Get Started With Marketing Your Small Business
Konnect Digital's Founder and Director Warren Carr recently spoke to the Entrepreneurs Podcast Network about where a small business should start to get more business online. To learn more about marketing your small business, you can listen to the podcast interview, or scroll down to read the interview script.
Listen to the EPN interview here.
Full Interview Transcript
Host:
This is Eric Di and once again welcome to Enterprise Radio, your EPN channel for exclusive interviews with entrepreneurs, small business owners and some of the world’s top executives who are having great success. This is where they share their latest creations, products, services, experiences as well as strategies and insights that can all help you build your business leading to your business success.
Today we are speaking to Warren Carr, the founder and Director of Konnect Digital, a marketing agency in Sydney, Australia that focuses on digital marketing for small businesses. Certainly looking forward to this conversation. Warren welcome to Enterprise Radio.
Warren Carr:
Thank you for having me.
Host:
You’re welcome and good morning to you. So for starters, if one owns a small business where should they start if they wanted to get more business from the internet?
Warren Carr:
Well you need to have a central communication hub where your potential customers can find out more about you and whether you offer what they seek. For most people this would be their website, but it could be a social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. These types of social media platforms offer businesses a way to communicate with potential customers without a significant cost. I will say though that when it comes to a website, it is important that the website speaks directly to your potential customers and provides them the information they need to help them make an informed buying decision.
Host:
And that certainly makes sense. So once one has a central communication hub what should they consider next?
Warren Carr:
Well, you need to get potential customers to find your website or your social media platform. The easiest way to understand the different options is to break this down to owned, earned and bought media. So, OWNED media includes, among other things, your website, social media and blog. EARNED media includes things like public relations articles, online reviews and content sharing on social media. And BOUGHT media includes pay per click advertising, social media advertising, content promotion and outreach.
There is also search engine optimisation which uses your owned media, that is your website, social media and blog, to generate earned media, being public relations articles, online reviews, social sharing and opinion articles. These days it’s important to create quality content that helps your potential customers find out all they need to know about the products or services you sell. Getting this content distributed, published and shared on social media and other websites then creates you as an authority in your field. So search engines like Google rank websites more highly when they are considered authoritative and have been referred to (or linked to) by other authoritative websites. This is what helps get more people to find your website but it does take time to build authority in your website. So if you want people to find your communication hub more quickly, bought media gets people to your website or social media platform straight away. It’s important to keep in mind that it is difficult these days to achieve any sustainable results without using and leveraging all of these ideas.
Host:
Typically budget is always the issue with small businesses. Let's say I only have a small budget, can I implement these ideas easily myself or would it be better to look outside the box taking it somewhere else to get assistance?
Warren Carr:
Yeah sure, especially the social media platforms for a small business owner that doesn’t have much experience with promoting their business on the internet I think it’s best to focus on one idea or tactic. So, if having a small marketing budget is a consideration, utilising one of the social media platforms could be a potential option. I say potential because it largely depends on the type of business you have. An online business selling fashion items or any other lifestyle type business is an ideal business to use a social media platform like Facebook or Instagram as your communication hub. There is so much information on the internet that it is pretty easy to research and learn about how to do this stuff.
However, a business that sells security and alarm monitoring as an example, might find that people aren’t as interested or engaged with their products and services on social media platforms. Social media platforms are social by nature and so people are generally more engaged with businesses that tap into anything that enhances or improves lifestyle choices. Where it becomes particularly challenging from a limited budget point of view, is when you don’t have a lifestyle business. Businesses in the professional services area like law firms and accountants or businesses that sell essential services like plumbing and waste management etc. will find it difficult to do their own thing effectively. These businesses generally want more visitors to their website and so it’s important they have a user friendly website in the first place. Then they may need to use a combination of paid media campaigns like Google Adwords or Facebook advertising and search engine optimisation. To set up and manage these types of campaigns requires a clear understanding of the technical considerations needed to get the best results. So these types of businesses are usually going to be better served hiring the professional services of an experienced marketing agency that specialises in online marketing.
Host:
Today we are joined by Warren Carr, the founder and director of Konnect Digital, a marketing agency in Sydney Australia that focuses on digital marketing for small businesses. He’s joined us here this morning in Enterprise Radio, a part of the Entrepreneurs Podcast Network. You can also follow the show on Twitter simply @epodcastnetwork.
Warren, what are the pitfalls to someone like myself if I tried putting these ideas into practice?
Warren Carr:
Well, it takes time. How much do you value your time? If your time is limited and I don’t know many business owners whose time is not limited, then you may want to hire help.
There are many different options. You could outsource to overseas staff who charge less. The problem with outsourcing is that people working for you in other countries often have English as a second language and so their ability to communicate using correct spelling and grammar is poor. Given that a lot of the marketing ideas I have mentioned require engaging communication and content, you need to ask yourself whether you want your potential customers reading information about your business on blogs, social media or other websites, that has poor grammar and spelling. How does that reflect on the way they think about your business?
The other challenge is that these people often work in different time zones which makes communication with them difficult. You’ll need to accept that working to other time zones may be required on a regular basis. If you’ve decided to try a marketing agency that specialises in online marketing and is local to your business, then you’ll need to do your homework beforehand.
Host:
So how would one go about finding the right people to work with and now you mentioned sourcing it out, get into that a little if you could?
Warren Carr:
Well it can be difficult. The most obvious way is to use a search engine like Google. A lot of people learn internet marketing from the internet itself, and as such it has a very low barrier to entry. Therefore, there are many agencies that take shortcuts, use questionable tactics, they’re not transparent with the work they perform and they make unrealistic promises about the results. The only way around this, is to do your homework thoroughly. Look for genuine video testimonials and case studies on their website rather than text testimonials that could have been created by anyone. Speak to those businesses who have used the agency you are considering and find out about their experience working with the agency. Hearing from the horse’s mouth is often the best method. Ask the agency itself a number of questions. Ask them about how much time they will allocate to your campaign, what work they will be doing, do they track time and tasks, how do they manage the workflow? What processes do they use?
Host:
Certainly some very helpful information. In conclusion, any closing thoughts, take-aways or a final tip or something else they should be aware of?
Warren Carr:
Yeah sure. There are many different ways to grow your business using online marketing tactics. Like the successful journey to any destination, it starts with a suitable plan. For the best results, look to work with an agency that takes the time to understand your business, that’s really important; maintains an open line of communication and is prepared to be flexible with the tactics it uses. Do your due diligence thoroughly and wherever possible, speak with other clients they have worked with previously. If you would like to get some idea of what you should look for when researching an agency, try visiting konnectdigital.com.au.
Host:
And we certainly recommend that as well, again that website is Konnectdigital.com.au. warren thankyou so much to taking the time to be with us on Enterprise Radio and I certainly look forward to our next conversation.
Warren Carr:
I certainly appreciate it thank you for having me.
Host: T
he pleasure is ours, we have been speaking to Warren Carr, the Founder and Director of Konnect Digital, a marketing agency in Sydney, Australia that focuses on digital marketing for small businesses. And once again for more information and contact, it’s Konnect Digital with a K dot com dot au. This is Eric Di, this is Entreprise Radio a part of EPN, the Entrepreneur Podcast Network.