If you’re an entrepreneur using the Internet to make a living there are always new ideas, new changes and new information to learn. Online marketing changes fast and changes often and sometimes it’s hard to keep up. With that in mind we put together a list of some excellent online marketing tips that every entrepreneur can use to build client lists, attract visitors to their websites and increase profits. Enjoy.
Tip 1:Take good care of your website. Here’s the thing; there are literally millions of websites online and, if you have any hope of attracting visitors, keeping them on your site and converting them into customers, your website better be attractive, have excellent content and be extremely easy to navigate. If it is you will be among the 10% of websites that actually follow these three rules.
The fact is, if you haven’t updated your website in at least the last 2 years the new technologies that have come about have basically rendered it obsolete. If you want it to be a lean, mean, money making machine, updating it and keeping it full of fresh content is the only way to go. If you don’t, you might as well not have a website at all because people are much too busy today to deal with a website that isn’t top-notch.
Tip 2: Stop using “megaphone” or “shotgun” marketing. These two catchwords basically mean the same thing; shouting out your advertising to people and interrupting them with either print, yellow page, directory or untargeted banner advertising. Cold calling and “email blasts” fall into this category as well. The simple fact is that today’s consumer doesn’t want to be interrupted by your marketing, they want to be in control of the information they receive if they are searching for a new product or service.
Tip 3: Start using “magnet” marketing. The opposite of “megaphone” marketing is magnet marketing and, like the name implies, it attracts people to your products or services and puts them in control. It also helps you to earn their trust and build an affinity for your brand. Magnet marketing includes content marketing like blogs, white papers and so forth, search engine optimization, marketing on social media websites like Facebook and pay-per-click advertising. One excellent advantage to magnet marketing is that, in general, it’s less expensive. Research shows that the cost per lead is 62% lower with magnet marketing then with megaphone marketing, which is obviously a huge savings.
Tip 4: Content marketing is the way of the future. As we mentioned in Tip 3, one type of “magnet” marketing is content marketing. Content marketing offers you a platform to engage directly with customers and visitors to your website through search engines, blogs and social media websites. “Content” is simply the information that you give on your various online sites and can include valuable info (like this blog, for example), entertaining information and even “how to” videos. You can put together a free e-Book or a “white paper” as well, content that will greatly increase the affinity that your visitors have for your brand and also increase the chance that they will actually make a purchase.
The simple fact today is that people aren’t going to choose to do business with your company just because you have the product that they are looking for or even the best price. What they want to know is that you stand behind your product, have specialized knowledge that will help them and will continue to help them even after they make their purchase. Excellent content can help you to do that as well as make you the “expert” in your particular field.
Tip 5: Use Responsive Design for your website. As amazing as it might seem, mobile devices like smart phones and tablets have actually surpassed desktop and laptop computers as the most common access point to the web. Is your website built on a “responsive design” platform? If not, you should definitely have it updated. Responsive design platforms will adapt your website to all of the different sizes of tablets and smartphones, making them easier to navigate and showing your content in the best possible way.
Tip 6: Don’t forget to brand yourself. Social media giant LinkedIn (now the second largest social media website on the web) has made “personal online branding” the norm. The fact is, if someone wants to know about you all they need to do is “Google” your name to find out, well, all sorts of interesting information. Building a personal online brand is a great way to give them information about yourself that you yourself have created. It will come in handy when selling, building business partnerships and even finding a “job”. (Not that we recommend you get a real job or anything crazy like that.) Since there is no way to actually keep people from finding out about you online, better to embrace the fact that they can and take charge of your online image yourself.
We hope you enjoyed today’s blog and that the Tips and advice were valuable and insightful. If you want a great example of “content marketing”, it is Blogs like this one. We’ve given you, our dear readers, some valuable and insightful information and in exchange we expect that some of you will become our customers and purchase our services. You can do the same exact thing on your own websites and, before long, people will love you just as much as they love us. (You do love us, yes? Good.)
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