In most industries there are the behemoths who dominate that 1st position on Google, the largest booth at the trade show, the most amazing offices and the best equipment.
But that still leaves room for others to compete. Always. And more than likely the company that is the smallest and most nimble can still dominate.
Some of the best online marketing moves I’ve seen were done by a small shop taking a huge swing (ex. Dollar Shave Club). Or sometimes they just got really lucky. Either way, over and over we see proof that you don’t have to spend millions a month to play in the online marketing game.
You get the value of being able to adjust quickly. You aren’t cemented in to a certain philosophy or methodology. You can review, react, and then return back to the game quicker and with less cost.
When it comes to buying space online, yes, you can’t compete at the same volume. But you can build your audience better (in my opinion) because you still speak to your customers directly and daily and know what they need/want. You still pick up that phone and have the pulse of your customer base. You could decide tonight to spin up an awesome campaign and tomorrow it’s not only done, it’s thriving. The “big guys” can barely assemble the key stakeholders for a meeting in that same amount of time.
Doing business online today runs at a different speed and is a great opportunity for the small business owner. Embrace your smallness. Love your David-esque stature and quietly pick up your little stones as the Goliath around you laughs. We know how that story ends.
2 Comments
In many cases, a small biz could create a more relevant Google Ad that outranks the big guys, and while their budget is small in comparison and their ad disappears earlier in the day, they still got the best clicks for as long as their ad was up.
Totally. I do find it pretty crazy how inefficient some of the “big guys” handle their PPC efforts. Throwing money at stuff to me is such a long tail fail. And a short term misappropriation.