Online marketing feels like a moving target. Just as soon as you get a website, the experts say you need a blog. Then it's pay-per-click ads, then it's something else. How are you supposed to keep up with this? That feeling of being always behind is why I want to simplify online marketing. Let's break it down into a simplified plan, and explore the tools you can use to market your business.
Here's the number one principle to simplify your online marketing. Focus on having an active online presence where customers can find you, and then engage your customers in conversations online. We are going to talk about websites, alternatives to websites, and many more tools that help your business be "present" online.
A website is just one type of presence. Are the alternatives to having your own website any good at reaching customers? Yes! Either a blog or a site profile may better fit your business than a traditional website.
A blog is just a special website made up of stories or articles, kind of like a newsletter. It also gives customers and readers a chance to comment on stories, building conversations. Special services like Blogger and WordPress offer a platform for your own blog. The platform includes all the behind the scenes software that does the work. That lets you focus on writing stories, which works about like writing an email. Feeling brave? A blog can also be made up of audio or video clips, not just text.
This is what I use for my liquor store's website. It provides all the basic contact info, plus I can update with new product announcements, articles about wines, and drink recipes. You probably already teach customers about your product every day, so you could easily add that info to a blog and share it with your new potential customers.
If you fill in your business information, you can let your user profile on services like JumpUp or LinkedIn serve as a website. They are designed for business, so these profiles give you room to include your contact information such as phone and email, details about your line of business, even hours or directions. You want customers to find your profile, so also check the privacy settings to make your profile public.
To make sure that customers searching for you can find you, include the right keywords in all your online presence. Your keywords are your name, your business name, your line of work or brands you carry, and your hometown or service area. Think of the words a customer would be thinking right before they search for a business or solution like yours. Post and share information your customers want. Don't emphasize your business, when you could freely share tips, how-to's and other stuff relevant to your line of work. Avoid the sales pitch.
Right now, lots of your potential and current customers are online, but they aren't hanging out at your site. Going beyond a website means reaching those potential customers where they already are online. You want to go where they go and build your presence there. Then you can engage them in conversations. Meaningful conversations are the goal. How do you find out what sites they use? Ask them! Ask about their interests related to your line of business, like maybe photography or cooking. If they like to post photos, they may be at Flickr. Ask them. Then you can investigate those tools to decide which help you reach them and fit best for your business.
In order to do this, you will need to budget time daily or at least weekly to build your presence. The good news is that you can have some help. Right now, you have loyal customers who would gladly promote your business, link to you, write positive reviews and generally drive some awareness and traffic to you. All you have to do is ask them.
Lots of different tools exist to build a presence online and more are created everyday. How do you keep up? By understanding the basic types of tools, and by picking only those that fit best with your business and customers.
Other than building your presence online, you can invest up to 10% of your online marketing time on some additional "behind the scenes" tools.
You can buy ads on many different sites that reach your target market by going directly to the site owner or manager. If you'd rather reach more than one site at at time, consider these advertising network tools.
The simplified approach to online marketing is to select a few tools that fit your business and your customers, build your online presence, and develop relationships with current and potential customers through conversation. Contribute useful information to the online communities. Like the best in person networking, online relationships will connect you to new business opportunities. Don't try to do it all. What will customers think when they find that you have dozens of profiles, but they are mostly inactive and un-updated? Better to focus on just a few tools and use them well.
