If you have a successful offline business, you’re already familiar with marketing. However, the marketing strategies you need to promote your business online are a different ball game altogether. With an online store, you’re able to reach a larger pool of prospective customers. The platform also gives you more control over their shopping experience, so you can optimize the platform to improve sales.
To grow the business, you need customers, and to get customers, you must promote the business. The possibilities are endless if you understand how to customize your campaign for the best results. Today, Search by Burke is here to explain some simple ways you can promote your business online.
Build a Website and Post High-Quality Content
To get started promoting your business online, you need to build a website. There are many tools you can use for free to build a website online. When you launch the website, the next step is to start a blog, where you can share high-quality content. This is a long-term strategy that can drive good traffic to your business without spending anything on advertising. So, understand it will not pay off overnight.
Not only will building a blog in your niche help drive traffic, but it also leads to establishing your business as an authority on search engines. When you become an authority, you will garner the attention of more consumers, business owners, and the media. In turn, the benefits will snowball and earn your business more authority, which leads to enormous visibility and sales.
Another thing to consider is that you must make your website mobile-responsive. This means people can access the website on a mobile device, and it renders well and makes it easy to browse the different pages. Most people buy items online using their mobile devices.
Create a Marketing Plan
It will be difficult to make the right decisions if you don’t have a marketing plan. This is a report that outlines your strategy for the future. Typically, a marketing plan will include an overview of the business marketing goals, a description of the business’s current position, the timeline of actions in your strategy, and key performance indicators that you’ll use to track progress.
Also, when planning, you need to describe your target market and the needs of your customers. If you want to know where to begin, you can download a marketing plan template, which you can fill out and get started.
You can save a lot of money by advertising for free via social media. Eventually, you may want to invest in a high quality camera to take promotional images, but at first, you can get by using images you already have. If those images require a bit of editing, you can easily remove the background from images and post them on Instagram and Facebook.
Launch a Podcast
As a part of your strategy to connect with your target audience, you should launch a podcast, where you can discuss different issues about your niche. This could also be an opportunity to invite feedback and answer questions about your products or services.
To promote a podcast, you can ask people to subscribe. Also, there are podcast directories you can submit your podcast for promotion. Add a tab on your website with a link to the podcast, and on all social media accounts, promote upcoming talks on your podcast.
Strengthen Your SEO
While some people prefer to pay ads on Google, good search engine optimization (SEO) will offer your business long-term traffic at no cost. The higher the website ranks, the easier it becomes for users to discover your business. While there are many ways to approach SEO, the most important is to perform local SEO, especially if your business targets clientele from a specific demographic.
Start by listing your business in Apple Maps Connect, Google My Business, and Bing Places for Business. These tools are free and help you manage your business’s online presence. This is important as four in five customers use search engines when looking for local information. Also, people will more likely purchase after doing a local search.
Conclusion
Building a successful business is possible if you have the right tools to get started. The first step is writing the business plan that will guide you. Also, have a solid marketing strategy, which should include SEO and social media marketing.
Search by Burke understands that you want to increase sales and expand your customer base. To do this you need marketing assets that attract your ideal customer – and we can help! Check out our products today!