Given the role that Internet plays today, it’s hard to imagine that Internet didn’t even enter business conversation until the mid-1990s. Well, barely a decade later, the issue is no longer whether small businesses should dive into the field of online marketing, but rather, how they should plan and implement their online presence.
Most businesses equate using the internet with building a website, but even without a site you can take advantage of opportunities to use e-mail, keep an eye on your competition, and connect with networks. Once you create a website, your opportunities expand even further. Instead of walking or phoning into your business, your prospects meet you online. Design your site to make a good impression by having a clean interface, efficient service, easy-to-access information, and quick response to prospect needs. Use your site the way you’d use a toll-free number. Send e-mails and ads to your prospects, get your site ranked in search engines and put banner ads in other high traffic sites. Also use your site to sell your products to current and new customers.
How to put a tab on your competition?
Go online as if you were a customer searching for services or products like the ones you sell. Find and monitor your competitor’s sites in the same way that you watch the brick-and-mortar competitors to evaluate how they might impact your business. Go to search engine and enter combinations of words that people might use to define your offering. The results reveal how you are placed vis-a-vis your competitor. You can also sign up for electronic newsletters offered on the competitor’s site and buy their products online so as to rate your purchasing and delivery experience.
Putting your website to work
If you’re trying to reach prospects outside your current market area, if you want to enhance your customer service by offering 24-hour access for those wishing to place or track orders, if you want your customers to find the latest news about your business, then you are probably in the market for a website. To make your website work for you, you need to define how prospects and customers will use your site, define your goal for the site, commit to the cost which includes site construction, hosting, and support and last but not the least be ready to market your site.
For small businesses, online presence gives more effectiveness and drives more revenue than a brick-and-mortar office. So, it becomes all the more important to plan out a well-designed website and online marketing techniques. You can also use it for e-commerce. E-commerce sites are to be constructed with security and privacy features built-in.
Blogging
Apart from hosting a website, you can communicate about your business through blogging. It keeps the prospects updated about your business, helps to build long-term relationship, get instantaneous customer feedback, etc. Firms can use blogs to share expertise and information with colleagues, suppliers, customers, and employees.
Some Dos and Don’ts
- Treat your website like other marketing materials. Launch it when it is ready and not a second before.
- Do protect ownership of your site by adding a copyright notice followed by the year at the bottom of the home page.
- Do keep your site clear, clean, usable, and easy to navigate.
- Avoid any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. A website builds the first impression on the prospect about your level of professionalism and quality of content.
- Don’t assume that customers who need personal assistance would wait till someone is available in your office. He will directly switch to your competitor.
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