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New to online marketing this article proved very helpful to me. I am amazed at the variety of ways one can "create a presence" online. This article is clear and easy to read. I feel encouraged to ruther explore online marketing thanks to Becky McCray's informative and upbeat handing of the topic. J.R. |
I am familiar with most of the tools listed in this article. However, I never put it together the way it was presented and thought of it in terms of creating an 'online presence'. This was helpful and will be stepping up my efforts to establish my online presence. |
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I enjoyed Becky's article. I'd like to hear more about the tools that let you add interactivity to a website. Any ideas? Marcia |
I'm glad you have enjoyed this article! Marcia, one first point is to be sure your website gives a prominent way for visitors to reach you through email, phone, or regular mail. Don't overlook this basic interaction! A second thought is to be sure to link from your site to any of your active online presences. Finally, a blog is one of the best tools for adding interactivity to your existing website. It gives you a chance to interact with visitors through their comments, to allow guest authors, to post useful information to your customers, and comes with many features to make it easier to manage. It's the most adaptable to a wide range of applications. By carefully designing it, you can make it match or coordinate with your existing site. With any interactive tools you add, the most important point is to listen to your customers and visitors, to focus on their needs. That's the whole point of becoming more interactive, to better meet customer needs. |
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Hi Everyone, I'm a small business owner in a college town here in Northern California. Our business caters to International students and faculty and families providing goods from all over the world. I need some advise regarding marketing towards College students and the general public. I have done advertisements before in the local papers but with mixed results. Anyways, any new ideas would be helpful. thanks |
It's hard to say without knowing exactly what service you provide. To draw college students, try free food. Talk to the student union folks as well as the student activity leaders to see what clubs there are you can provide free food for in exchange for addressing their members. If you target international students, try the office exchange students. There are are ways, but w/o knowing more about your business its hards to pinpoint exactly. Tammy Freeman Founder and Chief Strategist Synergi Group, LLC "Where Passion and Purpose Collide" www.synergigroup.com www.synergievents.com |
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Online marketing should not be taken lightly. Your business depends on the success of a great marketing campaign. Before you take the next step, I would consider hiring an online advertising marketing company. PPCgeeks.net is a stable and reputable company. I've been using their service for over a year. They offer a free consultation as well. |
One of the places to start marketing is with a business and marketing plan. They're as good for Internet businesses as they are for mom/pop stores. One version that I use is called the One Page Business Plan. Vision, mission, obj, strategies anda ction plans. It's helped quite a few of my Internet clients. And writing articles IMO, should be on every Internet marketers plan. They really help bring pre-qualified people to your site. Maria Marsala Building bigger, better businesses htt://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com |
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Online marketing can seem like a black hole, but remember....just as in face to face it's all about building relationships. Do that and your online business will grow. Don't forget to give it time....try different things and track the results. A great tool to check out is Google Analytics...just do a search on that...gives you great tracking for free. Remember to track your relationships also. Lots of tools out there to do this with depending on what you specifically need. One simple tool.... Simple Sales Tracking, url in my signature. Localman http://www.simplesalestracking.com |
What about some good old coversation, the spoken exchange of thoughts and opinions and feeling, a talk? for example: Hello! my name is Steven Ransom I just started my own small business. Cognigen Telecommunications, Cognigen's vision is to build value by becoming the market leader in the worldwide distribution of telecommunications and data services. Cognigen Networks Inc. is a leader in online marketing. With one of the first technologically advanced web sites, Cognigen is powering the convergence of customers and sales in the Internet marketing. Cognigen offers a wide variety of competitive advantages, including cutting-edge best rate search engine technology, a broad assortment of product offerings that cater to the vast majority of communications users, visionary leadership, key strategic alliances, and a strong applications service provider (ASP) backbone which facilitates the customization of telecommunications products and services to meet the changing demands of our clientele. Website: http://ibs726.ld.net Warm regards, Steven Ransom Contact me if you want to chat: Email: Ibs-mkt-support@consultant.com |
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Why a marketing plan? The purpose of any plan in business is to identify the directions that you are going to take in order to achieve a specific outcome. Planning is a critical activity - it is a core business principle that underlines the future viability and success of the business. The planning function is based on the premise that before a business can hope to compete effectively and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace, it must establish clarity in direction, that is, have a well defined mission; and create supportive workable strategies to achieve this mission. So a business plan is about sitting down, describing the future direction for the business and then working out the best possible way to get there. continue next post |
continue........ A marketing plan helps you define how you are going to interact with your customers and what marketing activities you will undertake to delight those same customers.. The marketing plan pinpoints: Who you are going to sell your product or service to Who your competitors are What position you are going to take in the market (For example, high quality/high price or low quality low price high volume) What you are going to sell Where you will distribute to What volume of product you hope to sell - who is going to buy it, when etc How much profit you think you are going to make How you are going to promote your business What price you are going to set What level of service you are going to provide - eg after sales service But it is not only the finished product of a marketing plan that is valuable to a business. It is the process of writing the marketing plan, the discipline and research required to actually complete the plan that is also of immense value. |
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A few basic ideas for you that you may have already considered for targeting international students and faculty: -Have your flyers translated into the languages of groups you are trying to attract and post them on bulletin boards in the Student Center at the university, and with the student organizations that offer support to international students. -I would also post flyers in the foreign language departments since international students may be teaching assistants, tutors, etc. and international faculty may be the professors. -Those same student organizations probably have websites, blogs, and/or email lists that they use to notify students and faculty of events, so take advantage of those opportunities for advertising. -Offer to sponsor an event at the university that is geared toward international faculty and students. Showcase your goods on a table and give a brief infomercial. Good luck! Laura Ullmann http://www.ahigherspirit.com |
I have made some excellent videos that you can watch for FREE on youtube. Search for "mfrsuccess" to learn about essential strategies for marketing, growing your business and skyrocketing your proftis! Enjoy! Scott www.mfrsuccess.com |
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