If someone came to you and offered you new clients, would you turn them down? Of course you wouldn’t, so why should marketing online be any different to face to face? In this incredibly digital age, more and more people are searching, reading and buying online than ever before. Therefore any business should be concentrating on building an online presence to target this audience. Ignoring the internet marketing platform is effectively like turning down new business.
Why You Should Build an Online Presence
The mistake small businesses tend to make when setting up their business, is to not build their online presence at the same time. With a lot of things going on, it is easily done, but you will regret it further down the line. Creating an online presence is not as simple as setting up a website and thinking you are done, it takes time. But the benefits are completely worth it.
So what is an online presence? In basic terms, it is creating a virtual version of your business on the web and all forms of social media, so that customers can read about your company and product or service after business hours.
Why should you build one? The main benefit of an online presence is having a greater reach. Your online business is not limited by face-to-face interactions, it reaches out to everyone who comes across your virtual doorstep, whether it is a client next door or in the next country. If done well, your presence will be impossible to ignore and you will start to build your brand and the trust of new potential customers in your company.
How to Build an Online Presence
Research
To create an effective online presence, you first need to conduct some research on your target audience. What are their needs? Their expectations and preferences? Signing up to relevant groups will help with this, as well as noting what your competitors are doing or saying.
Decide What Mediums to Use
The aim of creating a strong online presence is two-fold: to spread awareness of your company and your products or services, and to sell them as you have assured your clients that they are the best and most trustworthy. In order to do this effectively, you will need to use the right types of internet marketing for your target audience. If you identify the right mediums to use, your online presence will be more dominant and therefore recruit more clients for you. It will also ensure that your time is better spent on your core business!
Types of internet marketing:
Email marketing – This is the best way for small businesses to communicate with new and existing clients and to stay in the forefront of their minds. By keeping in regular contact with people that you met in networking events, you become their go-to-person for that particular service whether for themselves or to recommend to another client.
Article/Blog marketing – Both of these methods are used to sell your business and its products in different ways. Article marketing involves writing a professional piece about your business and publishing it on an online marketing website with a link back to your website, while blog marketing is a more personal piece about your experiences whilst subtly selling yourself and your services.
Paid advertising – This involves paying to get your ad on relevant websites or business directories to enlist yourself as an active business organization.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – The aim of this marketing is to optimize your website so that it appears on the search engine when your clients type in relevant key words to your business. This takes a lot of work.
Social media marketing – These are the most common ways to advertise your business due to their popularity and the huge demographic that they reach. Social media is by far the most effective form of marketing as long as you get creative and invest time in pursuing your target audience!
All of these types of internet marketing will help you create a dominant online presence, driving traffic to your online business and converting a percentage into sales. So set aside some time, whether that is an hour a day or on the weekend, to create your virtual brand and get in front of people. Because at the end of the day, if you’re not digitally shouting, how do you expect people to know you exist?
How I Use Email Marketing:
For companies in need of building their online presence, I first help them work on their communication with their clients and contacts. After all what’s the point of building your presence when you’re not driving people to your pages? I run all my campaigns through MailChimp, writing monthly blogs, publishing and sharing them on all social media platforms, and sending out a monthly newsletters to clients to keep them interested! Consistent communication is the key to digital success.
Does this interest you?
Contact [email protected] for any queries or more information.
