Introduction
You own a small business. Do you need a website? Depending on your business and target audience, an Internet presence can be necessary or a resource-draining boondoggle. You shouldn’t build or maintain a website simply because “everyone else has one.” However, even if you own a one-person services company and get all the business you can handle through word of mouth, you can still create an online presence with minimal time and expense.
The Haze
If you develop a business website, you must invest in Internet-based marketing. Consumers increasingly and overwhelmingly use the Internet to research and buy goods and services. This means the competition is robust, and if your site doesn’t announce its presence, it will simply sit and gather (virtual) dust in some computer’s memory.
Suppose you’ve convinced yourself that you need to enter the web marketing arena. In that case, the following report provides a fundamental primer on the most widely used tactics for paid and free Internet advertising. Remember that each topic introduced here is complex enough that there are entire books written about them, so if something appeals to you, do some additional research before jumping in.
Before You Start
Before starting any marketing efforts, whether online or offline, you must ask yourself two main questions: “Who is my audience?” and “What are my objectives?”
Audience
The audience for most business marketing activities is past, present, and future customers. However, as in traditional advertising and marketing, it helps to narrow down who you are trying to reach, segmenting your market by age, geography, gender, interests, and occupation. Certain Internet marketing methods, such as pay-per-click ads, allow you to target your customers based on this type of segmentation.
Objectives
We can assume that most marketing’s overall objective is to sell products and services, but you may have additional online marketing objectives. Hopefully, these related objectives will drive increased sales, but they can be more subtle than simply asking customers to buy now. For example, your online marketing plan might include goals such as these:
- Support and increase the visibility of your company’s brand.
- Improve search engine rankings.
- Offer reference information related to your business sector.
- Increase the number of registered users or newsletter subscribers.
- Drive traffic to your company website.
After defining your audience and marketing goals, you can formulate an Internet marketing strategy and tactics. When getting into online marketing, you must maintain brand consistency. Build on the reputation that you have already established. Your online presence should mirror your “brick and mortar” presence. Use the same logo and tagline so that people will understand that you are the same company. Having an online presence is a way to build on what you have already accomplished. In the remainder of this report, we’ll look at the most common ways you can use the Internet to deliver your message and increase your sales.
Table of Contents
- Websites
- Newsletters
- Other Announcements
- Search Engine Marketing and Display Advertising
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Pay-per-click (PPC)
- Display Advertising
- Social Media and Networking
- Decide: Who, What, Where, When, and Why?
- YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Etc.
- Blogs
- Forums & Discussion Groups
- Article Placement / E-Zines
- Other Internet Marketing Outlets
- Wikipedia
- Directories
Websites
We won’t get into the vast topic of building and managing a website, but if you aim to use the techniques described below, it is nearly essential to have one. Most of your marketing efforts will have a “call to action” that involves your audience visiting your website to research products or services, find contact information, sign up for a newsletter, or place an online order. Whatever you ask people to do in your online promotions, ensure the website allows them to complete that task easily. Another vital component of any business website is an analytics program (Google offers a fairly robust application free of charge), so you can track how well your marketing efforts are working and calculate the return on your advertising investment (ROI).
How can you develop an online presence at little or no cost? Several companies offer free site-building tools and hosting services. If you go this route, select a proven track record company so your hard work isn’t wasted when the company goes out of business or suspends the service. A couple of reliable options are Google Sites and Yola. If you have any money in your budget, you should probably spend less than $100 per year it takes to buy a personalized domain name (for example, “mybusiness.com”) and a Web hosting service. Depending on your business and marketing goals, another potential option is to create a free blog (see below for more details). The most popular free blogging services as of this writing are WordPress and Blogger.
E-Mail Newsletters
E-mail newsletters provide one of the most highly-performing avenues for marketing. You can collect customer e-mail addresses by asking visitors who visit your website to subscribe, requesting e-mail addresses from anyone visiting your physical location, or purchasing an e-mail list. To generate a higher readership rate, ensure the audience is narrowly targeted and has some vested interest in your product. By sending out your newsletter regularly (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.), you can counteract Internet users’ transient and temporary nature by continually reminding them of your company’s existence. Affordable services like Constant Contact can be used to manage mailing lists, statistics, and opt-in/out functions.
