The tools for profitable internet marketing

A real strategy

Firstly, as I mentioned in my previous article, you need a real strategy of how you’re going to market your business online. Without it, you’ll probably have an expensive marketing failure on your hands.

Your strategy includes the tools as well as how to use them to maintain a presence in the minds of your prospective customers. At the moment they’re ready to buy, they know that you are an expert at providing the solution to their problem.

A search optimised website built with a CMS

There are two concepts here. The first is building a search engine optimized website. This means that your website must be built so that people are able to find your business easily when they search online for the products and services you provide.

For example, when someone searches Google for a Tobago villa for rent and type that term into the search box, they are able to find websites that list villas for rent.

In the same way, you want that when people use a search engine to find the products and services you offer, your business shows higher in the results than your competitors.

The process of getting web pages to rank higher in search engines is called Search Engine Optimisation.

The website should be built with a Content Management System (CMS). It allows the website to be easily updated and content added by whoever is responsible for doing so. Your website is basically built with a system of templates or a framework where you just add or change the content.

Expert content resources used to generate leads

How does someone know – before they do business with you – that you’re an expert at what you do, that you’re exactly the person that they need to solve their problem? You have to prove it to them and one of the best ways to do so is to produce expert content resources. Offering these resources for free, such as how-to guides and reports, in exchange for contact information is a great way to generate new business leads.

A blog

A business blog allows you to offer shorter pieces of content that showcase your expertise and speak directly to your ideal clients. You can use your business blog for many different types of content such as informal case studies, articles detailing processes, client success stories, how you dealt with a problem, your stand on issues regarding your industry and others.

The secret about a successful business blog is that you must speak directly to your ideal client to be able to generate leads. You must show that you have the answers to their questions in your blog posts.

Social Media Profiles

Social media profiles are used to increase your business’ presence on the internet and to generate leads. You showcase your expertise to your social media audiences on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn through sharing your website blog posts and resources. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles also show up in search results for your business name, pushing down other results like directory listings with old information.

Direct Response Internet Advertising

Internet advertising services introduced a type of pay for performance advertising called pay-per-click (PPC) ads. The advertiser pays the ad service whenever an ad is clicked. Companies like Google and Facebook have made it very simple for anyone to purchase and set up advertising on their networks.

Since you have a small budget and are paying per click, you don’t want to waste your resources on “brand” advertising. You make your advertising count with direct response ads that persuade the viewer to take action by clicking on the ad.

On the other end of that action is a page on your website which you offer a free resource in exchange for the visitor’s information. You then use that contact information to market to a group of people who are already interested in what you have to say.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is the tool you use to keep in touch with the leads who are not ready to purchase yet. With an email marketing system, you can send regular email communication to stay in the minds of your prospective customers.

Email marketing through an email service provider is a winner because it is very cheap, direct and accountable.

Website Analytics

With a website, you are able to know metrics like how many people visited your site, where they came from, what pages they visited most frequently and lots more data.

You are able to link your advertising (online and offline) to traffic on your website. This is one of the most powerful uses of websites and advertising. A website analytics system allows you to view all this data and make decisions from them. Other types of analytics services allow you to get opinions directly from the website visitor.

A CRM system

As an extra, you can use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This is basically a database system used to keep track of the details of your customer interactions and information about your contacts. A good CRM is able to tell you what to do next with each of your clients and prospects. The use of these tools in the right manner come together to form a potent internet marketing system.

Note:

Sherwin Ramnarine is the Managing Director of imarketSB Limited, an internet marketing company. Find out how to build a profitable business website at www.imarketsb.com/pbw

Contact:

868-678-4180

sherwin@imarketsb.com

www.imarketsb.com