Seven golden rules of online marketing:
1. You must set-aside a marketing budget - It is not unheard of for new business owners to focus so much on the launching costs that at the end there is no or little budget for online marketing. Save where you can, for example consider starting with a bare minimum website to leave some capital for marketing. Even a dead simple website using a free site builder such as Google sites might work initially. By launching with the absolute basic of features you might keep a decent budget for marketing and later on for website tweaks.
2. Forget cool features, think accessibility - Unfortunately, the rule of thumb is the more sophisticated the website is, the more problems you are likely to face. Each website has a different demographics of users and almost always some users will be using an obscure browser which might not work well with your website resulting in missed revenue. Consider keeping the website simply and test it before going live in all the major browsers using a free utility such as browser shots.
3. Forget web traffic, think conversion rate - Conversion is the process of making a website visitor take an action. It could be in the shape of a purchase or even a phone call lead. The first step is to install Google Analytics a free web analytics tool from Google which will help you identify traffic sources. The second step is to analyse your web traffic and increase conversion rates by understanding what actions visitors are taking on your site or not.
4. Paid advertising is fantastic, but at a price - All the major search engines will offer you the possibility to buy ads based on certain keywords of your choice which will be displayed once users search for the keywords. Although this marketing channel sounds and is very attractive, it comes at a price. If you are not paid search savvy yet, if you haven't selected the right keywords or if the website conversion rate is low using paid ads might lose money rather than make money, so approach with caution .
5. Organic non-paid web traffic is essential - In your marketing mix you will soon discover that the organic traffic channel is the most cost effective. Therefore it makes sense to invest your time building up this channel, though there are no quick wins here and it might take months before you will see visitors originating from the organic non paid search results.
6. Multi-channel marketing is more feasible than you might think - The purpose of multi channel marketing is to use a combination of different marketing channels, some complementing others aimed at reaching as many potential customers as possible. For example, if the business is selling products online consider using channels such as eBay, Amazon and even the free Google Base which will allow you to list products at no cost. Your products could potentially appear in the search results page and drive qualified web traffic to the business.
7. Customers will happily assist with your marketing if you ask - A happy customer is a good customer. Now you can take this notion a step forward and help your customers help you. Social recommendations the kind that a friend or family member will tell another about a positive experience they had will likely result in a conversion. To achieve this, first make sure your website has an option to share a page, email an article and even bookmark a product using one of the free social sharing button such as addthis. Once in place, actively encourage customers to spread the word about the business by adding this message to your emails, at the end of your articles and even using the company email signature.
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