Tools And Resources Needed For A Wholesale Handmade Business To Expand Globally
Oct 20, 2022 | Harshita
Consider two online wholesalers. One makes handmade personalised decorative home products using a combination of calligraphy, watercolour, and woodcuts. The costs are very reasonable, and their clients like the work they do. However, this shop relies only on word-of-mouth advertising and has no marketing strategy. The second vendor purchases ready-made products in quantity and resells them on eBay with a 50% markup. No personalisation is offered, and the cost is very exorbitant in comparison to other products of a similar nature. However, the second vendor has gone all-in on their marketing initiatives, employing email lists, social media posts, and digital marketing tools to connect with potential buyers. Which one do you think generates more revenue?
A lot of small businesses depend on their ability to draw attention to survive or fail. A company with a great product but no marketing strategy or tools may fail, whereas a competitor with a mediocre product may succeed due to outstanding marketing efforts.
Here are some of the tools which small businesses can use in order to expand globally:
PINTEREST: Are you aiming to reach a new audience or your existing audience in novel ways. Look no farther than Pinterest! Marketing on Pinterest is highly successful.Pinterest is not just about weddings, workouts, and haircuts but much more.
Marketers share stuff that is too alluring for customers to resist in order to attract Pinterest users. Having a reach of over 433 million users, why wouldn't marketers want to use Pinterest? Whether it's B2C marketing or B2B marketing, Pinterest is an effective way for any business to engage with their audience worldwide.
So, how can your business use Pinterest as a marketing tactic to help improve your brand awareness and conversions? Here’s a complete guide to Pinterest Marketing.
Using the right pinterest tools at all times is crucial for an effective marketing strategy. Consider the following example:
Ruggable, a reliable and reasonably priced rug business, might not be the industry leader, but they definitely do know how to take advantage of the newest Pinterest tools and features! In order to assist users during the COVID-19 problem, Pinterest developed the new Shop tab, which allows users to browse and purchase in-stock product Pins from companies. The Shop tab was added to Ruggable's Pinterest page initially, and they've been regularly upgrading it ever since.
The Ruggable's Shop tab streamlines the purchasing process and boosts revenue by linking Pins straight to the checkout page on their website using data from Pinterest's current Product Pin feature. Brands like Ruggable that adopt this new feature would experience significant revenue growth.
When you create a business account, you gain access to a lot of Pinterest benefits that you wouldn’t have otherwise, creating so many new opportunities for your online presence. It offers highly effective ad targeting possibilities since it is utilised as a visual search engine and therefore understands what people are looking for and interested in. Users frequently use the platform to research purchases, so putting your items front and centre on the network may increase sales and conversions.
E-MAIL: Investing in e-mail is one of the most effective services provided by the internet. Compared to social media updates, where users might skip announcements and simply scroll up their news feeds, email marketing has a higher chance of being viewed. Emails may be sent to thousands of users with only a few clicks. Those users are free to read whenever it is convenient for them, whether that be online or off.
Your audience won't get up to 20% of your emails since they will never reach their inbox. It's essential to reduce the likelihood that your emails will fall into that 20%, given that email generates an average Return on Investment (ROI) of 122 percent.
Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to prevent your emails from ending up in spam folders, and most of it is really simple. The section that follows, examines some of the most typical causes of email spam.
Misleading Subject lines containing spam triggers:Subject lines should be attention-grabbing and persuade the reader to open the email as they frequently serve as the user's initial impression of your communication. They must, however, also be sincere.Professional subject lines are also important. Thus, no TYPING IN ALL CAPS and without a doubt, no spelling or punctuation mistakes.And lastly, always remember to make sure the content fulfils the promise made in the subject line.
Content contains spam filters: Spam detectors look for certain words (or combinations of words). An email may go in spam folders if it receives enough clicks or has those terms in addition to some of the other elements on this list. Some examples of spam trigger words are:
“Free”
"Lowest cost"
"Additional income"
"Easy money"
"No charge"
Multiple dollar signs or multiple exclamation points
Words with extra punctuation or spaces
Words that are Capitalized
Spam filters might be set off by overly "salesy" language and too many keywords.
Wrong or misleading ‘From’ Information: Incorrect 'From' information is a crucial factor in spam trapping of your emails. The "From" line, which informs your recipients who sent the email, must be truthful and free of misinformation.
Too many attachments in a mail: For the majority of spam filters, attachments are a massive red signal. This is due to the ease with which malware and viruses may spread through files. It is better to upload a file or document to a cloud storage platform like Google Drive or Dropbox before attaching it to an email if you must. After that, you may include the file's link into your email.
