Digital Marketing Cheat Code for First Time Women Entrepreneurs

According to Business Standard report women constitute around 14% of total Entrepreneurship in our country. If you are worrying why so small percentage of women entrepreneurs because there are many key barriers for women specially in India like equal access to education & employment, labour market mismatch, rising sexual, domestic violence and domestic work.

Even though many women are overcoming all kind of hurdles and starting home based business after managing all critical works not only just survive themselves and business, they are able to grow their business as well. That we called as Women Empowerment and I hope many of this article readers are first time to feel the freedom of entrepreneurship journey.

Now those home based first time small women entrepreneurs and who are yet to explore digital marketing potential of their respective business growth in local area, they can learn and start implementing these following 24 digital marketing cheat code from beginner to advance level for their business promotion in local area.

Types of Women Business Entrepreneurs can Benefited

There is a myth that women are only good at designing, fashion and handicrafts industries. They break it and proved that women are tapping all the industries that come their way. There are few pure women only home based small business are floating across India specially tire II and tier III cities. Because of low cost available internet, budget smartphones and zeal of growing big or passion. Even major metro cities business can get benefits utilizing digital mediums. Here are few lists of home based business.

• Food sector specially Tiffin service, organic food service.
• Education sector such as tutions for dance, sing, poetry class, CBSE, ICSE, IBPS railway exams, various playschools, etc.
• Handicraft sector based like jam, condiments, baked items, pickle,handmade gifts and stationery are few of them.
• Service sectors based such as photography, videography, makeup artist, pet sitting, Montessori and creches, catering, nurse, cooks and many more.
• Consulting sectors business like advisory services, tax planning, financial consulting, legal consultations.
• Fashion sector based handmade accessories and jewellery, hand-printed and embroidered dupattas, sarees, and garments.
• Real Estate sectors services like renting your place for paying guest, mess, gym, office.

Reason Behind not using Digital Mediums for Business

Lack of Awareness, Digital skills, Infrastructure, Remote area, Security are the major reason which is holding them back.

• Nearly 35 percent of Offline Indian SMBs "Do not believe digital technologies can add much value to their business. This happens due to limited knowledge of digital technologies.

• 31 percent SMBs are find hard to hire right digital skills for their business. This highlights the limitations of skilled labour in the market. Like SEO, Web design, Digital marketing.

• 26 percent business feel high hardware and connections costs a major reason for low adoptions.*

• 21 percent business don't have good internet connections to make it.*

• 14 percent SMBs are insecure about internet connections such as phishing, online frauds, etc.

• 19 percent people are not coming online for other reason.

*This is ever decreasing due to Jio, and other budget mobile phone companies.

24 Digital Marketing Cheat Codes for First Time Women Entrepreneurs

Customer Journey Mapping

Before using any of the digital mediums like writing content for business or design and developing website or doing paid promotions for any businesses do an extensive research or some homework about potential customer ideal profile. Based on study prepare potential customers age, interest, hobby, income level, social profile to plan digital marketing campaign accordingly. This will give better idea how to service or sell products to them. This is first part of any business and I know every business people do this.

But exactly above analysis is not enough for present internet marketing scenario, let me explain it why like this. There is so much competition out there and  internet is full of information. Your business will definitely lost in that ocean of websites how much ever you have a better optimize website. If you look closely any successful entrepreneurs like Sachin Bansal for Flipkart, Shraddha Sharma from Yourstory or any small successful business owners from local area as example. One can easily identify that they all try to solve some or other common problem let it be big or small.

Think from the point of any potential customers problems journey whatever business you are into. Start with mapping those customers journey pain points being at their situation.These digital mediums are constant for every business but using it accordingly makes the whole difference. The most important skills to have understanding customers journey.

Understanding Competitors

After understanding customers journey, need to spy how competitors are showcasing their business online to grab customers eyeballs. Understanding competitors website content types and format, layout and design presentation, social appearance, keywords performance can help you to build better website, user friendly and understandable content from customers aspects, finally help you to build a great relationships tactics through digital medium. Tools like SEMRush, Spyfu, Screaming Frog, Ahref are helping to understand technical side of performance any website.

Find the top 5 - 10 businesses who have powerful online presence. Compare metrics like keywords ranking, social engagement, keep vigilance on paid promotions, by signing up newsletter can find email campaign strategy. This process gives a better understanding of competitor digital marketing strategy that eventually helps to be better. By having this skill one can outperform competition like anything.

