Grow an Online Marketing Strategy
In the previous post, we talked about how to dip your toe into online marketing, in this post we’ll look at how you can take it to the next level.
Find out what works
It’s worth researching some of the websites that get a lot of traffic. Many of these are very big businesses, but nevertheless, you can get useful ideas about what might also work for you. For example, if a large e-commerce website regularly promotes their sales or promotions via email, consider using the same strategy in your business. Bear in mind that part of the beauty of the online world is the levelling effect. Smaller businesses can compete pretty effectively if they get their social networking right, and know their target market well.
What’s the next guy up to?
How can you add value for potential customers, without copying exactly what your competitors are doing? Perhaps they have a high quality FAQ section, for example. Rather than attempt to produce an even better general FAQ, can you host an interactive online forum where people can get answers to specific questions?
Strategy and tactics
Decide which brand features and brand values you want to highlight, and link those goals to specific outcomes. You’ll market differently according to whether you want people to call you for coaching services, or go to your online store to buy furniture. You might find regular social media updates are key to your business, or sending out a regular email newsletter works for your customers.
Sustaining the energy
Digital marketing isn’t once and done. To be effective, it needs a sustained energy input and when that’s your energy and time, you need to budget carefully. The more channels you want to engage with, including the use of regular newsletters, and regular social media updates, the more time it’s likely to take away from actually delivering services or selling products. When this is likely to be an issue, decide where your personal red line is, and seriously consider outsourcing anything beyond.
