A few months ago, one of my college friends, Sachin Menon was trying to figure out what career to pursue after he lost his job as a software developer, all thanks to the pandemic lockdown. He fancied himself as an entrepreneur but in what domain?
It didn’t take long as Sachin discovered his domain when he saw his friends struggle to arrange for a cake for birthdays and anniversary celebrations. Owing to the lockdown, all shops and bakeries were closed, leading to a gargantuan struggle in arranging a cake for celebrations. This struggle gave birth to an idea, and Sachin decided to start baking cakes from home. The long codes had given way to baking recipes and tools. His vision ensured that no celebrations were devoid of cakes.
Just like Sachin, many have experienced such seismic shifts in their careers during the lockdown. The stringent lockdown has paved the way to a booming work-from-home economy, and it has grown almost two-folds with the use of efficient digital marketing tools.
Role of Digital Marketing
As technology evolves along with the work culture, people are turning towards digital platforms for all their needs. Digital marketing is also playing a significant role in the new upcoming work-from-home entrepreneurs’ life. Digital marketing, along with word-of-mouth publicity, helps in generating trust among consumers. They do it with their user-friendly interfaces and strategies. Small businesses that have popped up during the pandemic are using digital space to engage with their target audience and to showcase their unique products and services. Some even use the platforms to improve their offering with expert audience feedbacks.
There are no limitations and restrictions on how much you can market or grow your business in the online space. With festivals such as Dussehra and Diwali knocking on the doors, it is the right time and opportunity to expand your business through digital platforms and increase your target audience reach. With digital marketing, you can reach and market your services at the location of your choice and that too at a minimum cost as compared to outdoor marketing.
Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are the perfect place to promote your business during the festive period. These platforms are constantly evolving and adding new features to help businesses. Consumers hound Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for gift ideas and bumper deals. With the right social media strategies and platform, you can boost your festive sales and engage with a broad potential audience and spread the festive cheer.
Following are Some Social Media Marketing tips –
1. Using Facebook Live and Messenger
During the holiday season, Facebook Messenger helps you stay connected with your existing and potential customers and resolve their queries with a personalized touch.
Facebook Ad Manager helps you to custom-choose your audience and offer them products that they are most likely to purchase. It also allows you to reach your existing and previous customers and offer them your new product and services.
Catalog Manager helps you to showcase your best-selling products to a larger audience and boosts the chances of them clicking on your Facebook page or website.
Facebook Live is another route to reach to your audience instantly with your new products and festive collections or any instant deal offerings.
2. Instagram Stories and IGTV
Instagram is the most popular tool when it comes to marketing your business.
Instagram Stories is a feature which helps you to showcase your products and services to your audience. Stories have taken over the platform with its temporary availability feature, product-feed integration, and swipe up to shop feature, which has completely simplified the shopping experience for consumers.
Highlights is another temporary content feature that can stay on your profile for the duration of the festival season and can be removed later.
At the moment, IGTV is extensively used to showcase products and collections for the consumers who do not wish to step out during the lockdown.
3. Twitter Polls
Twitter is a social media platform where people come to express their opinions without any bias. A Twitter poll is one such feature that allows businesses to connect and engage with their audience. Polls can be conducted on the latest trending topics in the market or any random case from our daily lives.
These polls can act as a way of collecting feedback and improving your product and services and also to find out which products are being favored the most.
Twitter polls are a great way to understand the pain points of your consumers and offer them a simple solution.
Create a twitter hashtag that resonates with your product and start a conversation with your audience. In a way, track their mood and requirements during the festive period.
4. WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp Business a free-to-download mobile app acts as a storefront and an effective tool with enormous potential for small businesses.
The popularity of WhatsApp Business has grown exponentially over the last few months. Even other apps such as Google My Business and Facebook Marketplaces are a no match.
Small businesses can register themselves on the WhatsApp Business app by providing potential consumers with details such as the operating hours, business address, offerings, and many such things.
The app offers a free-to-use quick reply feature, which enables businesses to reply to customer queries and inquiries and subsequently simplify the shopping experience.
Additional features such as catalog links, QR codes, sticker packs, and the new safe payment service is only going to make the app more convenient for businesses and shops.
Wrapping Up!
Using the right digital marketing tools, strategies, and techniques can help any business, small or big, grow two-folds on digital platforms. However, the scope is vast for small and work-from-home businesses.
In case you are unaware or are sceptical about digital marketing, it’s always better to hire professionals and freelancers. These professionals will help create an online space for your business on a limited budget and yet offer you the maximum exposure online.
We at Impulse Digital are always up for a discussion, in case you need any assistance or if you’d like to throw around any ideas or collaborate in the future.
