Small business, as the name indicates, is involved in business operations spending small investments. Many points of sale businesses, retail shops, small manufacturing units, and other start-up firms can be categorized as small businesses.
Investment, employee number, profit generation, loss, and everything in a small business will remain small. We can also consider small-scale industries as small businesses, small service sector business or sale or marketing related business also belong to the small business category.
A small business will usually have a single owner and small management controlled directly by the investor. It will have limited reach and limited means for advertisement and public campaign.
Marketing Challenges for Small Scale Business
- Marketing becomes a key hurdle area for the small-scale industry as the owner will not have much to spare on the advertisement. AS their focus will be to meet labor expenses and costs, the advertisement will always take a back seat.
- Lesser number of employees makes it impractical to dedicate the service of many for campaign or marketing-related activities.
- Small business usually operates in a small area and local level competition will be tougher.
- Product and consumer-specific campaigns will be required.
Marketing Strategies for Small Business
1. Assure maximum publicity at minimum cost
2. Build credibility and be accountable
3. Highlight your Unique selling proposition
4. Be an active partner in social events.
5. Ensure online presence
6. Introduce free products and samples.
7. Coupons and discounts can play a vital role
8. Know your customer and let them know about your business
Small Business and SMS Marketing
SMS is one of the most cost effective means of communication between the vendor and the customer. Unlike other platforms, it offers support for spot sending of messages and advertisement contents.
- SMS campaigns can be used to attract all customers who use mobile phones.
- Customers need not have high-end mobile phones.
- SMS has a higher open rate compared to emails.
- Can get the idea with a glance.
- Most compressed form of advertisement.
- It is directed and quick to operate
- SMS marketing can be integrated with other modes of marketing
- Increased customer engaged
- Learn about customer and plan campaigns accordingly
Benefits of Odoo SMS Marketing for Small Business
Odoo is a software development tool that has been working to ensure customer satisfaction. Odoo SMS marketing tool guarantees the best service at minimum cost. As Odoo has Community and Enterprises edition, the customer can choose the software of his choice based on the amount that he can invest.
Now we can take a glance at how Odoo can help you to manage small business.
Customer Category Management
With Odoo we do not have to send SMS bluntly to all our contacts. Instead we can create different customer groups and send messages after analyzing the customer preferences.
Know customer response
Bluntly sending SMS will not help your business. But with Odoo you can assess customer response. It will help you to get a glance at the total SMS received, the number of SMS bounced and the SMS clicked by the customers.
Create and manage customer loyalty
Customer is the King and the loyalty of the customer plays an important role in guaranteeing the success of a business. Suppose there are two small business units in an area and one business unit is depending on SMS marketing features offered by Odoo.
Then that particular investor will be able to constantly contact the customers. Customer loyalty can be managed by offering special offers and gifts to customers who have premium or membership cards. SMS will help the business owner to alert the customer about new products, new offers, and new arrivals. Such constant updates and alerts on offers will encourage the customers to trust your business and be a partner for a longer term.
Constant communication
As communication is the exchange of messages and receiving of feedback, it is very important to manage proper communication between the vendor and the customer. As a business operator will not be able to communicate personally with the customers every time, SMS marketing support offered by Odoo can be the best alternative. It will help to collect the contact details of the customer and send personalized or category-based messages. Unlike other modes of advertisements, SMS is more personal as every customer receive a message
Short but quick messages
SMS marketing does not need any preparations. It just needs the support of software and integration of the tool with the software system. For example, if a point of sale business receives a new product in an afternoon and they want the customers to purchase the product at the earliest, they can use SMS marketing techniques. SMS can be sent quickly alerting the buyers. The business operator can also include the price of the product and other details. IT is very effective as the customer will be more interested to purchase the product as they are getting personal messages.
Direct communication made possible
SMS marketing is a type of direct communication between the sender and receiver. Here, the business operator does not seek the help of any other party including ad filmmakers or leaflet printers for reaching out to the customer. Like the sms communication between to persons, here also the sms is sent directly to the customer.
Low cost; high effectiveness
Cost does not matter when it comes to SMS marketing. It does not require much cost compared to the impact it creates. As direct communication is more effective than impersonal or indirect communication bulk SMS sent using the Odoo SMS marketing application is sure to improve the business. Odoo supports the generation of bulk SMS messages. Odoo also assures you support to generate personalized messages including customer name and address after cash payment or purchase.
Can include opt-out link
Customers, if not interested in receiving SMS can unsubscribe the SMS. Odoo provides the user an option to include the opt-out link in the SMS.
Short and crisp
Odoo helps you to communicate product details and offers in a few words which enables the user to quickly understand the meaning
Can manage updates
As Odoo SMS is an easy to use a feature, we can send product updates frequently.
Integration made easy
Odoo SMS marketing can stand alone as well as work in integration with Email marketing sales, and other modules.
Odoo SMS marketing is a tool that is aptly designed to suit the needs of small business units and small industries. With this tool, we can operate, popularize and advertise small business ventures.
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