Recipients marked your emails as spam: Your credibility as a sender suffers if a lot of people click the spam button, which will eventually put future emails in the spam bin.
Your emails may end up in spam folders for a variety of reasons, from weak subject lines to keywords that set off spam filters. Whatever the cause, it's critical to find a solution to improve your return on investment and maintain your audience's trust in you. Here’s what you need to know to help your emails avoid those troublemakers that dump the good with the bad in spam filters.
According to a McKinsey estimate from 2022, 71% of customers want individualized communications from businesses. 76% become disappointed when it doesn't happen.
It might be challenging to step up your email marketing in order to stand out and achieve the desired outcomes. However, there is one approach that fewer than 30% of marketers use. Let's examine how Etsy interacted with its clients by using personalized emails.
The original price has been crossed out and the reduced offer is presented in green rather than black in Etsy's email. This facilitates seeing the offer while maintaining its aesthetic appeal.
It is an excellent illustration of how to re-engage a contact with your business and, ideally, drive them closer to a sale, by utilizing their search activity.
E-mail Marketing is an important tool in marketing. So are you looking for a social management solution to complement your email marketing?
Here’s a list of the top free email marketing tools which businesses need for a successful E-mail Marketing campaign:
Sender: One of the top free email marketing tools available, Sender has options to assure deliverability. It enables HTML-illiterate users to produce visually appealing newsletters.
Sendinblue: Sendinblue is a marketing communication platform which includes tools for email marketing in addition to other functionalities like building landing pages and managing client relationships.
SendPulse: Although SendPulse promotes itself as a multi-channel marketing platform, email marketing is still the most widely used function. There are several well designed email templates included with it, and a drag-and-drop editor makes it simple to alter them.
Benchmark: To create responsive emails that look good on any device, Benchmark Email is a great alternative for an email marketing solution. You may even alter the picture on the platform if you need to include it to your email as an attachment. To effectively convey your message, you may add effects, stickers, and text using the email editor.
Mailchimp: Mailchimp, one of the best email marketing solutions available. You may create and schedule emails as part of their basic email marketing services, which are included in their free plan. Its smart suggestions function, which gives you useful audience information to maximize your marketing efforts, is what makes this an excellent email marketing tool.
INFOGRAPHICS: Words often fail to capture the attention of your target audience.Infographics are images communicating information or data in a fun and eye cating way. Infographics are excellent for social media because they can easily be shared and linked to. Instead of having to read through paragraphs in a lengthy article, individuals may obtain the information they need straight away when they view infographics on Facebook and Twitter. Infographics are a fantastic tool for making a mark with content whether you're a startup or small company aiming to do so.
Another advantage of infographics is that you can use them to attract and keep social media followers. Growing your social media audience creates additional opportunities for audience interaction, which raises brand awareness and eventually leads to paying consumers.
Infographics assist companies in
Message clarification and simplification
Making persuasive and appealing communication materials
Addressing certain business inquiries
Making managerial decisions easier.
Infographics are aimed specifically at taking complicated concepts, packed with information, and reducing the narrative with images and/or visuals to explain the tale the data reveals swiftly and simply. Even the most inexperienced reader easily understands the meaning.
Here’s an example of how Etsy has helped customers by making them aware of the process that goes behind starting a shop at Etsy. Using infographics is much more convenient for business in order to grap attention of the target audience.
The Second and the third images are examples how effectively the company Rural Handmade has made use of Infographics.
Here are 5 moct creative ways in which you can use infographics as a marketing tool:
Create infographic slides for a presentation: Presentations are particularly notorious for being boring. Why not add some flavour to the presentation by using an infographic as a visual assistance rather than a list of boring statistics? A relevant image paired with informative text helps people retain 65 percent of the information three days later — a stark contrast to presenting text-only content where someone’s likely to remember only 10 percent of the information.
Using infographics as a resource for webinars: Webinars and live events are getting more "personal," with the majority of them consisting only of streaming videos of people speaking. But many still rely on visuals to make their arguments clear. You may utilise the infographics to engage your webinar audience with visuals if you like using visual aids for your live events or webinars. You can use infographics in your post-event notes , on the cover image of your event or as a freebie promotion for your business.
Using infographics as Blog Images: An infographic typically functions as a blog in itself, thus nothing else needs to be included. Here is an example of how you may use infographics to show content in your blogs.
Infographics on Landing pages: The landing page is the first thing a visitor to your website will see after arriving. Typically, individuals highlight their characteristics with bullet points. But how about turning it into an attractive picture with some eye-catching graphics? You may share your unique selling proposition and provide a better customer experience with the help of creative landing page designs. Additionally, you may provide colour psychology.
