Marketing your business online: Four steps to success
Posted by David Malone in Marketing & PR on Sun, 29/04/2012 - 18:39
David Malone, divisional telesales manager at Yell UK and a Northern Ireland judge for The Pitch 2012, offers advice on how to effectively market your small business online.
1. Establishing your online presence
When building your online brand it is vital to do the basics well. Start with a great website, claim your Google Places page, open a Facebook page and a Twitter account, get listed on Yell online (a standard listing is free), and frequently update your online pages and content at least once a week.
Make your website engaging and give your business a voice by adding videos and blogs. These are excellent ways to connect with customers (and prospective customers) and help significantly towards building your business’ image and reputation.
Tip: Don’t forget to link your website from all sites you engage in (for example, Facebook and Twitter) back to one common place, which would be your website. So if prospective customers find you on Twitter they should very easily be able to find your website through links in your Twitter feeds or through your Facebook updates.
2. Investing in social media
Having a good website is the first step towards successfully marketing your business. As a business owner you can be guaranteed a large portion of your customers – and potential customers - are likely to spend a lot of time online, especially on social sites. This is an opportunity for you to engage with a large audience and present the ‘human’ side of your business.
Social media is really just word of mouth amplified. It’s about joining in conversations and building relationships. When building your online brand, remember it is not about overtly selling your products. Creating a successful online presence means building relationships, which takes time. These relationships build up slowly and so the more time you invest the more rewards you’ll reap.
Tip: Have you joined a forum? Spend time finding online forums relevant to the type of business you do. If you can think of an activity, interest or anything that has an impact on people’s lives, there’s probably a forum where people are talking about it.
3. Know what people are saying
Know what people are saying about your type of business or industry. One of the simplest steps to take is to sign up for free Google Alerts. Set up alerts for your company name, the names of competitors and perhaps general terms significant to the industry you are involved in.
You will receive email updates of the latest results from the search engine which mention your selected keywords or phrases. Visit www.google.com/alerts to get going.
Keep an eye on what people are saying about you or your industry online. If you happen to find negative comments reply where appropriate. Show people you are listening, and if you can turn situations around you have positive PR for everyone to see.
Upload videos to sites such as YouTube, and then use code to add the videos in other places. Remember too that Flickr is more than an online portfolio for professional photographers. Consider what you could photograph and upload to Flickr and include links back to your other online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and your website.
Tip: Free online monitoring tools, such as HootSuite and TweetDeck, can be used to monitor who is talking about you or your industry.
4. Encourage customers to leave reviews
It is now easier than ever before to for people to talk about their experiences with businesses and share their views. Whether this is leaving a review on a site such as Yell reviews or simply sharing their views with friends on sites like Facebook or Twitter, reviews help build trust between consumers and businesses.
Don’t be afraid of reviews and encourage your customers to leave online feedback. Although not all reviews may be five star rated, the do provide an opportunity to engage with online communities and show that you care about the services you provide.
The best way to protect your brand is to give great service and meet your customers’ needs. It is also the best way to promote your brand online as people will share great experiences they've had. Indeed it may come as a surprise to some, but many more people share great experiences than bad ones.
Tip: Encourage your customers to leave online reviews whenever possible. This is the best way to guard against the odd negative review and it enlists your customers to help market your business. It is also a great source of free information on what your customers think about your business.
David Malone will of one of the expert judges picking 20 entrepreneurs from Northern Ireland to pitch for the chance to win £50,000 worth of business support in The Pitch 2012. They will be joined by another 60 business owners from England, Wales and Scotland. Will you be one of them? Enter The Pitch 2012 by 31 May by clicking here.
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