Caveat: Sending commercial e-mail messages to people who have not agreed to receive your mailings can result in severe fines and penalties from the federal government per terms of the CAN-SPAM Act. Newsletter content should appeal to your defined audiences, with industry- or product-related news and events, company-specific news and events, practical reference information, and interesting statistical and demographic information. The newsletter copy should publicize links to appropriate pages within your website. You must maintain one or more separate lists to send targeted messages to particular audiences (see Other Announcements below). You might combine all your lists to send a monthly newsletter and other bulletins to past or potential customers as appropriate.
Other Announcements
Other announcements are e-mailings that can consist of press releases, coupons, special notices, or anything you want to communicate specifically to members of one or more e-mail lists.
Search Engine Marketing, Pay-per-Click, and Display Advertising
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization means constructing a website that search engine spiders easily crawl, and it encompasses a variety of techniques designed to improve your site’s (or pages’) ranking on the search engine results page. The goal is for your site to be found by searchers looking for sites related to a certain keyword or phrase, such as “Little Red Wagon,” if you are in the business of selling toy wagons. SEO can be divided into on-page activities (e.g., amount of content, metadata, links, programming methods, and structural issues) and off-page activities (most importantly, obtaining links from other websites to your site).
Pay-per-click (PPC)
Pay-per-click advertising refers to text ads displayed on search engine results pages (versus “organic” results achieved by SEO) and other sites, usually in the margins. In the case of Google AdWords and Microsoft’s adCenter, you can open an account and specify the keyword(s) that, when searched for, will generate an ad that links to your website. You pay only when a searcher clicks an ad and is directed to your site. In the example below, the key phrase is “little red wagon,” and pay-per-click ads are located at the top (in yellow) and in the right-hand column (subtitled “Sponsored Links”). The first organic listing is “Little Red Wagon Foundation.
A few of the benefits of PPC advertising are that you know exactly how many people view your ads, how many of those viewers click through to your website, and (if you are using a site analytics tool) what they do once they reach your site. You can also start and stop running ads at a moment’s notice, experiment with any number of ads you like, and fund your campaign with as little as $10 to start.
Display Advertising
Display advertising, or banner advertising, means purchasing ad space on another website and placing a text and graphic ad with a link to your site. This technique is more complex and expensive than pay-per-click but can be very powerful if the right message is shown to a tightly focused audience. To achieve an optimal click-through rate (CTR), advertise on websites where you assume your target audience is visiting rather than a general interest website. Most marketers don’t purchase ad space directly from another website but use a banner ad network to automatically place ads on appropriate websites. A couple of the biggest names in display ad serving are DoubleClick and BurstMedia.
Social Media and Networking
Social networking is the latest buzz in the modern marketing arsenal. Read this list if you doubt its impact, especially on the under-40 population. However, small businesses with limited resources should carefully weigh the time spent and the potential benefits. Measuring the return on your investment can also be difficult for some of these tactics.
The general principle of “marketing” on social networking outlets is that people with similar interests will virtually congregate around Web content that discusses that interest. They may be interested in product information in reviews or personal opinions, but hard sale approaches are mostly discouraged and unproductive. Your goal is to become a trusted advisor, which usually means revealing your identity and at least some part of your personality. If that premise makes you uncomfortable, you might still find social networking sites valuable for market research. Find out what people are buying and why, then use that information to help shape your other marketing activities. The following section describes the more popular social media outlets and sites, but keep your eyes open for new virtual spaces where you might get more attention by getting in on the ground floor.
YouTube, Facebook, Etc.
YouTube allows you to post videos on your own “channel,” a distinct web page that can be customized. It also allows you to post links back to your website. A major positive aspect of this venue is that the number of views is posted, and viewers can submit comments, so you know whether your videos are popular and why.
Facebook is considered the model for modern social networking sites. Facebook allows you (individual, corporate, non-profit, etc.) to create a page, attract “likes” and reviews, and communicate with followers by posting status updates, photos, videos,eos, etc.
Although the previously named sites are the most popular for visitors, some business-oriented networking sites may be more useful for making business connections. LinkedIn helps you develop a network of clients, service providers, and subject experts; find business opportunities and partners; post job openings; and more. More detailed advice on best practices for using LinkedIn can be found in many online articles and blogs.
