Social Media – the Truth for Small Business

We had an interesting client in today. They had been trading for a few years, were good at what they did, and were looking to update their website. They had heard of Blogs, Social Media, Web 2.0 and wanted it all, but only had a smallish budget of £5k so wanted to know what the solution was.

We shocked him with our answer. We said, just do more of what you do. Maybe invest in a newsletter and find some headlines, but that is about it.

Our thought process is based on the reality of life. When you are in a business where customers are few and far between, going down the social media route or twittering, facebook, blogs etc isn’t very cost effective. You will have fun, and might even become famous, but you won’t make any more money. The chances are you’ll make less because you are too busy twitting!

In a niche, vertical market, there are only a fixed number of customers. For instance, how many Football Agents are there in the UK? If your business is to supply football agents and isn’t of any use to any other type of business, then you will soon get to know every one of your potential customers.

Creating a facebook or a twitter campaign isn’t much use here because the vast majority of your followers or fans will not be potential customers. So, what do you do?

You should have a database of all your potential customers. If its football agents, there will be about 1200 details, if its PC shops, it will be 4000, if its Schools, it will be 40,000 names and addresses. Use the ringing box on your desk called a phone and speak to them all. WHile you find out more about them, ask them for permission to send an email newsletter. You could even create a free draw prize for people who read the email. Just ensure that all details are up to date and relevant.

Your email newsletter is how you ensure your name stays on the mind of your potential customer. Drop in some industry news, and send it the same time every week, month or quarter – depending on how often you want to deal with your customers.

Maybe you can put all this information on the front page of your site, and just email a copy of it – its up to you. This is not social media, this is just old fashioned marketing.

We did tell our client that they need to ensure their website is search engine friendly, but using their marketing database effectively was far more important that doing social media. Harder work too!