| When you think about marketing you think of | | | | so you can cause a buzz. |
| advertising blocks on websites and billboards or | | | | - Write an authoritative resource that people can |
| television. These are the conventional methods | | | | download on the subject which will help with your |
| because they're effective and you can see results | | | | customers tasks and then tell a website you are giving |
| fast. You can also lose money fast if you make a | | | | it away for free if they will link to it and/or review it. If |
| mistake. As a small business you need to be | | | | the website is big enough and has enough users you |
| organized and keep track of your successes and | | | | can pay them to review it. Users on the internet love |
| failures and set budgets accordingly. Knowing where | | | | looking for information. Your resource will help build |
| the holes in your ship are often allows you to plug | | | | trust. |
| them. | | | | - The more you can interact with your online visitors |
| Free forms of advertising such as getting your site to | | | | the better, you want to find out their problems so you |
| the top of Google using SEO can be very lucrative but | | | | can help solve them. You need to make that |
| take a lot of work and time to accomplish, so need to | | | | interaction as seamless as possible, because people |
| be thought about very carefully. Obviously your entire | | | | are in the click mindset you can't expect them to fill out |
| plan requires careful consideration, but lengthy projects | | | | lengthy forms. I've seen people who have contact |
| can sometimes meet shipwreck before completion | | | | emails on their sites, but 90% of people won't bother to |
| and become useless. You can't afford to sink months | | | | think out what they want to write let alone actually |
| into a project only to have to pull the budget from it | | | | send the email. You've got to fill out as much as you |
| and move it to something else because then it's a sunk | | | | can for these people so it gets as close to just clicking |
| cost that you're unlikely to see a return on. | | | | a button as possible. |
| Tips and Ideas: | | | | Tools: |
| - Split test. By testing two different copies of a similar | | | | Like every industry marketing has been touched by |
| website, alternating each day or hour, you can see | | | | the computing movement. Drawing advertisements |
| which one is more effective. There are some who | | | | can now be accelerated with tools such as Adobe |
| claim this is the key to marketing and I agree that it | | | | Photoshop. What does this mean for your small |
| ranks right up there. | | | | business though. Marketing is a huge topic which also |
| - Give people a reason to talk about you. Just having a | | | | influences product selection and design. It consists of |
| good product won't suffice here. It has to be | | | | parts each of which has tools that allow you to speed |
| remarkable and unusual to make people talk. Doing | | | | up the process. One of the things that you will likely |
| work in the community can give people in the | | | | find useful is a subscription to a keyword research tool |
| community reason to talk and get the newspapers to | | | | to allow you to see what your potential customers are |
| take notice. Obviously events like this need to be | | | | searching for and in what volume. |
| prepared and relevant people contacted beforehand, | | | | |