The World Business

Archive for September, 2010

Local business online marketing is taking the Internet world by storm as more and more traditional businesses are either upgrading their marketing positions to include online marketing strategies or run the risk of being left behind eating nothing but dust.

Here are 3 simple steps to local business online marketing to help you be ahead in the race.

Step 1: Get the desired results with Web optimization

The most important step in any local business online marketing is to ensure that the website is able to capture the pertinent information from people who are really interested in knowing your business and what products or services you have to offer. This gives you the chance to convince them to like, trust and buy from or avail of your services in the future.

Offer your website visitors something for free or has value in exchange for their name and email address. The secret is to make them want to come back for more!

Step 2: Ensure that your website is search engine friendly

The process of ensuring that your website is search engine friendly is called “Search Engine Optimization”, and it is actually pretty simple.

You just have to make sure that the main keyword that identifies your business is in your page title, Meta tags, headline and even website copy. Include also your local address and phone number either in the footer of every page or on your Contact or About page. This will let the search engines know what your site is about and where you are located.

Step 3: Submit your website and make your business known online

Make sure to include in your local business online marketing plan to tell the world about your website and more specifically about your business.

Get your business listed on Google Maps and online yellow pages, so your website and contact details can start to show up in local searches.

You can also write articles, create videos or set up social media networking profiles to spread the word about your business.

The more you get your business and your website advertised out there on the Web, the more you will start to show up in the search results.

Now the first thing I suggest is that you separate the opt in list members that bought your initial offer from those that didn’t. Your email marketing strategy for these customers is basically the same as you non-purchasing opt in email list members but the initial email marketing program itself should be different.

You customers have already shown they will buy from you. Now that you know this your next offer or offers to them should be residual income offers like membership programs. You will also offer higher end products to this email marketing list as well. You can use the same newsletter offering as with the other email marketing list members but your promotions will be different.

For all your email marketing list members you will follow the initial thank you email with an informational email using only your resource box to do light promoting. This email should go out on day one after the subscriber joined your email marketing list. From this point there are a lot of differing opinions on how often and what content to send your email marketing list members.

Your Email Marketing Strategy.

My suggestion is to have a newsletter that is mainly geared toward giving valuable information go out once a week. In between the newsletter you can send information type promotions that are soft sell for 3 or 4 days with a hard sell on the same promotion on the fifth day. Let them have the sixth day off, they get the newsletter on the seventh day and you start the soft to hard sell again on another product.

Once your subscriber buys from you then move them to your customer list. Your email marketing strategy for this list should be to soft sale most of the time sending out an email 3 or more times each week between the newsletter. On this list you will have several membership programs and several higher end programs that you will send out tidbits of information on keeping your customers up to date on the benefits of each program.

When one of your customers buys a membership or higher end product you will again move them to a new email marketing list where you will repeat the same type of email marketing program over.

And the dance goes on.

If you struggle for fresh content to send to your email marketing list there are several ways to get around the problem.

1 – Find great articles on the article sites and use them for content (always keep the resource box intact).

2 – Find good PLR content and use it as is or jazz it up a little.

3 – Hire a ghostwriter, just make sure it is a good ghostwriter.

About once every three months send out a free gift to your email marketing list. Wait a couple of days and send an email requesting input on the free gift you sent out. Use this input to create new products your list wants.

No matter what industry you are in, it is vital you have an effective marketing campaign in order to generate sells. The same can be said about working online. If you are going to succeed and make money on the internet, you have to develop a marketing campaign that will reel in customers.

If you have no visitors or prospects coming to your site, it is virtually impossible to make any money. This would be like owning a store and having no one come in. The only way people are going to buy from you is if they come to your site.

What some people do not realize is that visitors are not just going to come to your site. It is up to you to go out and promote your web site. You could have the best site on the internet, but it is nothing if no one knows about it. Therefore, you have to be willing to put in the time to promote your site and generate traffic. You should be investing at least two to three hours every day toward marketing.

Not only do you want to promote your business, but you want to find a target market to promote to. Your target market is the people who are already interested in what you have to offer. It is far easier to convert a prospect into a customer if they are already interested in your company.

So how can you find your target market and make money on the internet? The most effective way to do so is by posting in forums. There are hundreds of forums for you to look into. The great thing about forums is that they are broken into specific categories giving you the opportunity to talk with people interested in your niche. If you take the time to get to know different people and actually socialize, you will find that people will begin to trust you and respect what you have to say.

Another great thing about posting in forums is that it gives you the chance to actually talk with prospects. There are a number of ways you can promote your business, but actually talking to prospects is the most effective marketing method. It allows you to open up and show people who you really are.

The other way you can effectively promote your business is through article writing. There are a number of benefits to article writing. It allows you to display your expertise on a particular topic. You can submit it to an article directory within a specific category. Lastly, it allows you to use keyword optimization to generate even more traffic to your site. The more articles you write and submit, the more recognizable you and your business will become.

