Create Content Get Your Customers from Your Community

As a small business, in addition to create your service/products under low-budget, you will also need to hire or become a Marketer/Salesperson. So one of the best ways to reach and build strong and lifetime relationship with your customer is to create your Content Marketing. Let’s expose two points here: What’s in it for you and what publishing formats are available?

::What’s in it for you in the Online Professional Community Network: Belonging to any active community as small business owner allows you to get to your targeted audience, be closer to your prospects and have a direct contact with them through Content Marketing with in the Networking Platform. These articles are both sharable and subject to be reviewed by your followers. You can also receive an endorsement from your peers (peer to peer communication) which is a sign of validation of You understand buyers. Once the prospects know what kind of expert you are and what’s in it for them, turn them into profitable customer become easier. An example of such community is TaxMamba is The Tax, Accounting & Finance community Network platform of experts and financial resources. ::Which published formats are available: The format can play an important role in terms of how viral your content can become. The Content Marketing can be a simple text (and pdf,..), audio, image, photo and video. These two last choices attract easily a large number of audience in a very short period of times, so they become usually a great source of VIRAL MARKETING. Meanwhile, the text format is easier for site optimization, which is easily searchable by search engines (like Google , Bing and Ask, etc…..)

Finally, it clears that this great recession has transformed the buyer’s attitude. They are no more easily influenced by those marketing messages, instead they do their own research to shape their minds and take their own decisions without pressure from the salespeople. That is why any small business, which could provide this precious currency called Content Marketing, will attract prospects and turn them into customers. Data is the New Oil.

Fans vs Links or Search Engines vs Social Networks.

In this down economic, small businesses must adapt or die. To survive, they seek new opportunities such as to find new customers or to offer new and superior products/services to their existing customers.
So How do they communicate those opportunities to their new or existing customers. Is it through Search Engines or Social Networks? which one is better for your small mid-sized business?
Let us explore these two digital marketing tactics:

1) Search Engines:
A Search Engine is designed to search for any kind of information on the internet. The information comes in many formats : web pages, images, video, sound and other types of files.
The dominant players are Google and Baidu.
In the United States, Google held a 63.2% market share in May 2009, according to Nielsen NetRatings.
In the People’s Republic of China, Baidu held a 61.6% market share for web search in July 2009.
In order for your website to be seen by prospects or random buyers or researchers, you should optimize it by using SEO (search engine optimization). It is one of the tactic used by the Marketer, so that your website could be found by any Search Engines such as Google.com or Bing.com when the prospect or the customer is researching randomly your products/services.
The main currency of SEO is Link Building, which allows Google.com (they create the expression link lover in order to highlight the importance of link building) or Bing.com to find your website easily.
As a result of good link building, your website should get a
well deserved quality traffic .

Briefly let’s describe how Search Engine:
It stores information about many web pages retrieving from the html pages by following this process:

• Web crawling: an automated Web browser which follows every link on the site.
• Indexing: Data about web pages are stored in an index database for use in later queries to be found
  quickly.
• Searching and Retrieval : When a user enters a query into a search engine (typically by using key words),
  the search engine examines its index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary
  containing the document’s title and sometimes parts of the text.

2) Social or Business or Professional Networks:
A Social Network is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations
called “nodes,” which are connected by one or more specific types of interdependency such as friendship, kinship, common interest and financial exchange.
With such networks, you could engage with people at the social level ( e.g. Facebook.com or twitter.com) or at the business level (linkedin.com).
Let’s examine briefly how it works:
Create an Individual or Business profile that is used to connect to others by becoming their fans or friends (in case of Social Networks) or by being their followers (in case of Business Networks).
It means that you can connect to people and organizations quickly on 24h/7 days.

3) What is the best tactic for your organization: Fans or/and Links?
Social Networks allow small business to connect directly to organizations, people and distribute your content constantly at nearly zero cost;
it can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact or customer base without big budget.
These networks can also act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services where they can listen to their customers (particularly their complaints or their praise), engage with them (e.g Twitter.com).
Companies can also use Social Networks for advertising (social advertising in FaceBook.com) in the form of banners and text ads.
If your Businesses operate globally, Social Networks can make it easier to keep in touch with your contacts around the world.

Clearly, whether it is Social/business/professional Networks (
TaxMamba , Facebook, Twitter, Xing.com,
Spoke.com, Marriage.com….) or Search Engines (google.com, bing.com, ask.com …),
both of them are here to stay and they will be used by small businesses not only to get deep customer insight but also to design strong business branding by converting their customers into brand advocates or influencers.

3 favorite types of Vertical Websites

Most small business store owners see their firm as local. The same thing applies to a small online business.
A local internet company usually belongs to a vertical market, which is a set of businesses that offer specialized needs for a niche market.
Thus, Let’s talk about 3 types of vertical websites that are often used by customers:
Online coupon sites, Shopping comparison sites, User review and Professional network sites.

• Online coupon sites
  You must have noticed a proliferation of coupon based websites recently such Groupon.com, mycoupon.com etc….
  They are just right behind major search engines. 35% of US online users are using coupons to buy online.
  It favors users that are looking for low price, deals etc…

• Shopping Comparison sites :
  According to compete.com 80M of US online users use shopping comparison sites (dealtime.com, zappos.com, like.com, milo.com, shopzilla.com, Nextag.com, ComparisonBuys.com etc..) .
  This group is really used by e-commerce businesses to sell electronic devices, groceries, shoes etc…
  It contains user-generating reviews and rating; it is used by people who are sensitive to price, location and brand.
• User review and Professional network sites :
  Online users trust users-generated review sites. It usually includes RATING and other features such company profile, discussion and job postings, tips, questions answered by experts. it’s a trusty, measurable way that business owners use to promote their product or service in the community. Some of these names are zocdoc.com, avvo.com, webmd.com and Taxmamba.com (in beta phase and
  powered by MLFSolutions)

Finally, the future of business is online where you (business owner or searcher or browser ) should precise and measurable results. Therefore, vertical businesses allow small business to reach this goal quickly
(and avoid big online and offline businesses) by targeting a niche market with AGILE and LEAN goals in this
challenging and rapidly change world.


Let me know what you think about any type of vertical business, just add your comments below.