New Zealand’s economy operates on a free market
principle. It has a highly export
oriented agricultural sector which is comparable with the manufacturing and
services industries. Small and medium sized companies are an important part of
the New Zealand economy. According to Ministry of Business Innovation and
Development statistics,
small enterprises contribute up to approximately one third of the country’s
GDP.
While these small businesses are highly specialised in their
field, they are sometimes forced to work with limited resources due to budget
or manpower constraints. Marketing and communication
is not just about getting the message about the product to potential customers.
Small businesses have products or services, which speak for themselves. Business
owners assume that publicity is associated with spending big bucks. By being present on social media one can reach
out to the prospective buyers, which is not as expensive as getting flyers or
posters printed for your business. Following are some very simple solutions,
which most people would be aware of but don’t use for professional benefits.
- Website – This is the first step to be present
on the digital map. These days there are services, which have customised templates
with a very affordable setup cost. I was surprised to even find a GrabOne deal for
customizing websites. If you search carefully and evaluate reviews of various
sites, you could have a beautiful site to send as a link to your clients.
- Facebook – Most of the businesses do not
consider opening a facebook page for the company. It can help the employees to
share latest updates. Clients can join the page, get updates, and post their
comments or recommendations too. It is a simple process and later on there are
options to do some paid advertising at nominal costs to draw attention to your
company.
- Linkedin – I consider this one to be the most
important step towards having strong business profiles that can open doors. On
linkedin most of the small business owners prefer to have their own profile as
they feel they represent the company. However, along with a personal profile it
is important to have a company profile that can be joined by anyone in the
industry. It becomes easier for people to find you by the company name and it
is easier for prospective clients to see who are the other people associated
with your brand. It is a great networking tool as you can advertise your
products or services too from the company page. In addition, it is more
beneficial if you post news about the organisation on the company’s linkedin
page and then share it from there on your profile.
- Cloud Services – One of the most effective and
efficient ways of running your business is by using one of the various cloud
services available online. Setting up an IT system can be costly and with small
businesses flexibility of cost and accessibility is very important. With cloud
services teams can communicate internally (e.g. office 365 or dropbox.com) and
with external customer with ease. There was a recent article in nzherald.co.nz
in which a company owner talks about how signing up for cloud services to keep
track of online product sales benefited him. Below is one of sites, which help
small and medium businesses build ecommerce
platforms.
- Blogs – This is an easy and simple way to talk about your organisation or the services offered. Blogs are easy to create and basic blogs can be custom designed with various available options. It is a fairly easier way to brand yourself as an expert and open conversation with existing and prospective customers. While through blogs you can easily highlight the company’s achievement, one can also direct customer to the company website for more information.
