How to Market Your Business or Professional Service in the Digital Era

Introduction

We live in times when the pervasive effect of media and the all-encompassing digital channels are changing the way businesses, societies, and individuals function. Indeed, not a day passes without most of us checking social media and the internet for news and entertainment.

Moreover, with Mobile Commerce enabled by Smartphones set to grow exponentially in the future, no business or for that matter freelancing professionals can afford to be without marketing their products and services in the diverse media space that the digital era provides.

You Cannot be without a Social Media Presence

To start, whether you are a large or small business or are starting as a freelancer or are experienced, you cannot be without a social media presence that markets your products and services. Indeed, no business can be without an account on Facebook, Twitter, and the other Social Media outlets.

In addition, no professional can afford to be without a LinkedIn account no matter whether he or she is a freelancer or a working professional. While there are some who still avoid social media and LinkedIn, there is no disputing the fact that anyone who is serious about networking and growing their business can ignore social media.

Migrate to the Smartphone Revolution

Next, it is better for all businesses to migrate to the Mobile revolution as well and this can happen through launching an App or promoting one’s business on an Aggregator App.

The crucial difference between the two is that the former is exclusive to the business whereas the latter means that your business shares the marketing space on the Aggregators with other businesses.

Indeed, even freelancers need to promote their services, and while we are not recommending launching a dedicated app, it is highly advisable to promote your service on a platform for freelancers.

Having a Social Media Presence is Not Enough

Third, it is not enough to have a social media presence or an app for your products and services. The key aspect that would determine the success or failure of such efforts lies in how well you can promote your business or service leveraging the presence that you have on such media.

Indeed, promoting one’s Facebook page or Twitter Account or an App means that you need to first sign up as many “early adopters” as possible who can be asked to review your products or services and leave ratings based on their satisfaction levels.

This can be done through sending them samples of your product or completing an assignment or a task for them that would ensure that experiential reviews show up on your social media accounts or apps.

In case you do not want to take this route, you should invite as many people as possible to “Like” your Facebook page, follow your Twitter account, or use your app that has some scope for ratings before or after you use the same.

This is the preferable method for those who are starting out or beginning their businesses or starting life as a freelancer because such types of promotion are cost-effective in addition to dealing with the lack of an adequate user or customer base.

Determinants of Digital Marketing Success

Apart from this, the response times to queries on all these outlets are the next determinant of success. If you respond to questions and both positive and negative feedback within no time, then the individuals who have posted such feedback or have rated you would immediately know that you are serious about your business or service.

In addition, there is the element of asking well-known individuals to rate your service and provide testimonials. Indeed, this is perhaps the most important aspect for medium-sized businesses wishing to break into the big league as such celebrity endorsements and testimonials would add “weight” to your promotional campaign.

Wisdom of Crowds and Power of Networks

Another important point to remember is that the Digital Era works through networking and the Wisdom of Crowds.

To explain, your business or service must have as many likes, and ratings as possible since other users who follow the early adopters and the slow users can immediately sense that you are offering a product or a service that is used by a large number of customers.

Indeed the twin aspects of building a huge network as possible and asking all of them to review and rate your products and services goes a long way to the success of your marketing campaign.

Further, the Wisdom of Crowds paradigm means that late adopters to your product or service often sign up for your services once they realize that you have thousands of followers on social media and your app has been downloaded that many times and rated accordingly.

Conclusion

The key to marketing and promotion on digital media is that one has to be aggressive at all costs. Whether that entails following people until they follow your Twitter account, inviting just about everybody to like your Facebook page, or following up with your customers, friends, and peers to rate your app until the effort has reached a plateau, the key is aggression and in your face promotion.

In other words, one need not shy from sending invites on Facebook and sending as many alerts and messages to ask the customers and users whether they would like notifications and promotional messages to their emails and social media accounts.

To conclude, the key to digital media success is in “Carpet Bombing” the recipients till they sign up to use your services and ensure that they buy your products.


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Authorship/Referencing - About the Author(s)

The article is Written By “Prachi Juneja” and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.