Strategic Five Marketing Warns Small Businesses ‘Don’t be Completely Virtual’

With a new cyber security study revealing that 64% of companies expect to be the target of Cyber Attacks within the next year, Strategic Five Marketing are urging small businesses to take precautions with online security.

The cyber security study revealed that nearly two-thirds (64%) of those surveyed expect their organisation to be the target of a cyber attack within the next 12 months. Nearly one in three (32%) of those confirmed that their business had already been hit by a cyber attack during the past year.

Many organisations seem uncertain about their ability to detect a cyber attack, with almost half of those surveyed saying that they did not know if they had been compromised. 70% of organisations that use point-of-sale systems to process payments admitted they had no way of knowing if their systems had been targeted.

Strategic Five Marketing is a direct marketing firm based in Birmingham. They use face-to-face techniques and run promotional campaigns to connect with their clients’ customers directly. The firm provide their consumers with tailored and unique interactions, thus allowing them to feel comfortable asking questions and to know they are receiving and honest answer which provides them with a great experience. This leads to great customer retention and brand awareness.

Strategic Five Marketing believes that although online businesses have a lot of benefits running all business online will come with security issues; it will be difficult for any business to completely run online without risks. Strategic Five Marketing has highlighted some benefits of offline direct marketing that could be used in order to ensure that the business isn’t completely virtual and completely at risk.

• It allows the business to mail and talk about their offers directly with the customers that are most interested.

• It can be used to experiment with new markets, test new products and collect information for future campaigns.

• Direct marketing can also be more cost-effective than other types of marketing.

• It helps to build personal connections with customers and achieve faster sales.

• It can allow the brand to focus on specific groups of targeted customers for better results.

• It provides direct feedback, which in turn helps monitor and review the current marketing strategy.

• The results are quantifiable with a more accurate estimate of the conversation rate, thus helping the business plan future campaigns more effectively. 

Direct marketing is a good way to keep a business from being completely online and therefore lessen the damage a cyber attack could have on a business compared to those that managed everything online. Strategic Five Marketing says that other benefits include faster response times; face to face conversation offers the consumer a better customer service than potentially waiting days for a response from a social media site. Having an all round better customer service technique can increase brand loyalty and generate more sales.

Strategic Five Marketing has highlighted the risks of putting a business completely online and promotes direct marketing as a successful alternative method.