Marketing is the single most important activity in running a small business. After you’ve made that uber-important step of getting a website for your small business, you must begin to embrace advertising online. If your customers can't find you, they can't buy from you. While advertising on the internet is nothing new, many small business owners aren’t that internet savvy and the World Wide Web is the great unknown. Your customers are internet savvy, and you have to advertise where their eyes are. If you focus on the basics, you can develop an affordable online marketing plan.
1. Target Your Market
Know your market and what they want. Small business owners need to know who is going to buy their goods and therefore create marketing materials these buyers will respond to. For example, if you sell a product to runners, you want to use advertising that addresses the needs of runners using running language, and place the ads where runners will find them. The better you understand your market, the better your promotions will work. Ads on Google and Facebook allow you to specify who will see your ad depending on their demographics, interests, location, and more. Select the pay-per-click option and you’ll only pay for the ad when someone is interested enough to click on it and visit your website. These options also offer robust tracking tools to calculate your success rates, usage, conversions, and ROI.
2. Connect with your customers.
Making personal connections with your market always produces better results than trying to reach those you don't know or who don't know you. The more your market knows and trusts you, the more they'll buy from you and be willing to share information about your business with all their online friends. Connect with past and current clients and prospects to learn about their needs, get feedback, make a special offer or ask for a referral. You can do this online easily by installing a sign-up form on your website, asking for emails at checkout, or having a contest. Then, send them online newsletters or e-mails.
3. Educate Your Market
Providing information not only increases your credibility but can cost almost nothing. Develop free, downloadable information to offer your customers when they sign up on your website. This will give your customers a reason to visit your website other than getting directions (which is also a vital component!). You could also look into writing articles for internet sites, trade journals, and mainstream print sources to give you expert status and a wide audience.
4. Mix it up.
A mixed media/cross-marketing approach can be very effective. Every printed ad, brochure, and business card should contain your website address, including your email signature. For print ads, you should capture your audience, then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order. Have a contest on your website and advertise it on the radio. TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market. Google TV makes placing ads easy and affordable because you can target your market down to the time and channel they might be watching. If you’re advertising in the local paper, ask them about a package that includes both print and ads on their website.
5. Get listed.
Online directories like Google Places are the new yellow pages. Make sure you are listed everywhere you can be. Most online directories offer free basic listings and some even provide stats so you can see how many people are finding you via that website. If it turns out it is working well, you might consider upgrading to a paid listing. Shopping directories like Google Product Search are my newest favorite thing. Submit your products to Google and when someone searches for that product name, your website will be listed with the price and description of the products.
Online advertising has finally matured into a serious advertising medium by providing high quality tools and information to small business owners at a reasonable cost. Some of it’s free if you have the time to devote to the research, and most options that do have a lower price than traditional advertising. While I have provided direct links to Google’s and Facebook’s products, I don’t think they’re the only options. But let’s face it; it’s certainly where someone should get started.
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