5 marketing strategies for MSME growth that you can’t ignore

It is your business, and you quite naturally want to use the most effective marketing strategies for MSME growth. Traditional, tried-and-tested marketing ideas work, but what your business needs today is a mix of convention, practicality and innovation.  

For a small and emerging business therefore, it is not enough to do what others are doing. They need to think out-of-the-box, use digital tools and solutions, and drive growth for their business. 

These are interesting times for MSME digital transformation, and today we look at five online and offline marketing strategies that will enable businesses to drive growth in a cost-effective and sustainable way. 

1. Create an online business profile and be digitally visible 

Digital visibility is crucial for businesses today. Whether it is by building a business website, or being active on social media platforms, the idea is to get noticed online and be available/easy to contact. 

One of the most effective ways to be digitally visible is to join an online B2B growth platform. There are several platforms in the market today that allow MSMEs to register and create a business profile, list products and services, send enquiries and make new business connections.  

In short, it’s a means to find new opportunities, network and be found.  

2. Make the most of content marketing initiatives 

Another great way to get your business noticed is to leverage content marketing. It is a low-cost marketing strategy that yields optimal results in the long run when carried out consistently and patiently. With content marketing done right, you can provide valuable content to your target audience and gradually engage and convert them to customers.  

Content marketing is not just about creating great content – it is also about sharing and distributing the content with your target audience in the right format. It could be in the form of a blog post and repurposed into a short video, an infographic, a podcast, a social media organic post, or even an email newsletter. The idea is to build content and use the right channel to promote the content effectively. 

Some popular growth strategies for small businesses with content marketing includes: 

• Write SEO friendly blogs that are easy to find online and will provide users with the information they are looking for; it is also a great way to generate new leads 
• Create relevant social media posts and share it organically; post formats can be different eg. product images and details, customer testimonials, infographics, video reels etc. to drive more engagement  
• Use email marketing to share relevant content with customers eg. newsletters, new product updates, etc.  
• Try your hand at making videos and podcasts (eg. YouTube, iTunes) as a contemporary smart, alternative way to engage users/customers  

While this may seem overwhelming at first, the idea is to identify the strategies that will have the greatest impact on your business and begin. You can alternatively get digital marketing services from a reliable agency to help you with content creation and distribution.  

3. Explore new online and offline opportunities for lead generation and customer acquisition 

Customer acquisition is crucial for growth and requires businesses to identify new opportunities to find customers online or offline. While there are several ways to go about it, for a MSME with limited budgets and resources, the idea is to try inexpensive marketing ideas. Some recommendations would be to: 

• Ask loyal customers for referrals: This strategy never fails. It is authentic and comes directly from customers who have used your products/services. It creates trust and credibility for your brand and helps to get new leads that convert faster. 
• Conduct business webinars: A low-cost idea to find new customers, reach a wider audience pool, and generate sales ready leads. It also creates awareness, helps in collecting audience feedback (eg. through Live Q&A), and drive engagement.  
• Join offline events/conferences and online business groups/forums: Seminars/trade shows are a great place to network, build new contacts and find customers. Similarly, joining online business groups creates an opportunity to get noticed, join discussions, get new ideas, draw feedback, follow trends, and more.   
• Explore online tender opportunities: Often unexplored, another way to find new opportunities is to browse tender websites for the latest government tenders and apply to the right ones.  

4. Adopt digital tools and solutions into business processes 

The MSME sector is no stranger to adoption of software solutions in business especially for process and business automation. With the pandemic, several MSMEs adopted digital tools to ensure business continuity, and in turn reduce cost and time, and move towards their SMEs digitalisation. 

There are benefits of digitisation for small businesses:  

• It keeps business compliant (eg. with e-Invoicing software for billing and invoicing) 

• It ensures better working capital management (eg. with an invoicing discounting solution) 
• It helps to track and manage employee attendance and payroll efficiently (eg. with HR payroll software) 
• Drive marketing automation, sales lead management and more  

The benefits of automation and digitisation are manifold every day. 

Read More: 4 Ways How Govt Can Help MSMEs to Adopt e-Commerce Platforms

5. The power of social media as a core strategy 

And finally – the power of social media marketing for your business. While most businesses are using social channels for their marketing and promotional activities the challenge is that businesses often lack a strategic, comprehensive plan.  

Social media marketing can be explored for low-budget marketing ideas, but it requires planning. Consider doing the following to reap the most of it: 

• Plan a social media calendar: Social media posts are more than sharing a product photo or a customer testimonial. It requires a plan to achieve desired goals. As a business, consider business objectives. If it’s brand awareness, regular posts, new followers, comments, likes, should suffice; if the goal is lead generation, then being active on chat, posting relevant product related information etc. is important.  

• Identify the right platform for your business: Select 2-3 platforms that your target audience uses and be active on those platforms only. It will save time and effort and enable you to have a strategic approach to social media marketing. 
• Maintain consistency: It is the secret to social media success – be consistent with your content, keep it relevant and informative. 
• Experiment with new ideas: Reels, GIFs, memes, stories, polls, Q&A – try different content types to engage users. 
• Be available: The advantage of social media is that it allows businesses to interact and engage with customers through chats, comments etc.  
• Audit and analyse: Always analyse how your content is performing. Learn from user comments, interactions, etc. and identify new ideas and creative ways for connecting with your audiences. 

Closing thoughts: The road ahead for MSME growth 

Marketing and sales are important for all businesses, but it’s incomplete without a plan. It also requires you to listen to your customers, offer quality products and services, and provide great customer experience. The idea is to identify the right low-cost marketing strategy for your MSME and use the right mix for best results. It’s expected that some ideas will work great, while others will not. Make sure that you keep learning about your audience, market, and competitors and work with ideas that deliver results every time.