Thinking of a Digital Breakthrough for Your Business?
Digitalise Your Business
The Challenges
Many business owners are lost in the digital space. The changes are too real and too fast. Those who cannot adapt and change are left out and will probably die a natural death. Many business owners also find it a challenge because there are so many different aspects of digital marketing to consider. There are SEO, SEM, FaceBook, Instagram, Google Analytics tracking, contents marketing and others. As the list goes on, it is indeed overwhelming. So where can a business owner starts? Which should be the priority? The challenges face by today's entrepreneurs are:
- Too many parts of digital marketing to learn;
- Too time consuming to learn so many things;
- Too many inputs and not sure where to begin;
- It seems that the digital space is ever-changing so it is difficult to catch up;
- Tried outsource to agencies but could not get results.
While changes apply to all industries, we hope to lay the foundation understanding of this digital space so that whatever you build above the foundation can stand strong with changes and time.
The Challenges
Many business owners are lost in the digital space. The changes are too real and too fast. Those who cannot adapt and change are left out and will probably die a natural death. Many business owners also find it a challenge because there are so many different aspects of digital marketing to consider. There are SEO, SEM, FaceBook, Instagram, Google Analytics tracking, contents marketing and others. As the list goes on, it is indeed overwhelming. So where can a business owner starts? Which should be the priority? The challenges face by today's entrepreneurs are:
- Too many parts of digital marketing to learn;
- Too time consuming to learn so many things;
- Too many inputs and not sure where to begin;
- It seems that the digital space is ever-changing so it is difficult to catch up;
- Tried outsource to agencies but could not get results.
While changes apply to all industries, we hope to lay the foundation understanding of this digital space so that whatever you build above the foundation can stand strong with changes and time.
Problems with Outsource Agencies
You might have tried outsourcing digital marketing efforts to agencies. And you will also soon realised many failed to deliver your expected results. The problems outsourcing your digital marketing are:
- You are not aware of the fundamentals of a digital strategy. You end up taking wholesale from what the digital marketing agency tells you as the holy grail and only to get disappointed later on.
- The agency is not result-oriented. Some agencies may beat around the bush telling you to spend more money on creating awareness. They are likely to explain that without creating awareness first, the market does not know you in the digital space so are less likely to engage with you. Therefore you can spend lots of money and yet still not get any results you want.
- You have not developed a digital strategy. Therefore you are not sure what is the best approach to take.
The Analogy of Physical Business in the Digitised World
Many business owners are lost in the digital space. They may thrive in the physical business environment. But when it comes to digitising their business, they are lost because they simply "cannot see" the things that are developed on the internet. Let us put an analogy to this:
| Physical Business | Digital Business |
| Office | Website |
| Office Location | Google Ranking |
| Office Layout | Website Layout |
| Interior Designer | Website Builder |
| Architect | Website Developer |
| Engineers | Digital Experts |
Office & Website
In the physical business, you have an office space where you conduct your business. Likewise in the digital world, you need an office in this digital space, which is your website.
Office Location & Google Ranking
Your physical office may be in a prime location such as the CBD (Central Business District) area. Such prime location is akin to having a prime location in the digital space - the Google Ranking. Depending on your industry, you may be in different location. Say you are in manufacturing, you are unlikely in the CBD area. However within the industry area, there are also prime locations like the Creative Hub in Singapore. Each sub-space itself is like the various keywords which people might search for you on Google. You can rank high in that sub-space for certain keywords related to your industry.
Office Layout & Website Layout
If the office is the website, the office layout is akin to the website layout. How do you want to present your office when a client walks into your office? If your office is a sale office, is there a particular flow within the office you want the client to go through? This is similar to how you want your website to be like when someone comes to your website.
Where should they spend more time? When should you present to close the sale? Therefore your website layout is very important. The UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) provides the client the experience which may result in a sale.
Interior Designer & Website Builder
Your physical office would probably need an interior designer to help design. Most owners will explain to the designer what your company does, your target market, the colour scheme etc. Do you explain these to your website builder? Does your website builder understands what you want?
Architect & Website Developer
If you are not having just an office but building, you probably need an architect in the physical business. You need them to plan things in further details which are not as simple as a mere office. A website developer is akin the architect. He has to plan multiple facets to this building. There would be a lot more integration to do, especially for an ecommerce website.
Engineers & Digital Experts
Constructing a building will require mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. The digital experts, in their own field is like the engineers to build your building. In a smaller scale, the sub-contractor will be able to complete your office. At a larger scale, your need the engineers. At SUT, we are like the sib-contractors for the smaller businesses and the engineers for the larger businesses.
So where should you begin?
While many agencies jump right in telling you the marketing strategies and plans, we believe the first thing to do is your office, i.e., your website. Why? There is ONLY one purpose for your website - conversion! If any other agencies tell you otherwise, our advice to you is - RUN!
You are suppose to draw traffic to your site, just like the physical office. You "show off" clients how good your business is and hope to impress the client with your office. You hope to have tea sessions with your potential client (just like giving them more resources and stay on your website) and thus eventually do a sale with you.
Therefore, the first digital strategy you should employ is upgrade your website. If your website is poorly done, you will never be able to convert any clients as the UE and UI are not good.
The deployment for rest of the digital strategies depends on a couple of things:
- The competitiveness of your products and services in the digital space
- The budget you can set aside
Let us put the common priority for most SMEs in terms of digital strategy:
- A good website for conversion.
- Social Media Marketing - key focus on which platform depends on your target market.
- SEM - Google Ads (Adwords)
- SEO - on-going development. Note this could be the first digital strategy if you are able to find a niche in your market.
- Google display ads.
Underlying these strategies are digital analytics which includes Google Analytics. Most SMEs do not have enough data to start analysing if they should re-target or do audience-alike approach targeting. It takes time to generate leads, sales and traffic for meaningful conclusion.
What we do at SUT?
We know the challenges especially for SMEs in this digital world. Our budget cannot be compared to the MNCs. With limited budget, we are careful how to spend it. We want results. Therefore at the heart of SUT, we educate clients first. Then we bring about little strategies to let you see results.
We do provide digital marketing workshop at a fraction of the cost what the market usually charges. This workshop aims to educate business owners, giving them a 30,000 ft high level view of digital marketing.
Visit our course programs and learn more about digital strategy course at https://digitalcourse.sutconsulting.com. You will find tremendous value in the workshop.