sales?
9. Buyers’ Share of Time: Do you have your fair share of buyers’ online time? They’re not only at meetings or on the phone anymore.
10. Test Your Way To Success: Are you taking advantage of the free information from websites like Marketing Experiments that educate you on superior ways to attract and convert visitors?
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/watz/
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