Online marketing

Practically any offline business can benefit from Internet marketing. Even if you have a genuine fear of all things computer you should consider employing at least one of the ideas below. Certainly, these ideas work for both products sellers and service sellers. For example, I use them in my law practice. Here are a few to consider:

E-Mail List: Relationships are the basis of every successful business. E-mail is a great way to build and nurture relationships with your prospects and customers. That is, every business (offline or online) should have a list of customers and prospects. Email is a very fast, cost effective way of communicating with this important group of people. For example, it can be used to notify these groups about a special price you have for your product or service. It can communicate new benefits (or solutions) offered by your products and services, etc.. Needless to say in order to have an email list you must have a way to collect the addresses. The easiest way to collect these addresses is a subscription form on your business website (see below). Next in the order of importance is a way to quickly yet privately communicate with your entire email list at the same time. This is known as “broadcasting.” Broadcasting ability is great for privacy and security because the email is sent out so that there is no way to see the email addresses of any other member. There are a number of online companies that offer the ability to collect email addresses, maintain a database and broadcast to the entire list at the same time privately. Business Website: Without question every single business should have a website, even if it’s a simple website. There are multiple purposes for a website. They can be used to inform and educate. They can be used to sell products and services and they can be used as a prospecting tool with the sole purpose of collecting email addresses (see above). Not to worry if you are a total computer neophyte there are easy fill-in-the-blank website templates available through website hosting companies. With these companies you can register a domain name (e.g. http://www.yourbusinessname.com/), set up your website with a pre-made template and buy hosting for your site all with the same company – and its relatively inexpensive. For example, you can register your domain for as little as $5.99 a year and get hosting for your new business site for around $11.00 per month. In any event, if you don’t have a business website you absolutely MUST get one. Shopping Cart: If you sell products and services offline, why not sell them online too? You can do this by attaching what is known as a “shopping cart” to your business website (see above). A good shopping cart will take your orders, process them through a merchant (credit card) account, notify you and your buyer of the order and even forward the order to whoever does your order fulfillment.Internet marketing techniques can truly enhance the profitability of your offline business. Now don’t be afraid. Employing these techniques need to not be complicated. Just tackle one at a time and once you have one up and running go on to the next. (Hint: If you don’t have a business website up yet, start with that.) See the resource box below for specific recommendations.

By: Daniel Hall