1.
Use your
website address: Include your website address in all company
literature such as letterheads, business cards and even emails as
email signature. It is just like your telephone number, if people
don’t know your number you won’t be getting any calls. Branding is
very important and in case if you are only web based business, treat
your website as your brand.
2.
Exchange links:
Use a reciprocal link exchange with other sites. There are many free
link exchange programmes available on the internet, make good use of
them.
3.
Use email
marketing:
Make sure that your message is attractive enough for people to click
on that link. Create interest, generate curiosity. If you haven’t
got your own database, quite likely if you are new, buy in a mailing
list. Break up the mailing list/s into different groups and send
each one a different message. You don’t want to lose all your
potential customers with one bad email. Monitor the results of each
campaign. Read through the stats, again and again, to see what works
and what doesn’t.
NOTE: Stay legal. Before you embark on your email campaigns please
ensure that you read about email marketing laws on the Information
Commissioner’s Office website at www.ico.gov.uk. The most important
thing to remember is that you can only carry out unsolicited
electronic marketing if the person you're targeting has given you
their permission.
4.
Use viral
marketing:
Create something interesting in your email message that people would
happily forward to others, but make sure that the reader has got to
go to your website from that email.
5.
Use mobile
marketing:
The most cost effective way of using a mobile database is to send
out a text message inviting the user to win/take part in a
competition by going to your website.
Remember, lists cost money and electronic communication directive
applies (as explained above).
6.
Content is King:
Having good, unique and regularly updated content on your website
always guarantees repeat visits.
Publish exclusive coverage of an event/news: This is the same
process that sells newspapers and makes journalists. But, in the
case of the web, the news can be smaller, as long as it's deeply
tied to your industry or sector. Being the first to report is good,
but by also being the best report on the subject, you firmly
establish yourself as an excellent source for the current news and
the future.
Provide an online tool: The tool itself needs to serve a real
purpose (or make people laugh) and it needs to be unique. It needs
to create interactivity and/or provide a service to the user.
Use a blog: A successful blog can be the biggest marketing tool and
online traffic source for many small and medium business websites.
But, be prepared as the value may be best felt after months of
writing. Blog well and take advantage of the inherent traffic
provided by blog & RSS feed directories.
7.
Advertise
online: Spend some money and use Pay Per Click (PPC)
advertising. Join the Google Adwords Programme. It takes 20-25
minutes to join and you can start advertising with only a few quid.
Identify some relatively high-traffic search terms or phrases that
have a very rough relationship with your industry, business or site
but have little to no advertisers buying keyword advertising.
8.
Know your
customer:
Analysis, analysis, analysis..
Use Google Analytics, a free visitor tracking service providing
information on which keywords were used to get to your website and
the path they travelled within your site. Read them thoroughly, see
what they mean and tweak you pages accordingly. If you see people
coming all the way to ‘go to checkout’ page and yet not concluding
the sale, you need to see what is putting them off on the checkout
page.
Customer insight is vital. The more you know about your customers,
the better you can serve them. Remember the staff in your favourite
restaurant who always welcomes you by your name? Doesn’t that make
you feel important? Your customers deserve the same.
You can use some more advanced monitoring services such as
DynamicSiteStats.com (from $20/month) to IndexTools.com (at around
£136/month).
9.
Be found:
Make sure you make use of meta tags. A good ‘title’, an adequate
‘description’ and a clever selection of targeted keywords can make
all the difference when it comes to ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO).
Submit you site to all major search engines and directories. Getting
your site to the top of search engines is no magic. Good use of meta
tags, links pointing to your site and unique and fresh content are
the key factors in getting to the top 10 position on the search
engines.
Use Google Site Maps. Again a free service from Google that allows
you to tell Google when you update your content.
10.
Data capture: Offer something interesting that will compel people
to give you their personal details. Keep it minimal at first
contact, just their name and email address would do. Remember this
is your first date. You can always find out more about them over a
period of time. Categorise the database and use for targeted email
marketing.
Don’t forget to ask them to ‘opt-in’ to receive future
communications from you.
Customer data is extremely important and valuable. It is the
customer base that actually builds value to your business.
