The Basics of Marketing your business online
Marketing your brand.
Online. Effectively.
Growing your business.
Their are same basic presuppositions that play a major role in how you think about and do internet marketing:
1. Internet Marketing is Marketing
Though online marketing utilizes the internet as a medium to promote a business, the medium is not the message. The message (about your business, products, and services) still has to be conveyed using well structured and easy accessible information.
The fact is that people go online to get the information they need. Even if they are only looking for a telephone number for your business. Therefore the focus in online marketing is still to get the message about your business across to prospective customers. It is all about effectively boosting your brand, making your business visible, and getting you new customers. If this focus is lost, you will just have a great website – without getting any new customers.
2. Internet Marketing is both about Marketing… and about servicing your potential customers
ometimes business people think that the internet is a magic wand that will change the fat eof their business, The fact, however, is that online marketing will only convince people provisionally to use your services ot buy your products. It will only convince them to give your business a try.
They will only become new (and poermanent) customers if you are able to convince them with the authority you have and the way you treat them. This means that you have to have a clear strategy and process to work with potential customers phoning you after browsing your website. All your staff will also hav ete be trained to do it right and make their contribution to win an new, permanent customer.
Without having this part of your marketing strategy in place, a website (however visually attractive and informative it may be) will not help you to grow your business.
3. Internet Marketing will cost you money… and you have to determine whether it is worth your while
When it comes to marketing, people are often unreasonably stingy. They want customers but they do not want to make an investment to get new customers.
To overcome this obstacle, you should determine your cost…. and your possible wins (ROI). And you have to do it realistically.
The first way to determine if it will be worthwhile, is to determine what your income from a single client will be. If (for example you remodel kitchens) a single customer for a single transaction might be worth R12,000.00 to you. This means that you have to get only one additional customer per year to justify an expenditure of R1,00.00 a month for 12 months – keeping your business visisble at all times.
The second way is to determine what the worth of a lifetime customer will be to your business. From this perspective the expenditure will easier to justify.
4. You have to Understand the new context of marketing and the implications for business
The internet started a revolution that was far greater than the invention of the Gutenberg Press. With the recent (and radical) development in internet technology, information is now immediately accessable. On your tablet, laptop or cellphone.
And this has changed the face of marketing. Using flyers and advertisements in local newspaper no longer flies. It is just to short lived to create the marketing momentum your business needs.
And if you are not accessable on the internet – easily accessable – you will have a hard time to get new customers. Even more so as time passes and people live more and more in the virtual reality offered by the internet.
5. You have to consider and choose between different internet marketing models.
There are many options to utilize online marketing. You can take on the steep learning curve (and the extensive amounts of time it will take) to do it yourself. You can apoint a person (full or part time) to do it. You can contract an large internet marketing company to do it for you.
If, however, you are a small business owner these option might not be viable. The alternative is to get a small company or single person to do it for you on a part part-time basis. This means that you leave everything to them – with the agreement that they will market your business effective for a smaller monthly payment. And you only concern yourself with the results (i.e. boosting your brand, making your business visible, making the phone ring and getting new customers.
6. You have to take into account that your main website is the foundation of any internet marketing effort
Internet marketing is a complex and varied group of processes, including (for example) social media marketing, image management, Google adwords advertisements, copywriting, email campaigns, etc. And you can easily get caught up in the different ways of online marketing.
The fact is, however, that your main website will always be your “storefront” in the internet marketing world. This is where people will see your expertise, products and services. Your main website is also the main factor in how Google will present your business when people are searching for your products and services.
And that is why it is (and always wil be) the foundation of any online marketing efforts. It has to be carefully constructed – in looks, presentation of information, accessability and in the way it shows your authority in the field.
It also means that it has to get constant attention to keep up with changes in the Google algorithm and with general changes in the world of online marketing. It might also imply that the website has to be redesigned from time to time.