How To Build An Online Marketing Strategy

Over the next few months, I will be outlining how you can build your business with online business growth strategies and tactics.

The market has shifted dramatically over the past few years.  Most people under the age of 55 now look first for information online.  Online marketing is about putting your business where your customers are looking for it.

The reality of today’s marketplace is that the majority of buyers are online. The world is online. Google has all but replaced the phonebook and the newspaper as the first place people go to find the answers to the problems in their lives. Best hair salon in Chicago? Giada De Laurentiss Shrimp Fra Diavolo Recipe? Thai Restaurant in New York City? Natural remedies for a headache?

What this means is that your customers are online. And what happens if they can’t find you? They find your competitors. So my point here is that any business that is not currently marketing their product or service online is seconds away from being left in the dust by their competition. Not to mention losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just like any new strategy, online marketing sometimes raises doubt.

Something that happens when I first start working through a program with my clients is that they start to express some doubt or fear. One of the most common things I hear is “I just don’t think online marketing will work for my business. We’re more of a person to person shop.”

Others tell me, “I just don’t have the skills or money to dominate the way my competition has,” “I don’t know where to start,” or “Face-to-face is my business model.” This gets me frustrated, and sometimes it makes me laugh because it’s just not true.

Based on my experience working with dozens of businesses just like yours, I know that shifting to an online marketing strategy will grow your business to levels you never dreamed of.  You may already have a website, and you may have already tried some online advertising strategies. But that’s just a start.

The tips and tricks of the trade I’m going to walk you through over the next few weeks and months will have a dramatic improvement in your lead generation and conversion.

You’re going to save money on traditional advertising (TV, radio, newspaper) and see more return on investment using these highly customized online strategies. Plus, it’s even faster and easier to get started and see results.

The bottom line is if your customers use computers – and who doesn’t these days – then you can make more money by taking your business online.

Are you worried about the time it will take to learn to develop an online business?

Online marketing can be overwhelming – especially when you’re just getting set up. You may read my blog each week and intend to take action, but never quite get around to it.

These emails and blogs are designed to make it as easy and straightforward as possible, but there’s no denying it’s a lot of information.

I’m not saying this to upset you – quite the opposite. I want to encourage you to take a look at your time and see what kind of support you need to put in place to be successful.

If you have employees who work for you, you could delegate to them. Either hand over some of your current responsibilities or ask employees with specific skills to help you. Some tasks, like keyword research, can be very time-consuming. Others, like website design or web analytics, can be very technical.

It’s important to ask yourself what your time is worth and what it is best spent doing. Should you be writing your web copy, or researching keywords? Should you be networking with prospective customers, or creating spreadsheets of web traffic data?

Of course, you don’t have to implement every strategy that I go over in the next few weeks. Some may work well for your business, and others may just not feel right yet. The combined power of just a handful of the tactics I will cover is enough to spark serious increases in your sales and conversion numbers.

You may want to choose a few and master those before moving on – that’s the approach I take.

So, are you ready to dive in? Hope so.