Small Business Internet Marketing

How To Choose Which Internet Marketing Tactic To Use

How do you get traffic to your site? Does the process of promoting your small business website seem very complicated? How do you decide between all the “must do” first steps to get more customers from your website? Keep reading and I’ll outline some easy ways to choose what to do, when to do it, what the opportunities and costs are.

Contrary to what you might have read in an ebook, watched in an online marketing course or heard in a tele-seminar, there are no “one size fits all” marketing tactics… what you decide to do and when depends on your specific situation. And of course, like all marketing, internet marketing requires constant supervision, tracking and refinement. It is never set and forget!

Local Search Engine Optimization and Marketing

What is it? This is when your website is on the first page map for searches using terms related to your product or service, in your geographic area.

Do this tactic now if:

• Your main business is serving local customers.
• You are in a competitive niche and you know people are searching for you.
• You need a boost in business now.

Opportunities/ Costs/Return On Investment
The opportunity is the ability to dominate your niche online, for a very long time. Local search is new and many of your competition are not aware of this avenue to get business – so get started well ahead of them. Local search is a core investment area for the search engines. It’s growing fast! The cost can be zero (except for a serious amount of time), or about $500 — $1000 to get your listing done, get your site tuned for business and be listed in all the other appropriate places. Your ROI will be very high.

It can wait if:

• Your business area is national or international.

Search Engine Optimization

What is it? This is when your site is on the first page for searches related to your products and services. Also called natural or organic SEO.

Do this tactic now if:

• You have patience, and are able to invest and wait for results – 3 to 6 months typically.
• You know people are already searching for your product/service (don’t guess or trust your gut!)
• You have a blog and a regular content publishing schedule (May the God’s bless you if you do!)

Opportunities/ Costs/Return On Investment
The opportunity is similar to local SEO, in that the sooner you get started, the better your odds of cementing your site in place against the competition. Web search is growing fast and completely replacing other ways of getting customers. The cost can range from $500 to $10,000 per month depending on your niche and level of competition. Your ROI will take time to appear; however unlike most marketing costs, the ROI will grow stronger each year.

It can wait if:

• You need results right now; SEO takes time.

Pay Per Click

What is it? This is online advertising where you “pay for performance” – these are the ads that appear on the right hand side of the page and sometimes along the top (in yellow) when you are doing a search online.

Do this tactic now if:

• You need traffic — now.
• You are testing what keywords to SEO your site for.
• You’re doing search engine optimization – PPC and SEO work better together.

Opportunities/ Costs/Return On Investment
The opportunity lies in getting familiar with this very trackable form of advertising. You can maximize all your investment in internet marketing and offset any dips in your local SEO and SEO campaigns (no one controls what Google does except Google). The cost can start as low as $100/month if you run the campaign yourself. PPC is best to start carefully with stop losses in place. It takes constant refinement and supervision to get your campaign t work well. Once it is with a small budget, you can ramp it up and drive large amounts of targeted, good converting traffic to your sales process.

It can wait if:

• You are in an extremely competitive market (unless you target locally). Competitive niche prices are higher.
• You target customers early in their decision process or you have lot’s of explaining to justify your service or pricing. People don’t click on an ad when they are still looking for information.

Social Media

What is it? Social media is the most popular use of the internet – sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (and many more) are where almost everyone goes to get information on what to buy, what’s cool, and what’s happening from their friends.

Do this tactic now if:

• You’re already blogging and comfortable with using internet sites.
• You understand creating value and conversation with your customers.
• You understand it’s NOT another advertising medium like PPC, newspapers, TV, etc. (Video is the exception here.)
• Customers are already talking about your product/service on social media.
• Your product/service is exciting – Most are NOT…

Opportunities/ Costs/Return On Investment
The opportunity here depends on your business; Social Media can drive business right away, or it could be more of a future payoff. There are many variables. The first cost is time – it takes a big commitment to post, tweet and video new stuff multiple times each week; to be effective you must. The second cost is the learning curve – are you techno-phobic or don’t like to write? Get over it or avoid this! (Facebook is the easiest way to see if you enjoy this kind of communicating.) Costs: You can pay a company to do it all for you $3000-$5000 per month or you can dedicate staff or your own time. This takes a lot of strategy to work well for many businesses. The ROI is harder to determine here unless you integrate customer tracking into all your process. There’s lots of hype – be careful, have a proven plan.

It can wait if:

• You are a technophobe… you have trouble finding things on your computer.
• Your products are not exciting. There’s nothing wrong with “masking tape”, we all need it. However it’s not fodder for deep discussions on Facebook, Twitter or how-to’s on YouTube.
• You’re brand dictates you keep tight limits. Openness is required for social media to work. If discussion about your business, good and bad — especially by fans is not OK, SMM won’t work for you.

Email Marketing

What is it? Email marketing is having a planned way of regularly staying in touch with your customers via email; offering value, entertainment and once every 7-10 emails — an offer.

Do this tactic now if:

• Your goal is retaining customers. Email campaigns require permission, therefore it is best used with a list of existing customers. You can use strategies to get your customers to enroll their friends.
• You’re looking to reach out more often, for less cost. Done well (and this is not simple) businesses can find email marketing to work better than direct mail.

Opportunities/ Costs/Return On Investment
The opportunity is to build raving fans with your customers. The first cost is how much time the planning, resources, writing and strategy take to make it work. Email can be one of the most effective ways to retain and train your customers; push a button and they send you money. The dollar cost is in the range of $20 per month for an email provider to $1000 per month for a complete campaign written, designed and implemented for you. The ROI for email marketing almost always is longer term – you have to build the relationship and that can take a few months.

It can wait if:

• You want to acquire new customers. Email is tricky for customer acquisition because you have to rent a list so your response rate is lower. Good lists are expensive!

Split Testing and Conversion

What is it? Split testing and conversion optimization is where you prove – with results – which design, heading, headline, video or color scheme, etc., gets you more customers.

Do this tactic now if:

• You have a focus on return on investment and have some time. Managers and designers often disagree about which version of a page is best. Split testing proves which works better.
• You have the resources: Multiple versions of pages or emails increase the work load. Development costs can get high if you try to do to much, too fast.

Opportunities/ Costs/Return On Investment
The opportunity is to always be improving your ability to get more customers. The cost can range from free to $10,000 per month. The ROI can be immediate but more likely is longer term. This task, started and continued with the knowledge that testing and conversion optimization are never done, will continue to grow your profits as long as you continue to do it.

It can wait if:

• Your site has low traffic. You need enough traffic to get relevant numbers. A page that gets 5 visitors a month, will take 2 years to get that.
• You tend to get focused on fine details. There are certain items to concentrate on first. Much later, when the budget warrants it you can refine the details, until you go cross-eyed!