So the list of opportunities for small business owners looking to do more on the web this year is stupidly large.
Here’s just a handful off the top of my head, these really aren’t even advanced strategies – there’s easily more opportunity here than you could leverage in a year here and there’s plenty more tools, tactics and strategies out there if you get to the bottom of this list.
Analytics
Again, never before has it been easier to measure the performance of your marketing. Today we can record videos of actual visitor behaviour on your website (right down to mouse movements and clicks), track the source of phone enquiries – even track the keyword that caller used to find your website. If you want to measure it, chances are you can.
SEO (search engine optimisation)
How are people finding you? can they find you online by your business name? If you’re not taking advantage of tools (most of them FREE) like Google Places, Google Shopping, Google Webmaster tools or you haven’t at least optimised the on-page elements of your website you’re never going to rank as high as you could do so how are people going to find you?
Adwords for Search
Put simply, Adwords is a goldmine BUT unfortunately Google promotes it as a DIY platform but its really not any more…there’s probably as many dials, switches and settings as a 747 cockpit. When setup correctly Adwords is like magic, you put a dollar in and 2 dollars comes out. On the flipside, most DIY Adwords accounts are more like a pokey machine at the casino, put a bunch of money in and you occasionally get something back.
If you want to use Adwords you’re better off getting a professional – it will save you a bunch of time, money and headaches and you’ll actually get more customers out of it.
Email Marketing
For me, email marketing is the number #1 online marketing strategy in small business. There are more emails read per day than the number of website pageviews, Facebook & Twitter updates in the world, COMBINED.
Don’t confuse email marketing with sending big blanket email newsletters or discount promos, when done properly email marketing is super powerful.
I would ALWAYS focus on email marketing before Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other social network platform. There’s a whole bunch of videos on the website about using email marketing effectively and if you want more, just email me – brendan@thesearchengineshop.com
Facebook Business Pages
Facebook is becoming bigger and bigger and at around the 800 million user mark is HUGE! 95% of the time I’d say use Facebook before Twitter especially if you’re a retail focussed business – the engagement rate is much higher and the momentum and word of mouth is generally much more beneficial at the small business level.
Make sure you’re integrating your offline marketing with Facebook – it will make it 5x more powerful. Again, email marketing before Facebook and remember Facebook is about creating, maintaining and strengthening relationships, NOT about pimping your wares.
Facebook Ads
We’ve been doing a huge amount of Facebook Ad work lately. A fantastic tool for generating awareness about a product, brand or service. If you’re looking at this one, make sure you’re properly leveraging Adwords first. The Facebook Ad Management console is also a fantastic market research tool – check it out at facebook.com/ads
Unless you’re fully leveraging Facebook business pages and Facebook ads don’t start with Twitter. Twitter is more about building and connecting with peers and people in your industry, its been way overhyped as a “customer getting” tool.
Commercial Photography
I’m not going to sell you on this, a picture paints a thousands words. Click this link and you’ll see the difference proper photography can make to your brand and business.
Video
By video I don’t mean you pay someone thousands to make a TV commercial you put on your website. (these seem to be everywhere these days, and they are completely rubbish as a marketing tool – do you like watching ads on TV?) When done properly, video can be immensely powerful…even more than professional photography.
Here’s a few examples of video done well and without the hefty price tag:
Written Testimonials
Testimonials work, plain and simple. The more you have the better. All things being equal if a customer is deciding between you and a competitor they’re going to go with the business where they can see a track record of success. Here’s a perfect example of testimonials done well, 100s of them!
Having a system in place to get regular positive customer feedback is key – do you have one?
Professionally Written Sales Copy
Chances are you’re too close to your own business to write effective website or sales copy. Does your homepage answer the who, what, why, how of your business? Specifically:
- Who you are
- What you do
- Why choose you
- How to get in touch
What Now?
Clearly, this year its not the lack of opportunity that is going to hold you back – we discuss many of these tools and techniques in the Achieve More Online program and if you need help on one in particular, make sure you drop us a line – we’d be more than happy to hear from you. The key to making any of these tools work is ACTION. What ACTION are you taking this year?