The internet is a virtual world of tough competition. It is a world of myriad opportunities for web tycoons but how about for small and start up business owners? Is there a way these small online businesses compete with the big names on the web?
The edge of the big time online businesses over the small businesses is the budget. They have enough budget to engage in mass marketing and paid advertising. They can use two or more web marketing strategies to build their name on the web and attract more customers. While having a sufficient budget is an advantage, there is also one thing that small businesses can have that most big online businesses don’t have – customer focused marketing.
Customer Focused Marketing For Small Businesses
Customer focused marketing is the last resort of start up business owners to be able to remain alive in the web. Small business owners should establish a personal connection with the customers. This is what is missing in most big businesses. The basic tool in customer focused marketing is newsletter. Through the use of newsletters, a potential customer will have someone to link the business with. There is a personal approach as the newsletter normally is signed by a real person.
With big companies, achieving communication as personal as newsletters is not a primary goal. They focus on mass marketing instead of the individual customers. Their approach is purely on a business level. Most of them are often viewed and linked to their logo instead of a real person. Doing business with someone “real” is reassuring than dealing with people hiding behind the company’s name or logo.
How Effective Is Customer Focused Marketing?
Customer focused marketing is an effective form of marketing especially for start up businesses. It makes the customers feel important. Their benefits are stressed. Unlike other big companies wherein the focus of marketing is building its brand (telling customers about how good the products and services are and how established the brand is), small online businesses can build the customers’ trust (telling each customer how they can get benefits from the products and services).
When writing a customer focused newsletter, stress about the benefits of the customers. It should answer the needs of the customers instead of mere product promotion. Customer focused marketing is highly effective because it’s personal, engaging and communicative. These are exactly the characteristics of a web marketing strategy that attract customers. Small businesses can’t have as many advertisements as the big businesses, their edge is their customer focused marketing.