Creating Local Content

As your business are potentially going to serve limited radius of area from respective business address, content material has to be local so that local customer can find right and most important information of business. Prepare clear, to the point, user friendly answers of any potential customers Frequently Asked Questions before writing website content. Presenting the contents right format and right places like logo, cover photos, website home page banners, pinned posts are essential to get interaction from customers.

Content comes in many formats such as website content, blog content, image content, video content, presentation, white paper, case study, newsletter and many others. Using right keywords and phrases are important to get find on internet and interaction with customers. Try to mention local services area name in your website contents. This will help better ranking for local keywords.

Managing Website

Website is central attraction of any business. It contains service information, about business, lead capture details, do branding, create impressions. So having a website must for business. Website address can create on free domain or paid domain and build by self on platforms like Wix, WordPress or hiring professional web designer and developer depending on budget.

How to update or edit live website content, images is another important skill to have in arsenal. This step help you update on page SEO which is very critical for any business and 90% local business miss that.

Google Business Listing

Local Search Results are the most important and fast changing aspect of search engine optimization. Google My Business aka GMB for instance has gone through many changes in 2018. Local Search Listings across online channels and managing uniform NAP (Name, Address, Phone) have become critical to businesses of all sizes.

Google business listing is the mother of all types of local business listings. Google My Business aka GMB is a tool to handle your free business profile on Google. You can add a new business or claim your business on Google if its already there. Google will verify business details such as address, phone no, you can request ownership changes if its not there with you.

Moreover you can edit complete business listing as per requirement.This listing act as your business outlook right from name, phone no, address, opening n closing hours, business categories, about your business, directions, notes, reviews. Other important search engine verification like Bing, Yahoo, Ask for better indexing across internet.

Facebook Page Management

Today an interactive Facebook page can change whole business complexion drastically. This is a very powerful tool to extend your business locally. One post can reach all your community or local group just fraction of second. Inside Facebook can create stores for product or service listing, create buying and selling options, connecting with website for better communications.

Beginners way to manage Facebook page is like start the conversation, motivate people, make customers part of your story, be a go-to place for great content, make customer service your thing, give video a try, use Insights to understand what works, promote relevant content with target audiences, find new audiences and finally turn fans into customers

Local Business Listing

Local listing sites like Sulekha, Justdial, Indiamart, Tradeindia like many more are there to promote business freely as these websites ranks higher in search engine result page. Many aspects of Local Search Listings are difficult for many small local business owners to handle.

For instance, these common local search marketing problems like duplicate local listings, inaccurate information in local listings, local listings not claimed, managing listings for multiple locations, negative reviews / online reputation management. You must deal with on a regular basis to encounter all Local Marketing problems.

Multiple Social Profile

Apart from Facebook there are many popular social website are present and can help any business to find a new set of users or potential customers. Websites like twitter, youtube, linkedin, quora, are among few. As you are expert in your subject, there are few other as well in other local area. Connecting them social media can be useful.

Multiple Contact Points

No one can't control from where or which platforms your customers are able to find your service or product to contact you or when they contact you. Multiple contact like phone, Whats App, email, messenger, twitter are very important to present all together for better interaction with customers.

Generating Reviews

Practically online, people rely much on what they see and hear through their web-based network. This is why visibility in search engines—especially on Google—is such a crucial component, With increasingly tech savvy customers, local businesses cannot afford to take online reviews for granted. Research shows online reviews—both positive and negative have impact consumer behavior as well as their purchase decisions.

Reviews are only the best content can be produced originally by serving at best. Right business ethics can generate only positive reviews, don't worries about negative. Your services, product, communication, support are key to generate good reviews. Now often you can see people are taking photos or videos of certain types of services or respond from companies and making it viral.

Timely Promotions

If you are a food lovers you can't put towel in stomach after seeing lip smacking deals from Zomato or Swiggy, for choosing a mobile package from Jio or Airtel, for e-commerce deal from Flipkart or Amazon as a first time user. It's applicable on all of us that we can't resist ourself to get any good deal at right time at right place. So promotion should be like this to catch first potential customers by giving maximum.

Digital Payment

Today digital India is growing towards a cashless systems. Due to this BHIM, UPI, Paytm, Phonepe, and various other wallet system helping small business owners to do secure transactions blink of an eye. Understanding to set up various online payment, handling online payment method are very important skill to have. This will reduce transaction hassle free.

