You’ve started your Small Business and now you want to attract customers but how? It’s time to dive into Internet Marketing, but what is it and how can you get started? Basically, Internet Marketing is any promotional program and all of the tactics you use online to reach your small business’ customers. While in the past, a business could choose to be online or not as part of its marketing, today, most buyers are online. They search for products, get referrals, and seek reviews online before buying or hiring any services. As a result, all businesses should have an online presence as part of its marketing efforts and your small business should be no exception.
Essentially, Internet marketing is using the Internet to do one or more of the following :
- Communicate a company’s message about itself, its products or its services online.
- Conduct research on the nature (demographics, penchants, and needs) of existing and any potential customers.
- Sell goods, products or services over the Internet.
- Reach prospects and regular clients in an increasingly interactive business-to-consumer ( B2C) culture.
The Hows of Internet Marketing:
There are many ways to promote your dwelling business and reach potential buyers online including :
Websites:
Websites are essentially the Internet equivalents of printed pamphlets or mail order catalogs and they are a great way to establish your business identity. Websites can use e-books, articles, and audio and video presentations to convey the company’s message, as well as inform present and potential purchasers of the features and benefits of the company’s products and/or services. The website may or may not include an online store to instantly sell a commodity or services online.
Email Marketing:
Along with a website, email is often viewed as one of the best ways to maintain a connection between your small business and your patrons. Email addresses of customers and prospective customers may be collected or purchased, although the best results are earned through a company’s own website. People may give their emails through a quality free offer, called a lead. With established customers you have, you can send a newsletter, special offers, and other info to target sales with their permission.
Using Articles:
Using content related to your small business and submitting them to be published on other websites or email newsletters is another popular method to reach your target audience for free. Although mass distribution of a single essay across the web doesn’t have the same SEO advantages it formerly had, publishing essays to a specific site can still reap many wages including SEO, boosting your credibility, and reaching a market that might not otherwise be familiar to you. Some websites will even pay for your article. Because content marketing is very time consuming, you may want to consider how ways to repurpose the article into other forms of content or direct it towards brand-new audiences.
Using Social Media:
As we all know, we live in an increasingly connected world where consumers expect the companies they do business with to be involved in them. Social media outlets are an ideal mode to interact with customers. The key to social media marketing success is to choose the places where your market is likely to use whether it’s Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. But beware, because it can be another time consuming task, you need to develop a plan and use ways to measure and maximize your results.
Advertising:
You can submit and post press releases of something newsworthy about your small business online. Another option that develops better results is by finding media requests through a paid advertising service. Participating on blogs, forums or discussion groups as a guest are additional ways to reach other customers. Answering questions, posting notes, conveying sentiments, or making announcements in general discussion groups is a great way to connect and help your target marketplace, giving you a chance to show off your expertise. Banner advertising is another example. You can even buy ad space on other websites that cater to your target marketplace. Pricing varies depending on the volume of traffic to the website and the size and placement of your ad.
What Every Small Business Owner Should Do Online
As a Small Business Owner your Internet marketing should be efficient and fall within an affordable budget. It should be part of your overall business plan. Internet marketing can become so overwhelming that it’s nearly impossible for a solopreneur to do it all. But, there are certain online market tactics that all business owners should have. At the very least, your Small Business should have:
1) A website. Depending on your Small Business focus, this can be a website or blog, or as basic as a one page site. You need a central online place to represent your business which all your customers can access. While many people have turned to sites like Facebook to handle their customers, it’s not a perfect solution. Because no one “owns” Facebook it can (and often does) change how it works, and potentially you might lose your access to it. As a practical matter, you should have your own Small Business website.
2) Email list. Numerous brand-new Small Business Owners often postpone doing this, which is a mistake. While you might think social media can substitute for email, it doesn’t. People who can connect with you through email demonstrate a greater commitment and are more likely to read what you send them. Plus many studies shows that email selling has one of the highest ROIs of any marketing program. Email marketing gives you one of the best outcomes for the cost you spend in time and money. Don’t underestimate the value of having an Email list.
Besides having a website and email service, as a Small Business Owner you need to think about other strategies that might work best for you. You need to find out about your target marketplace and customers, where they can be found, and how to best capture their attention and loyalty. Some things to consider include:
- Keywords and SEO. Whatever your business may have online, whether it’s an internet site or social media profile, make sure you use strong and relevant keywords in order to be able to reap the benefits of search engines placement.
- Use of specialized software or apps which will promote your Small Business products and services
How much of your marketing strategy should be handled online and which Internet marketing elements you use depends on the specific characteristics of your small business, your budget, your time, and your goals. Many beginning small business owners start by doing it all themselves, but as their businesses get bigger, they begin to outsource marketing tasks to a virtual assistants that can help them with online marketing.
Using Offline Elements with Internet Marketing Strategies
Unless you transact business simply online, for example, if you are an eBay reseller, you will probably want to include some traditional offline commerce parts in your overall commerce program in addition to the elements in your Internet strategy in your marketing mix. This is especially true for Small Businesses that have a local target audience or customer base.
While online commerce can be inexpensive and effective, no business, even those who are 100 percent online, should ignore offline commerce options. Eventually, your selling should involve any tactic that allows you to reach the people who want to buy, whether that’s through Twitter or a business card you tacked to a bulletin board in your community library or other relevant places.
Expense of Internet Marketing
Many online market programs, such as social media are free. But unfortunately, some of the most effective and professional looking alternatives aren’t.
While you can get free webhosting, it’s not recommended. Ideally you should look into paid webhosting and obtain a unique and relevant domain name. Fortunately, you can buy both for less than $100 a year.
An email service is another expenditure you should be open to buying. Mail Chimp offers a free email response system handling up to so many readers, but you’ll want to research and price out other options. Will free or inexpensive services meet your Small Business needed in the long run? Do such services offer all the features you might want?
Beyond that, as a Small Business Owner you’ll want to consider your marketplace and budget for other selling alternatives, like paying for marketing, such as Pay-per-click advertise( PPC ), Google AdWords, or Facebook ads. These can only be effective if you are able to write an ad that has people clicking and following through by buying your products and services. Just having lots of clicks alone won’t build your business. Customers need to buy!
Tracking the Results of Internet Marketing Strategies
Whether your marketing strategies cost money or not, they all take time. You don’t want to waste time or money on tactics that aren’t delivering results, which means you need to evaluate how things are working. There are many ways to determine what efforts are producing and those that aren’t. You can see your website’s analytics through your network stats or by using Google Analytics. Most social media sites add analytics( although you might need to use its paying options to get them) or you can use tools such as HootSuite to get your social media analytics.
The email service you choose should provide you with information on the number of opens and clinks to your emails. Other analytics might be available too.
It’s very important you evaluate what’s working and what’s not working. When you find something that isn’t working, take some time to find out why before deciding to get rid of it. For example, if people aren’t opening your emails, can you improve your subject lines? What else might be used get their attention?
Unfortunately Online Marketing is a never done but it has its rewards
While it is possible you might get results from your marketing attempts immediately, the reality is that good marketing, especially using the different types that generate long term results and referrals takes time. You’re competing in an increasingly crowded and ever changing marketplace. The better you can connect with your ideal audience and develop a relationship with it, the better your results will be for your Small Business. If you supply a great product or service, and are open to listening to your customers, your customers will provide you with positive evaluations, referrals, and profits that will help you succeed in growing your Small Business.