In an early stage business the situation is very different. There isn’t a steady base of customers you can already rely on and the challenge isn’t really growing it, the challenge is to create that customer base. Social media marketing or online marketing is really about engaging people through conversation, content and building a brand through which audiences will start recognizing you through and eventually, approaching you. It’s inbound and pull based but it’s not instant and needs time to develop. Time is something in short supply in the early stages and closing customers is a priority. This should mean…. focusing completely on sales will help you go after targeted set of prospects and close customers slow and steady to build the revenue stream. However, there is a conflict in this strategy.

Given a hypothetical situation where you employee a 3 person sales team using email and telephone campaigns to pursue and close new customers, the progress over a few months is likely to appear like the blue line above. There will be a more or less steady line with some good months, some bad ones but the only way to increase sales in future is to increase the size of the sales team and invest more into sales. Great way to start business development but no long term benefits for growth.

It’s like hunting for your food. The more you need, the more hunters you need and it’s not a sustainable strategy.

Given the same situation where you employ a team of 3 for social media marketing and outreach, you are likely to see something similar to the red line. You may not see much progress over the first few months but as the ecosystem of content and buzz around your business grows, you’ll find an increasing flow of prospects towards your site which with time can be closed as customers. The process starts slow but consistently grows with the same amount of work put in every month. This means, though in the short run it may seem slow, in the long run you can grow your customer base without increasing your investment in the process. Not a great start but great future benefits perfect for high growth.

It’s like farming for your food. You cultivate a customer base by sowing content. It’s highly sustainable in the long run. As the content and buzz around your business increases each month, so does your business development.

Ideally you need both. Some amount of direct sales to kick start the customer base since you can’t completely rely on social media marketing to reap immediate results. At the same time, you need to start your social media and content marketing campaigns as early as possible so that in the later stages you don’t find yourself in a situation where your business development growth has just flat-lined because you were not thinking long term.

Our advice is start cultivating your social content farm as early as you possibly can. It’s sustainable, will grow and provide you more in time through a steady process than the hunting strategy which is effective but will make you work just as hard for every customer you intend to close and eventually, won’t work towards scaling your business. Hope that helps!

being silent leads to being forgotten

If you picture a kid in a bus who is constantly talking about something and barely silent for a moment, you may not really be interested in what he is going on about but the chances are you are going to notice him and tune into what he is talking about. Chances are, others in the bus have also taken notice. It’s a lot like this with online channels starting with your blog. If you keep a constant conversation going online through your blog, Twitter, social networking and bookmarking sites, it will draw some listeners and create some interest. A part of that interest may drive readers to contact you and explore further. It generates a active interest in what you are talking about and creates opportunities. However, when the conversation stops, the blog posts dry out, the Twitter accounts turn silent and there is no dialog online, the activity around your site also tends to diminish (with the exception of search traffic coming through content that has been well indexed and show up in search results which has long lasting effects). If that online silence is prolonged, you’re likely to be forgotten.

constant activity is key

Most of those we work with are looking for our blogging and social media marketing support not because they don’t know how to do it themselves. It’s because they do know how it works and they know how important it is to be able to post and stay active very regularly and that is something their time schedules don’t permit.  They know there is a direct relation between the ability to consistently publish fresh content having active social channels and the ability to generate interest, conversations around their business and new customers.

keep a continuous online conversation going starting with your blog

For now, it’s time for me to break that silence on this blog with this post and other ones to follow. Then get back to being active on Twitter and other social sites to let everyone know I’m back and stiring a buzz. Perhaps I’m not very talkative in person but when it comes online marketing I know for sure, too much silence is not good for business.