These tactics help you get the most out of your infographic marketing pl
Let us look at an example of how Rural Handmade creatively used infographics on their website.
5. Create info products with infographics: Do you need to generate product manuals for your small business? Are you planning to produce a media kit or perhaps a PDF guide for prospective clients? Do you want a unique design for your upcoming ebook? Infographics help you to do all of that.
VIRTUAL REALITY / AUGMENTED REALITY: Nowadays, traditional marketing and advertising channels and tactics are less effective since they are unable to keep up with the phases of mentality development of their target audiences, which need more interactive persuasive strategies.
360o VR promotional movies are an interactive way to persuade customers to buy your company's goods and services by giving them a virtual experience of how these things may improve their lives and meet their present and future demands in terms of both personal and professional needs.
There are blenty of benefits of using AR & VR as a part of your marketing strategy . Customized VR solutions improve the effectiveness of content marketing, as many content production companies have embraced VR to raise user engagement with their material .
A seasoned media company with a track record of producing high-quality media will help your company develop more effective branding practices, creative advertising, and marketing campaigns.
Looking for inspiration for your own VR marketing campaign? Look nowhere else. Here is a VR marketing initiative by Etsy and a run through of how it aided the business's marketing plan.
In 2021, Etsy debuted its virtual home feature that allows shoppers to "walk through" a virtual house filled with curated Etsy items. The homes are individualized and include photorealistic and true-to-scale renderings, seamless navigation, and 360-degree visuals. For now, the Etsy Virtual House is available to shoppers during the holiday season. Each one-of-a-kind home is filled with holiday decor, gifts, Etsy Design Award winners, furniture, artwork, and other items.Everything in the house is shoppable. All shoppers have to do is hover over an item, and a pop-up will appear with additional information and a link to purchase. The goal, according to Etsy, is to help shopping picture how the items would look in their home.
YOUTUBE: YouTube is popular. YouTube is used by almost half of all internet users. Additionally, each month, more than 6 billion hours of video are seen.YouTube ads work, and the stats prove it. Seventy percent of YouTube viewers say they have purchased a product after seeing a YouTube ad about said product.
YouTube offers several advantages that make it a popular platform for companies to tell stories as part of their digital strategy. It is a video-first platform that has been around for a while. People use this site to read articles or look for answers. They are more likely to watch a lengthy film than someone who is browsing through their social media feed since they are in this mindset. Additionally, sharing the information on other platforms is simple.
These factors, among many others, combine to make YouTube an intriguing platform for brand marketing, especially for organisations who operate largely online. One of the most crucial factors is the likelihood that a high-intent audience would make a purchase. Let us look at the kind of content Amazon India puts on YouTube as part of their digital strategy. YouTube serves as a platform for Amazon India to promote its deals, brands, and goods. Amazon India often launches campaigns to generate interest in particular product categories that are available on the website. These are uploaded to YouTube as content pieces, and because the stories are frequently interesting, many people share them.
Campaigns:
Amazon India often launches campaigns to generate interest in particular product categories that are available on the website. These are uploaded to YouTube as content pieces, and since the stories are often interesting, several people reshare these as well.
Anouncements:
A piece of audio-visual material is uploaded on their YouTube channel and used to promote almost every transaction on the site.
Aa Raha Hai Tyohaar Bade Dilwala #GreatIndianFestival #BadeDilWale
Product-Specific content:
It's interesting to see that the majority of the specialized communication posted by Amazon India is on YouTube when it comes to brands and goods.
WEBINARS & DISCUSSION FORUMS: Look for internet forums where people are talking about your products. When you include a pertinent link in your reply, forums are an excellent approach to drive more visitors to your website. Make sure it backs up your response and points forum readers to an insightful post to prevent it from being seen as spam.
This applies to both the offerings you may make through forums as well as the sharing of connections to your website, which you can do in your responses when appropriate and in your profile signature.
You could find yourself conversing with a group of individuals who are really interested in the information you've provided and eager to learn more.This might create an opening for you to offer a few members beta access to your next product, discounts, or free product.
Customers may participate in discussions about their products and services on eCommerce sites by creating forums. But that's only the very beginning. The likelihood that the related online wholesaler will develop meaningful relationships with its clients increases with the level of participation a forum generates. To put it another way, it is a fantastic method for an eCommerce company to advertise its goods and services without having to spend a lot of mon
By re-running each webinar for various audiences, effective webinar marketers make the most of each topic.Webinars are interactive and offer a high level of personalization. It is a very effective marketing technique.
