What can be done that will make your business thrive moving into the New Year?
If digital marketing comes to mind, then learning more about software as a service (SaaS) that can kickstart or transform your marketing journey should be of interest. For years digital marketing has been a luxury only the titans of the digital world have had. By utilizing the ever-growing market of SaaS, this is no longer the case. Times of spending millions on owning the most sophisticated software in the market are in the past as SaaS improves, allowing smaller businesses to have a competitive edge.
You may ask:
How do I market my business digitally?
Where do I start?
Isn’t it easier to pay an agency or third party to do it for me?’
Let’s Start from Square One: What exactly is SaaS?
From a technical perspective, an independent software provider owns the physical hardware that delivers the software necessary for businesses to operate. Such software is made available through the cloud over the Internet to rent. The end user (your business) accesses the services through apps or Internet browsers where the data you need is stored in the cloud, available 24/7 from any location. From a business standpoint, SaaS has various advantages:
1. The first one being the cost and technical skill to operate, manage, store data, and maintain the hardware involved in creating such applications is substantial. By utilizing SaaS, the responsibility of purchasing and running the infrastructure needed to run such programs is left to the experts behind-the-scenes.
2. By renting software rather than owning it, your business still has access to the best applications in the industry with little to no risk to your company. On a subscription basis there is room for trial-and-error, and your company will only have to pay for what best suits your business model.
3. Gone are the days of being confined to your office computer. Let’s face it, modern business calls for flexibility and mobilization, and SaaS allows secure data storage and operation available through any electronic medium that your company is in complete control of.
4. Perhaps most substantially, this service is on-demand for your business to use in-house and tailor it to what results you are wanting with minimal training and without relying on costly consultants.
Interestingly enough, businesses have been using such applications in all areas of operations without realizing it is defined as SaaS. For example, not many consider simply using email as renting software anymore, but that is exactly what it is – software used as a service by an entity. Within businesses SaaS is commonly used for accounting, management, data storage, and the list goes on. There is a good chance your company is already taking advantage of SaaS, so why not for your digital marketing needs as well?
SaaS, Digital Marketing, & How Your Business Can Benefit:
Many companies have already fully integrated SaaS in other departments but are reluctant to invest in SaaS for marketing. The reality of digital marketing is that not everyone comprehensively understands the logistics of what goes into the technical back-end, and that’s okay!
In the past, the options were limited to hiring a third-party agency to market for you. Yet the feasibility of outsourcing, economically and otherwise, is often unattractive for small or new businesses and does not guarantee results. SaaS has come to level the playing field for small businesses that cannot afford to out-right purchase their own software and thus cannot provide as good a solution as the million-dollar companies that easily can. This has a major effect on businesses that cannot effectively market themselves in the digital world.
SaaS providers, such as OctoHub, bring all the tools of digital marketing to one platform and make it so that the ‘little guys’ have access to the same opportunities that make it easier to compete with the ‘bigger guys.’ SaaS continues to tackle these strategic issues of how to effectively digitally market in a user-friendly way that is cohesive, timely, and accurate.
The vicious cycle of business without proper marketing is that you can invest in great products, the best location, or a state-of-the-art website, but if consumers do not know it exists, you cannot survive in this competitive landscape. Using SaaS that organizes and cohesively maintains the ecosystem that is marketing online, your business can drive interest and quality traffic to your online presence in a way that was only ever attainable through hiring marketing consultants and agencies.
By taking advantage of SaaS, you do not need to hire a third party to digitally market your business – because the tools to do so are right in front of you! Renting SaaS on a subscription basis available through cloud computing is a cost-friendly alternative and warrants the same results that major companies are obtaining through the software they own. Through renting software to help fulfill the daunting task of digital marketing, small businesses can benefit exponentially.
The bottom line is that the multi-million-dollar companies have been successfully playing the digital marketing game since the beginning, but with SaaS, your business can now play as well – and for a fraction of the cost.
About OctoHub
OctoHub is genetically coded to empower small businesses to reach engaged consumers in a time when the digital world makes marketing complex. Click here to learn more.
