GoDaddy is committed to helping small businesses grow with its innovative offerings and digital tools
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Apurva Palnitkar, Senior Marketing Director for GoDaddy India
- What is the importance of having a domain while owning up a business?
The domain name is the backbone of any business’s digital presence. It’s one of the most important things for the visitors to know and remember and a critical component of an omnichannel marketing strategy. Choosing and registering a domain name for a business is the initial step in setting up a website and it plays a crucial role in establishing identity and increasing accessibility for your business online.
Some of the key things to remember while choosing a domain name include:
- Keep it simple: Try to find something that people can remember and is related to your business.
- Avoid numbers, hyphens, or uncommon words: These things just make it harder for people to remember and type in your domain.
- Use keywords: Combine the name of your business with popular or common terms in your sector, as possible
- Include your location: For a business that only services a specific city or region, consider including the location in domain name.
- Register different extensions: While it’s great to try to secure a .com, you’ll maintain more control over your brand if you register the same name with various extensions, like .in, .info, .net, or .org.
- What are the innovative offerings by GoDaddy for small businesses?
Small businesses are the backbone of economy in developing countries like India. With access to the internet penetrating in remote areas, small businesses in India have been embracing digitalization to a large extent and growing their business by catering to their customer needs through varied online channels.
According to GoDaddy’s Entrepreneur Survey, the year 2023 looks even more promising for the growth of MSMEs in India with 72 per cent of small-scale entrepreneurs surveyed feel strongly confident about their revenue growth. Additionally, 82 per cent said their business grew since starting an online presence.
GoDaddy offers an integrated suite of online products and services ranging from domain name registration, hosting, website building, online store, digital marketing, professional email, security protections and productivity tools. It is important for a small business to select a service provider that offers multiple services so that they can grow and scale their business with the right support along their digital journey. Additionally, GoDaddy provides technical support to customers with real people answering the phone and available via chat, to help them answer questions, troubleshoot, and share educational content that best meet their needs.
- How are small businesses being benefitted by websites to get better consumer insights?
For a small business owner, it is important to know that their efforts are playing a vital role in moving the venture forward. Small businesses can incorporate growth strategies by leveraging technology to have better consumer insights such as:
- Feedback: One of the simplest ways to get consumer insights is via feedback. Companies can add feedback forms, comments sections and products reviews for consumers to share their view of the services and products.
- Analytics Tools: The right website platform can offer insights on the performance of the website so that the small business owner can evaluate and learn from analysis like spikes in traffic or which pages of a website gets the most visits to determine what changes they should make to their marketing strategies.
Social Listening: Monitoring and analysing social media, called social listening, is another way to merge your consumer insights tactics with general demographic audits. Reviewing your own demographics from time to time will help you to stay on the top of the trends and gather insights into customer behaviour that can help drive business improvements such as customers’ experience.
- While adoption of technology by small businesses remains critical. What are some of the skills required by today’s small business owners and how is GoDaddy helping them out in establishing these skills?
To help a business grow and be successful online, small business owners need to accomplish a variety of tasks like digital marketing, website design and development, social media management, e-commerce, and cybersecurity. While these skills are crucial for small businesses owners to understand to establish an online presence and effectively reach and engage with their target audience, today they are easier to accomplish than they may think.
GoDaddy supports small business owners in India with a combination of easy to use and affordable online tools, dedicated expert customer support, and through upskilling with a variety of online resources. GoDaddy offers a range of web design and development services that enable small businesses to create websites for the business barring the need for extensive technical knowledge. Additionally, GoDaddy provides online marketing tools, including email marketing and social media management solutions, that allow small business owners to effectively promote their products and services to a wider audience.
- Emails are an integral part of businesses. How better do you think a small business or start-up can use this for the purpose of reaching out to its consumers?
Emails are a crucial tool for businesses, especially small businesses and startups, in staying connected with customers. Use of email offers an efficient way to reach out to consumers and build long-lasting relationships with them. Email allows businesses to personalize their messages and tailor them to the specific interests and needs of their customers, which can lead to higher engagement rates. Overall, email marketing can be a cost-effective way for small businesses and startups to connect with their customers and establish themselves in the market. By leveraging the power of email, they can create a strong brand presence and drive growth for their business.
In getting started using email, it is essential to recognize the importance of establishing a professional email address that matches the business name. Using a generic or personal email address can potentially harm a business’s credibility and make a poor first impression with potential customers. By using a professional email address that reflects the business’ name, a small businesses can create a more professional and trustworthy image, which can help build customer confidence, increase brand recognition and build customer loyalty.
Some tips to help use emails effectively are:
- Rather than just sending promotional emails, provide value to customers by sharing helpful tips, industry news, or other relevant information. This can help position your business as an authority in your industry and help keep customers engaged.
- Abandoned cart emails: If a customer adds items to their shopping cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, send them an email reminder. This can help encourage them to return to your website and complete the purchase.
- Send promotional emails offering discounts, sales, or special offers on birthdays, anniversaries, etc. to the email list to help encourage purchases. However, make sure not to overdo it, as too many promotional emails can lead to unhappy customers.
- Send survey emails to collect feedback from your customers about their experience with your business, products, and services. This can help you improve your offerings and better understand your customers’ needs.
- How does GoDaddy further intend to connect with the potential target audience in the future? Extend details on the essential marketing strategies followed by the brand?
At GoDaddy, we are a customer-centric organisation. We listen to our customers and strive to deliver the products and services they need to help them create, manage and grow their businesses. GoDaddy also helps domain investors succeed by offering a complete suite of tools for buying, selling and managing domain portfolios. We work to share the message of how GoDaddy can assist small business owners in India with a variety of marketing activities to help build awareness and encourage consumers to consider GoDaddy as their online service provider.
In India, GoDaddy is committed to continue supporting, and empowering entrepreneurs in Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities across the country to run their businesses successfully with our innovative integrated suite of online offerings expert customer support to help along the way.
