Attracting New Customers Through Effective Web Strategies
In part 4 of our series on attracting new local customers to your business, we are going to examine effective and extremely inexpensive ways of doing that very thing by using the world wniide web. Lots of options are available which give small business owners exponentially more exposure than do traditional methods of marketing. In the January 25, 2008 report on cnnmoney.com, Shara Rutberg offers some very helpful guidelines for your web site and the effective role it can play in your overall marketing strategy. Here is a portion of what she suggests–
Start by taking a hard look at your website, suggests William Rice, President of the Web Marketing Association. “Optimize your web pages so they’re search engine-friendly,” says Rice. “Make sure they don’t have a lot of Flash animation, which blocks search engines.”
“Another easy way to reach your specific audience is by key word advertising through companies like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500),” Rice adds.
You can also hire a company to build you an email list of potential customers, just as they would build lists of physical addresses for direct mail pieces. “Be sure to buy the list from a trusted source,” says Rice. “Make sure that the lists are opt-in, or double opt-in, meaning that the people on the list really want to hear from you. Spamming people can really put your brand in jeopardy.”
There are other options. “Look into purchasing banner ads on websites within your targeted industries,” says Marla Schrager, Executive Director of the Business Marketing Association of Chicago, the largest chapter of the national Business Marketing Association.
One of the biggest mistakes small companies make with their web marketing is “not having analytics on each page of their site so you know where every user is coming from, what’s driving traffic and what’s converting into sales,” says Rice. “You can do this by installing a very simple program.”
“eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) might be your silver bullet,” adds Gary Slack of Slack Barshinger, an integrated marketing communications agency with a specialty in b2b clients. “Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people earn their livelihoods selling wholesale lots on eBay,” says Slack. “Their biggest challenge is finding stuff to sell. You could reach them by advertising on ebaybusiness.com, the business-to-business portal of eBay. It could work like magic.”
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