Digital Directions

One major benefit can explore by using Google Interactive Map. Mention Public Transport and Parking for available transportation to reach your business in form of bus, train, auto, and other mediums including popular landmark. Also mentions how disabled people can access your business place or what facility are you providing for them

360 In-store Events & Photos

Photos and videos can shared across all listings, website, so that people can get better understanding of your business place, service, products, people behind it. Photos and videos help people find your business across Google, including in SERP page, Maps, Image and video search. These photos and videos come from both businesses themselves and customers. 360 view of Business place and people photos add credibility to establishment who are looking for genuine reason to contact business.

Google  Local Ads

Google ads are one of the creative ways to reach local customer within budget instantly. As soon as your ads goes online people start finding your service or product immediately. Google Location extensions can help people find your locations by showing your ads with your address, a map to your location, or the distance to your business. Location extensions may also include a phone number or call button so that users can easily call your business. See below how a proper google ads looks like with phone no, other important website link extension, location extensions. Advertiser can add opening and closing hours.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads also one of the powerful mediums for local reach and engagement. You can run ads based on your requirement like awareness, consideration, conversion based. Facebook Ads Manager or Power editor makes it easy to edit your budget, audience, placement options and creative. You can create a campaign based on Location, Demographics, Interests, Behavior, Connections. Ads Manager reporting tools help you see if your ads are driving their intended goal. By spotting trends over time, you can identify areas to adjust – such as your image, budget or audience to improve your campaign performance. Both Google and Facebook ads can run by minimum monthly budget and it's highly successful for local businesses.

E - Commerce Listing

E-commerce listing another important skill to have. Business owners who are into home based products selling category they can use Flipkart Listing, Amazon Listing, Paytm Listing for higher selling and better revenue.

Email Automation

Email is very powerful tool for professional communication. Even though it not much required for home based business but having knowledge of email marketing can bring repeated customers more often. You must collecting email ids on regular basis and feed into your excel.

Web Analytics

Web Analytics are the collection of online data used to understand and optimize web presence. It turns the qualitative experience of visiting a website into a quantitative snapshot of everything about your users measurement. Such as popular landing page, bounce rate, exit pages, popular traffic source based on country, age group, goal conversion like form filling, clicking on any CTA (Call to Actions)button.

Search Console Webmasters

Out of 100 small business websites 95% owners miss one of the most important digital marketing element to fix on their respective website  i.e on page SEO for better ranking on Google.

Track your site's search performance with Google Search Console. If something's wrong with your site like website down. error page, indexing issue, crawling issue, duplicate html tag, sitemap performance you can fix all issue in Google webmasters or search console. If you want to remove anything from search engine result pages you can do it from here itself.

Coding Skill

Coding skills may not so necessary for beginners or who just start utilizing digital marketing for their business. This skills can help your website to optimize mobile friendly or responsive, improve website speed, implementing schema code to give better information about business.

Marketing Tools

Apart from Google analytics, search console and social media analytics there are many third party tools available in market. Some can use for SEO purposes, social media purposes, email marketing purpose.

SEO tools such as domain analysis, website audit tools, authority tools are few of them. Page speed tools, Moz tools, keywords tool, plagiarism tools are important tools to know. Social Tools like Hootsuite, Buffer help you to organize all social media accounts or content from single place.

Design Tools like Photoshop, Canva can help to create optimized images for business. Email marketing tools such as Aweber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact help your personal communication better with customer timely manner.

Video Making

Video is one of the major medium for business promotions. Having skills to shoot video, distributing it right channels like YouTube, Facebook can help business like anything. Mostly about your business video, product video and service video takes less time to create rather creating a video with story telling options.

Mobile App Optimization

If you want to advance your business further, opt for a mobile application and optimize it maximum. Developing Mobile Applications for businesses is a growing trend nowadays in the digital world. Launch a mobile application for iPhone and Android phones if your business is suitable for mobile transactions and mobile engagements. This will get you a huge audience of people using mobile phones.

These are the top 24 digital marketing skills aka cheat code required to run any home based small business digitally. You can start learning each skills from beginner to advanced level by browsing internet. There are many good digital marketing trainers, courses and digital marketing consultants  available in our country. Interested business owners can start learning from their own schedule as training is completely online and self paced or if they have budget can hire services. So they can manage both business and learning altogether.