Before you begin using webinars, record all of your live webinars first. Then, monitor your conversion rates and tweak your content as needed.
Automate your webinar funnel after your conversion rate has hit 10-15% (depending on your product pricing)
BUSINESS CARDS: A business card is a powerful tool for growing your contact list and advertising your brand. This is particularly true for a small or medium-sized business wanting to go global. A business card reflects your organisation and may make a significant first impression. In fact, when handled correctly, it may be one of your company's most powerful marketing tools for raising awareness of and enhancing the legitimacy of your enterprise.
The number of connections you have and, more significantly, who knows you, have a direct influence on your ability to succeed in any new business endeavour. Your network of connections might expand significantly with the use of business cards. A professional business card presented in the right way at the right time may make a crucial first impression as you broaden your network internationally. So take the time and make the necessary plans.
What to include in a Business Card?
The most important part of a business card is the information on it. Make sure these points are included in your professional business card:
Name
Address
Contact Details
Social media Hnadles
Website Link
QR Scanner
Logo
Colour
Here’s an example of how some good Business card looks like:
PODCASTS: Using a podcast to reach a global audience and deliver tailored, on-demand information to people you know want and need what you're offering.There is a very low barrier to entry for listening to podcasts because they are free for listeners, and having platforms like iTunes and Stitcher Radio to assist you get exposure already increases your awareness without requiring you to do anything other than provide worthwhile material
Even when still in the womb, voice is the first thing that people perceive and connect with. Imagine describing to your audience that profound connection.
People who listen in and hear your voice once a week will begin to think of you as someone they know. That bond creates a deep bond that cannot be achieved by only sharing written words and photos. It also increases trust and likeability.
In addition to promoting your podcast through social media and PPC (essentially Google Ads), you can link it to your website so that people may convert as you work on it. By doing so, you may connect with more potential clients and draw in more listeners. In addition, search engines often notice these social media postings and the interaction you generate, which raises your ranks. Overall, the outcome draws in potential clients and boosts traffic to your website.
PAY-PER-CLICK: PPC is a marketing tool that allows you to place targeted ads on pages that your customer base is likely to visit. A click on the ad will redirect the customer to your website. If you are trying to branch out into a new target audience or just gain a larger customer base, this could be a great channel to explore.It’s essentially the opposite of organic traffic, but with the amount of use search engines get, it has the potential to increase your business substantially.
As PPC puts your brand right in front of your target audience as they’re browsing or searching online, it can instantly expand your online presence which in turn drives more traffic and hopefully conversions. If you’ve got your targeting right it can drive quality leads into the sales funnel which increases the chances of successfully converting users. And of course, if you’re an ecommerce business, you can send people straight through to your checkout to buy!
The Ad Auction, as its name suggests, is a system for putting bids. The conditions on which marketers wish to "trigger" or display their ads must be bid upon in order to do so. These phrases are referred to as keywords.
Suppose, for instance, that your company specialises in camping equipment. When looking for stores selling new tents, sleeping bags, or portable stoves, a user may use the phrase "camping equipment" in a search engine. The search engine makes the intricate mathematical calculations on which the Ad Auction is based as soon as the user enters their search query. This decides which advertisements are shown, in what order, and from which advertisers.
Conclusion:
Your small business's success may be significantly impacted by choosing the right small business marketing plan. While there are numerous ways to promote your products, small companies find the aforementioned tactics to be the most successful. Start by picking one or two techniques or tools, and then test them to see which ones are effective for your business.
Although selling overseas is difficult, there are many options available to you if you are ready to put the time and money into it.Decide on a certain platform for marketing and build a campaign around it. There are many new platforms available to wholesalers. Email, social media, sponsored and organic searches, trade exhibitions, and maintaining your current list of contacts are some ways to get in front of B2B buyers. Some wholesalers have even had growing success when using online marketplaces like Handshake, Global Sources, eWorldTrade, Alibaba, and others.
Everything revolves around omnichannel marketing, and studies have shown that companies using these tactics see a 91% increase in year over year client retention rates compared to those that don't. It need not be tough to create the ideal marketing plan for a small business.With the help of the ideas in this article, you may create your own successful small company marketing tactics.
Below are some of the references of similar articles you should have a look at:
https://buildfire.com/marketing-strategies-for-small-businesses/
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15770-local-marketing-strategies-for-small-business.html
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/11/small-business-marketing-techniques.asp
https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/small-business/marketing-automation/articles/marketing-tips/
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