What other marketing online strategies might work best for your small business? Here are three more for you to try:
Marketing Online Strategy #4) Participating in Social Media
Joining the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, and forums, posting on Flicker and YouTube, commenting on other people’s blogs, are all opportunities for marketing online.
Marketing online through social media requires a much more subtle technique than marketing online through advertising or directory listings. With all social media, the trick is to participate intelligently and actually attempt to converse rather than just advertising your products or services. Comments such as "Good point. See my site www.worldsbesttamales.com for the world's best tamales" are just spam, not conversation. See How to Promote Your Business on Twitter for more on how to do successful marketing online on social media.
The downside of marketing online through social media is that it's time-consuming. If you want to do it well and see any real benefit from it, you have to work at it. The upside is that it's free and can really generate a lot of buzz about your products/services if something that you've done online ( a post, a video, an article) becomes really popular.
Marketing Online Strategy #5) Online Networking
LinkedIn deserves special mention in any discussion of online networking. Its stated purpose is to help the world's professionals connect with one another to accelerate their success. As of this writing, LinkedIn has over 40 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world. It's a powerful tool for marketing online, giving you the opportunity to connect with potential customers, partners and colleagues.
And don't forget the "older" online groups such as Yahoo Groups. Canadian Entrepreneurial Women is one such group that I’m a member of. Doing a Yahoo groups search on "small business" brings up almost 40,000 different groups currently.
Besides being a great source of support and information, groups such as these also provide some marketing online opportunities. Other members may be potential customers or referral sources as they get to know you and what you do.
Like social media, online networking requires taking a subtle approach to marketing online. The same basic rule applies to online networking that applies to networking face-to-face. Give, give, give and don't worry about receiving; you will, likely in bigger, more powerful ways than you ever imagined.
Marketing Online Strategy #6) Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the best and most powerful ways of marketing online, in my opinion. For one thing, once you've developed an email list, (notice the word developed, not bought), you are, in effect, preaching to the converted, sending your marketing message directly to people who have already indicated some interest in your products or services.
For another, email is an excellent tool for building a relationship with your customers, letting you build both repeat business and good word-of-mouth through your marketing online efforts.
Newsletters can be sent to the email list you've built from the people who provided the necessary information on your website, for instance, providing these potential customers with news updates about your company, upcoming events and/or special offers – and, of course, reminding them that your business exists and that maybe it's time for another visit.
Email programs such as VerticalResponse and Constant Contact allow you to customize your email to your potential customer so you can send selected customers messages specific to their interests and actions.
Marketing Online and Offline Are The Same in One Way...
Just like any offline marketing, your marketing online efforts need to be planned. So don’t just post something here and place something there and consider that you're marketing online. Create a marketing online campaign and plan and measure your results just as you would with any other marketing.
And remember too, that targeting still matters. The more carefully you have targeted your potential customers and the more carefully you have chosen and placed your marketing advertisements or your conversations, the more successful your marketing online campaign will be.
The thing that's different about marketing online, however, is its incredible reach. The Internet gives your business the chance to reach thousands and perhaps even millions of people who would never hear of your products and/or services otherwise - making marketing online a marketing opportunity you don’t want to miss out on.
