Marketing on the internet is like marketing in the real world. You have to have a plan before you do it. There are many strategies being used every day to drive people to websites. To begin driving people to yours, first let's think about what the purpose of your site is.
Think of your website as the platform to showcase your service/product. Another way to look at it would be to view your site as your showroom. A showroom performs the basic function of allowing the public to view what you are selling. Now if you think of some of the tools a business uses to get people into their showroom, you might come up with flyers, direct mailing, TV & radio commercials, and the guy who stands outside in the bear outfit waving at traffic.
With your website, you have tools to bring traffic into your showroom as well. Some of these tools include email, web banners placed on other sites, blogs, and social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The great thing about the internet is that you can have access to these tools for little to no charge.
Email
The word email stands for electronic mail. With an email account you have the ability to send messages out to anyone else with an email address. Google the words Email Marketing and you will quickly see how many companies provide the service of helping businesses market with email. It is considered to be one of the most successful ways to market online.
It is important to remember that everyone receives unsolicited emails all the time. Using software to send out random emails to every address in the world is not that effective and actually can be a huge turn off. To use email in a smart way, a business should require email address from customers who are actually interested in their service/product. Building an email list from scratch does not have to be the most time consuming thing ever. Always make sure that you ask for the email address of every potential customer you have. It is also wise to have a place on your webpage for people to leave their email address.
You may be wondering, How do I get people to just volunteer their email address? The most successful way is to provide a free newsletter about your product. It is an old cliché, but people really do like free things. Nach Maravilla of www.powerhomebiz.com writes One of the most effective marketing tools you can use to promote your web site is a regular newsletter. A newsletter -- whether daily, weekly or monthly -- gives you a chance to connect with your more loyal visitors. It gives a reason for your audience to come back to your site, peruse your new content and check out your current offerings
Your newsletter also helps build important trust between client and business. It says that you know what you are talking about. Use your newsletter keep relevant in people's minds. The goal is for people to visit your site before they do anyone else's. Just make sure that the information you email out is put together in a professional manner. You do not want to lose customers because you are coming off as amateur.
Besides your newsletter, you can use email to remind customers of upcoming sales, provide exclusive online coupons, and inform them of upcoming products/services you will soon be providing.
Remember, you want traffic in your showroom. Email is the attention getter to get them in. Sort of like that strange tall balloon man you see in front of car lots, just not full of hot air.
On part 3 of my Internet Marketing series, I will discuss how using web banners and working with other websites is a great idea. Please leave a comment and I will make sure to reply back.