6 Free Ways to Market Your Small Business Online
You’re a small, local business owner. Therefore, your marketing budget must be watched carefully.
However, you know it’s a MUST to advertise online, yet you don’t know how to effectively do so. Or, you keep saying things like “I don’t want to advertise in California if my business is locted in New York.” Sound like you?
No worries, this article teaches you 6 simple ways to start an effective internet marketing campaign:
1. Video Campaign
Video Optimization is a simple strategy that just about every business owner today tends to overlook. Why? Because it takes time out of their busy day. However, this FREE form of online marketing can reap tender rewards for years and years to come. All by placing a video onto the right platform and getting traffic to it!
Here’s how to start:
1. Get a $100 FLIP camera.
2. Shoot helpful videos that your readers will enjoy watching. (Rule of thumb: Would YOU enjoy the video if the tables were turned?)
3. Place the video onto YouTube to get started. Then link from it or embed it into your website or blog.
4. Now the fun begins! Submit the video to TubeMogul. This tool helps you shoot your footage out to 30+ other websites! WOW- talk about getting great exposure. All this in 5 minutes or less.
2. Top 30 List
In your email list, start a group that contains your closest 20-30 friends and family. Everytime you launch a new product, promotion or discount you email these people first. They will be the first to stop what they’re doing to help you.
Encourage your “30-list” to forward the email to their contacts. Every once in a while, the email might get forwarded several times! Can you imagine? All that exposure because you took 5 minutes out of your day to compose the email.
NOTE: The email must consist of helpful information. If you are selling something, chances are the email will get deleted. I hope by now you are starting to get the hang of Internet Marketing- it’s about HELPING not selling. Once you build trust with your readers, they will buy from you forever.
3. Facebook
Don’t just sell your products and services on your Facebook page. Rather, push out helpful content that allows your readers and clients to learn something new. For example, if you are running a restaurant, write a post like “5 ways to cut calories when eating out.” Then of course be sure to offer that dish at your facility. Your readers will love you!
While building your fan page, actively search your local area for keywords using Search Twitter. This tool will help you study the competition, see whose actively talking about topics related to your business, and then give you instant access to that person!
4. Twitter
It’s not a fad or fly-by-night social media platform. Twitter, if used properly, can be a powerful tool for marketing your small local business. Twitter has geotagging capabilities so only people in your surrounding areas can view your “tweets.”
In short, Twitter is merely a small blog. If you use it to help readers, you will succeed. If you use it to sell, you’re in trouble. The rule of thumb is PEOPLE BUY FROM PEOPLE THEY LIKE AND TRUST.
5. eHow
eHow is a “how to” article submission website that pays you to write. You simply create short articles (4-6 steps), post them, and then get paid when people read them.
eHow also allows you to place links back to your website or blog, making it an excellent platform to execute a successful link building campaign. It’s such an amazingly effective website… that I built an entire blog that teaches people How to Make Money Usine eHow!
To learn more about using eHow to make money and generate 1-way incoming links to your website, also read How to Make Money Online Writing eHow Articles.
6. Do it Yourself SEO
(SEO= Search Engine Optimization) Search Engine Optimization simply means doing all the little things to your website so that search engines can find it and RANK IT higher. Everything from keywords to alt tags, anchor text to picture optimization. SEO is that secretive “behind the scenes” activity that can help your site get from page 3 to page 1.
Can’t afford the budget to hire a boutique SEO firm? No worries, you can start your own SEO campaign using simple, time-tested principles that will help raise your website’s rankings fairly quickly. Read this article I wrote about Do it Yourself SEO.
Would you like a FREE 15 minute Internet Marketing analysis of your website so we can tell you even more ways to attract customers? Simply fill out the form below and we will contact you very soon:
Jeff-
Keep the great posts comin’
Everytime I read one of your posts, off to work I go! I sit right down at the computer and get started with implementing your advice.
Thanks for all your efforts.