More and more companies are trying to sell their products and services online. At the same time, small businesses are looking for a cost effective and efficient ways to market their product and services with limited budget.
Based on my experience in developing websites for small businesses, following I have listed 9 step process on how you can also start marketing your online product or service with limited budget:
Step 1: Develop a marketing strategy. Identify your goals, an outcome of the promotion. Identify the target market – the demographic (such as age, gender, location etc) of your market segment. Develop a time line as to when do you expect to archive your goal, so that you can fine-tune your strategy based on the results. You should also identify how you plan to reach your targeted market.
Step 2: Develop a website that list your product and service identified in your marketing plan.
Step 3: Optimize your website to generate traffic. You want to make your website search engine friendly, so that it is listed on their search engine. Several sites on Internet provide ideas for optimizing your website. For example, Google’s website http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#1 provides few ideas on website optimization. Also, run your pages through free web optimization tools such as http://www.metatags.com/ to make sure all your pages are search engine friendly.
Step 4: Use social media for online marketing. Join online social media such as facebook (It’s free!) and twitter (It’s free!). It is important that you use the online social media correctly; otherwise, you will lose people’s interest. Eventually, you do want the people on your network to go to your site. There is a lot of tips available on the Internet for best practices on using online social network for business.
For more informaiton on online social media for business, visit 10 reason to use Twitter for Business and I signed my company up for an account on facebook now what
Step 5: Create a Blog to talk about your product and/or services. You can use social media to drive your traffic to your blog and company website.
Step 6: Convert visitor to customer. Once you have the traffic to your website, you want to convert these visitors to your customer. Give them a reason, such as discount, free e-book, tips & trick etc, for them to join your mailing list. Finding a new customer is always more expensive than a satisfied returned customer.
Step 7: Use Web Analytical tool such as Google Analytics (It’s free!) to analyze the buying partner of the visitors to your site.
Step 8: Based on website analysis, fine-tune your website to meet customer’s need. If there are gaps in what customer need and what you are selling, then develop an affiliate membership or partnership with companies that will help fill the gaps to provide a complete package to the customer. A satisfied customer is the best advertisement.
Step 9: Use Google AdSense to advertise your product or service (for free). Use the Adsense to acquire new customers both online and offline.
Vazi Okhandiar, MCT, PMP, MBA, MSCS
Vazi has over 20 years of experience in Project Management and IT Training. She is certified by Project Management institute, Microsoft and CompTIA. She has an MBA from University of California and a Master in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology. She has worked for United Nations, General Motors, Toyota, EDS/HP and Mitsubishi. Her expertise includes project management, architecture, design and implementation of software development projects for various industries including manufacturing, financial, healthcare, and automotive. Vazi has been awarded as “Excellence in Development” for an Electronic Billing System by Mitsubishi’s telecommunication division, and Product Data Management System at Electronic Data Systems (EDS).
About NR Computer Learning Center:
NR Computer Learning Center (NRCLC), located in Orange County in California, is an Authorized training Center for Microsoft, CompTIA and CIW. NRCLC provides hands-on classroom instructor led training, corporate training, online training and training videos. NR Computer Learning Center specializes in providing computer training to small and mid-sized companies to improve productivity and efficiency using QuickBooks, Microsoft Office and Website development. Visit http://www.nrclc.com for more information.
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