If you are going to make money on the internet, you have to have an effective marketing campaign. The more ways you promote your business, the better chance you have of generating traffic. These are just a couple ways you can promote directly to your target market and make money online.

Business owners are facing a harsh reality: A website in itself offers no guarantee of business. “If you build it they will come” is a cliché that has misled many into believing all a company needed was an online presence to succeed. However, without a strategic marketing plan and a tactical approach, you’re more likely to fail than to reach your goals. Proper planning will not only improve your chances of success, but it will also keep you from throwing away money on e-commerce fiascos.

The first step of planning is to define your goals in light of the target market you aim to reach. As you classify your target, you should determine the core needs of that group and observe the buying behavior that occurs among your potential purchasers. Characterizing their purchasing habits enables you to position your business to appeal to your target market with compelling information before they buy from another resource.

Several online resources can help you place your business in the forefront of your target audience. The process, however, can be complex because a variety of online vehicles, if utilized properly, can help you yield the results you desire. Also, the key to successful online marketing is in developing a diverse marketing plan which takes advantage of several approaches to deliver your message. Components in your marketing plan should include such elements as search engine marketing, pay-per-performance, ad placement, joint ventures, targeted traffic, e-mail marketing, media marketing, optimization and copywriting.

Search engine marketing has been one of the most highly visible forms of online marketing. With millions of businesses employing search engines to gather information daily, search engine placement for key terms has been a major business generator for companies who properly place themselves in the search engines under the right terms relevant to their market offering. An obstacle to being ranked at or near the top, however, is that thousands can be competing for the same position. And with the search engines changing their algorithms often, achieving placement on the first page for the terms relevant is extremely difficult without a solid working knowledge of and experience in the search engine marketing field. Consequently, one should not solely rely on ranking.

Another marketing technique on the rise is pay-per-performance advertising. This is a method for which you pay per click, impression, or visit that a site refers to your site. The application works best if the placements chosen are locations that directly connect with the target market you desire to reach. Advertisement rates are based on an auction format in that the highest bidder obtains the top placement. If your bid is $1.00 for every time someone utilizes your link while your competitor bids $1.01, your competitor will gain a better placement than you. If 100 individuals click your link, you should understand that you will owe $100 whether they buy from you are not. Pay-per-performance advertising clearly requires a full understanding of your conversion ratio to determine the budget necessary to commit to such a program.

Ad placement is similar to pay-per-performance in that you pay for advertisement on sites or newsletters. The difference is that you typically pay for impressions and market reach. Impressions encompass how many unique visitors view the location in which your ad is placed. The market reach refers to the number of individuals accessing that website or newsletter over a period of time. However, you have no guarantee of the number of visitors who will follow your ad to your website. The concept is similar to traditional print ad placement in that advertisers have no guarantee that people exposed to their print ads will visit their places of business.

Another method, joint ventures, can be highly effective in helping businesses obtain referral customers. Joint ventures can be as simple exchanging links with another website or as complex as assembling a tiered affiliates program.

Targeted traffic marketing is an additional online marketing tool with two main applications. The first involves the purchase of a demographic defined list. Such a list will contain individuals that fit a specified demographic to whom you have permission to send information freely either through an e-mail campaign or a sales call. The second form of targeted traffic entails the purchase a specified number of unique visitors to your site who fit a demographic. This is a mass marketing or shotgun approach. Using either approach requires a skilled implementation of marketing content or your conversion ratio will be low, meaning you’ll be wasting money.

The most criticized but still effective form of online marketing is e-mail marketing. Too many marketers utilized this method improperly by imposing upon individuals who had no interest in their products or services. The answer to marketing effectively using e-mails lies in ensuring you have permission before sending to the individuals on your list.

A more effective method would be to utilize media marketing in which you write articles, white papers and other content relevant to your industry to be published. Sharing valuable insights and information rather than out-and-out selling helps to validate your company’s expertise as you also acquire free brand exposure.

Finally, marketing effectively online requires the right kind of preparation for your website. Many sites fail in that they generate traffic but they lack the kind of relevant content that retains the visitor, educates the prospect, and/or encourages the prospect to take action. Developing content that relays a clear message to your visitors is critical. Copywriting professional Sallie Boyles states, “Lead with your punch line. Be clear. Be concise. Rather than covering each page top-to-bottom with solid content, use windows and links to provide detailed explanations as needed. When people gather research online for an immediate or future purchase, they want ease and efficiency-or they’ll leave the site and go elsewhere.”

In developing your next online marketing plan, follow these key steps to success: First, define and research your market. Second, prepare your site for action. Third, position yourself in the marketplace utilizing several marketing methods. Fourth, be prepared to follow up and close the deal. A world of e-commerce awaits!