Four Powerful Tips for Marketing Your New E-Business
By Christine Hill
It takes a special person to start a business. You need to have vision, determination, and the skills of a Renaissance Man. However, with the connections of the internet, more and more people are setting up shop for themselves in the World Wide Web. While user-friendly platforms and e-commerce websites make it easier and easier to set up your site, the fact remains that it takes some serious work to market your business and attract valuable customers.
I’ve worked as an online marketer for the past 5 years, and during that time, I’ve learned some important tips for making your business stand out among the crowd. Whether you’re a large corporation, or a mompreneur startup, here are 4 tips that can help you spread the word about your new business online:
1: Before Anything Else, Brand
You can talk until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t matter if your image keeps changing, if your aesthetic is completely forgettable, or design and content mistakes undermine your authority. That’s why you need to iron out your brand first. This includes:
- Choosing a logo, along with a correlating design scheme that will help people identify your company with just a glance at the colors, shapes, and fonts used.
- Deciding on a title, tagline, and content strategy that will support your efforts in the future.
- Defining a company “persona.” This persona should be reflected in all your design and content choices. Are you modern and sleek? Maybe it’s best if your site reflects that with minimalist design. Are you warm, fun and approachable? Maybe that calls for some animations and caricatures to spice up your content. Are you saucy and bold? Make sure that it’s reflected in the things that you write, and the bright colors you use.
- Identifying your target audience. Is all of this branding going to appeal to the people that you want to help build your company?
Once you’ve ironed out your branding, it’s important to make it consistent across all of your online (and in-person) efforts. Effective branding and a great logo means that your customers and prospective customers recognize you immediately in everything you do, as this article specifies.
2: There’s Social Media, and then there’s Smart Social Media
Social media is one of your greatest tools for building your brand. However, people often mismanage it. Especially if you’re a small and personal business, social media efforts will usually start with creating a baseline following out of your friends and acquaintances. So connecting your business with personal social media accounts could be useful. However, it can’t stop there, no matter what. You’ll never build an effective business when you’re always offering the friends and family discount. Build new, professional connections and mutually beneficial relationships. Offer promotions and incentives for new customers to follow and refer you. Always keep it classy, and interact consistently with your followers as time goes on, instead of just setting up your accounts and walking away.
Remember, also, that a certain amount of social media legwork will have to happen in person, not online. Don’t discount the value of face-to-face contacts, even for an online business. That might mean making in-person contracts with other businesses that can help yours, going to conventions where you can meet other industry professionals, and setting up booths at local fairs and perhaps stores that let you do promotional events.
3: Do Something that Creates Buzz
There’s one rule that every reporter worth his or her salt knows: in order to be on the news, you need to do something news-worthy. This means that you should never expect there to be buzz generated around your business unless you’re actually doing something remarkable. If you’re just like every other business in your niche, you’ll never garner outside attention beyond what you drum up yourself.
Here are some ideas to make buzz that speaks for itself and spreads like wildfire (i.e. it continues burning long after your own firewood is gone)
- Offer free samples and offers to early-comers, like Chik-fil-a does with every new location they open.
- Do a charitable drive that helps to connect you with the community (whether that’s a physical community, or just the tribe of people you want to connect with online).
- Make the business itself notable, and then reach out to a few publicity venues with your story.
- Make your customers and following a part of your buzz by getting them to relate to your brand. Invite them to share their own experiences on social media, but give it a fun twist so that people enjoy joining the conversation.
4: Build Connections that Matter
Did you know that how your site is ranked will depend in part on how it’s connected to the rest of the web? Links from reputable sites back to yours help build credibility, especially when they’re in the same field as you. This is just one way that good professional relationships can help you out.
This is an area that overlaps with social media, but it goes beyond that. Sure, you want a presence on the internet behemoths, like Facebook and Twitter, but you also want industry-specific network connections that are smaller but more concentrated and effective. For example, get on Houzz if you do home furnishings and decor. Talk on Sharecare if you’re a medical professional. If you sell homemade products, get an Etsy store even if you prefer to sell to people directly on your website. All of these are offshoots that lead people into your central hub (of your website, if that’s where you want them to end up.)
Important connections will also consist of carefully-chosen influencers who will help spread the word about your business. Often, these are online personalities with a lot of followers. However, before you hire one, do your research. Make sure that they actually get effective interaction from their followers, and that they reach your target demographic.
One more connection vital to the survival of your business is your “brand ambassadors” - customers and clients who adore you and are happy to spread the word. This article has some great tips for mobilizing them as a force for good for your business.
Christine is a professional writer and an avid reader who’s passionate about storytelling in all its forms. At any given moment, she’s in the middle of at least three books on anything from human psychology to ninjas. Although she’s a marathon swimmer and enjoys camping in the mountains, she believes there’s nothing better than a carton of ice cream and a Dawson’s Creek marathon.
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