Think of Twitter as a mini-blog (see below) that allows you to broadcast messages of 140 characters or less. The messages appear to your “followers” on their phones or computers and on Twitter.com. The biggest challenges are gaining useful followers and thinking of something engaging to write to them. If you are a speaker, writer, or performer, Twitter can be used to let your fans know what you’re doing and when. If you have a retail store, you might tell your followers that you’re offering a discounted item or running a special sale. You should post a Twitter sign-up link on your website and within your signature line in outgoing e-mail messages. You can also gain followers by following people who work in or comment on your industry, as some Twitter users will follow those who follow them.
Blogs
The word blog originally came from the term “Weblog.” There’s no standard for a blog, but authors commonly use it to comment on (and link to) other online news items, websites, or other Internet content. For the most part, direct selling on a blog is frowned upon and is probably a recipe for driving away potential readers. What do you write about, then? Well, if you run an Internet marketing firm, you write about trends in Web marketing, what the search engines are up to, tips for do-it-yourselfers, or what you thought of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Seriously, read some blogs, and you will find all sorts of personal opinions mixed in with professional advice and commentary. However, your blog’s goal should most likely be establishing yourself as an expert and trusted advisor in your chosen field.
You might also pursue getting your products, services, or website mentioned in related blogs by other industry experts. When a high-visibility blogger mentions a website on their blog, the site is exposed to a potential audience of new viewers. Often, blog postings are simply press releases picked up by sites that discuss topics related to a particular product or industry. Developing relationships with individual bloggers can increase opportunities (and traffic) in this arena.
Additional Tips:
- Post an article written by someone else; just be sure to provide a link to the original article and give credit to the person who wrote it. You can then comment on the article’s topic or find a way to relate the information to local trends or challenges.
- Ask colleagues to be “guest bloggers” by writing articles for you to post. Again, give them credit and add their byline and a link to their website. Using links is a good way to drive additional traffic to their sites, so it’s a good trade-off for both parties.
- Nick Francesco of AskNick.com said, “A blog gets people’s attention, and Twitter keeps it.” Consider using these two outlets together.
Forums & Discussion Groups:
A forum (a discussion group, message board, or bulletin board) is a website component where users can ask questions, offer advice, or share experiences with others about a topic. Nearly every hobby on earth has several popular forums wherein members offer their thoughts and feelings on all aspects of their favorite pastime. Contributing a comment (with a link to your website) in discussion groups related to your products or services can create a small surge or spike in traffic but usually has a little long-lasting effect. To maximize effectiveness, target forums on high-traffic sites with 1,000+ users and reply to topics with larger numbers of views (relative to other posted topics).
With free or low-cost software, you can easily build your own site bulletin board/forum component. User forums can greatly increase a site’s ” stickiness, ” given the critical traffic required to generate new discussions and keep participants interested in returning. You can start by “seeding” topics alone, but there won’t be any results until traffic is directed to the forums. The problem for small businesses may be the time required to moderate a forum once it becomes successful. One solution is to seek a volunteer moderator interested in your field. A sample of a baseball trading card forum is shown in the screenshot below.
Article Placement / E-Zines:
Another avenue for generating incoming links and traffic to your site is the free article market. Article submission (or e-zine) websites allow you to publish articles on various topics. Examples include EzineArticles and ArticleCity.com. Depending on terms of use, these articles may be used as content on other websites or collected on the site where submitted. Most article contributors’ main objectives are to increase their search engine rankings with backlinks on other reputable sites. Providing reliable and accurate reference information is secondary, and the traffic potential from article readers is questionable.
Obtaining links from article submission sites isn’t likely to improve your site’s search engine rankings much. However, existing content from a print newsletter or other written material can be re-purposed with a relatively small time investment. Be aware that creating articles from your website’s content verbatim may cause search engines to penalize your site, as the search engines take a dim view of text that is republished multiple times (“duplicate content” in search engine optimization terms). Submitting articles to sites with the most traffic will give your site the best chance to be discovered by new readers. Caveat: Once an article is submitted, you have little or no control over who uses your content and for what purpose, depending on the site’s copyright policies.
