Whatever service your business offers, it’s crucial to have an effective website and social media presence. Hone your digital skills with these top tipsfor online marketing The early stages of marketing your business can be a bit of a minefield. How can you promote yourself when at this stage there’s not much to promote? At the same time, how will there ever be anything to promote unless you generate a buzz?
Assuming you have a website up and running, make sure your URL is always
visible everywhere. Put it on your letterheads, business cards, in email
signatures. Go one step further and have it on any promotional items and
transport. Anything that reminds people to visit your website on a daily basis.
Don’t engage with social media as an afterthought. Steven Mendel is CEO
of Bought By Many, the company that helps people club together via social media
to get a better insurance deal. He says it’s crucial to put social media at the
heart of your business model from the start. “Use it to drive your business,
find out what customers want and give them exactly what they want.”
Use targeted advertising on Facebook to drive sales.
“Facebook is the richest source of data about consumers in existence,” says
Mendel, “and its tools for advertisers are getting better every day. Big
companies still think social media is all about brand and do very little on
Facebook other than dull corporate posts and mediocre competitions.” Capitalise
on this.
If you're not going to work evenings and weekends,
don't bother. Your potential customers are liking and sharing and tweeting 24
hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. If you start engaging with
social media you need to stick with it. Don’t respond to customers after the
weekend. Do it immediately.
Pitch yourself as someone who can write guest blog
posts for similar, but not competitive, companies. Offer free how-to content
from your website to other relevant sites. You get a link back to your site and
the host site gets free content. Everyone’s happy.
If you have members registered on your site, make
sure you communicate with them regularly. Send out a weekly newsletter offering
them tips or industry news with links back to your site. Design the newsletter
so the reader has to go back to the site to read more.
Be seen in the right places, says Tim Stone, VP of
Marketing, EMEA, Polycom: “The key to digital marketing is making sure your
company and its advocates are present where your prospects are looking. You
need to be in their ‘watering holes’ by being part of their social communities,
blogs and publications.”
These are the sponsored ads which pop up when you
perform an internet search. If someone clicks, you pay. If they don’t click,
you don’t pay. The important thing is to make sure you send the clicker to the
right place and give them something they want when they get there.
If you don’t want to go down the paid-for online
advertising route make sure your site gets seen organically by using the right
words and phrases. More importantly, make sure your content is fresh and
dynamic. Remember that search engines are cleverer than they were and will
sniff a trick a mile off.
It might not be an obvious thing to do but if your
company offers a service then consider making and uploading how-to videos to
attract new customers and build an online community of fans and potential
clients.
byUnknown
in
05:25
How to promote your business via the internet .........
Whatever service your business offers, it’s crucial to have an effective website and social media presence. Hone your digital skills with ...
