There are myriad ways business owners can market themselves, and using the internet as a marketing tool is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get your business out there.
Many entrepreneurs don’t spend enough time or energy using the internet because they don’t realize that marketing their business is a need that shouldn’t be ignored, according to Jayson Demers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom.com, a Seattle, WA-based content marketing and social media marketing firm. In an article for entrepreneur.com, Demers listed six strategies he believes every entrepreneur needs.
“What do I mean, you “need” these strategies? After all, isn’t marketing optional? Isn’t it possible to build a business even without an online presence?” Demers wrote in the article “The 6 Online Marketing Strategies Every Entrepreneur Needs,” published July 14.
“Technically, yes, but you’ll be missing out on enormous potential by doing so,” he added.
In the article, Demers not only offered several strategies for online marketing, but he also wrote they should have the following essential traits:
Expected — Your clients will expect you to have these things in place.
Accessible — The strategies aren’t hard or complicated.
Affordable — Even business owners with limited budgets can use them.
Valuable — They offer high returns so you’re not employing them can result in a loss of value.
Time-sensitive — The more time invested and the sooner that time is invested, the bigger your payoff.
Here are the necessary strategies Demers covered in the article:
1. Personal branding — Brand yourself before attempting to create a brand for your company, Demers suggested, because doing so “gives you the opportunity to leverage a more trustworthy, personal image to promote your brand” he wrote.
In addition, he noted, personal branding supplies you with more power to meet and network with others, form more partnerships, and pairs a face with your organization.
2. Content marketing — Ebooks, white papers, and troubleshooting and helpful tips pieces are great forms of content marketing.
“Content marketing is incredibly versatile and useful, and, if it’s valuable, your customers will expect you to have at least some of it in place for them,” Demers wrote.
3. Search engine optimization (SEO) — According to Demers, SEO is the process of making your site more visible in search engines. The right keywords, paired with a great ongoing content strategy, can make all the difference in organic search rankings.
4. Conversion optimization — Once you’ve mastered SEO, you’ll need to know what to do with all those visitors to your site. “Conversion optimization helps you ensure you get more value out of each and every visitor by maximizing your rate of conversion,” Demers wrote.
5. Social media marketing — Because mobile phones and tablets provide instant access to social media channels from anywhere, incorporating Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and other forms of social media into your marketing plan can significantly impact your business’s visibility.
“Here, you stand to gain greater brand visibility, a greater reputation, and far more inbound traffic with your syndicated links,” he wrote.
6. Email marketing — Email marketing has great ROI potential because it costs little to nothing to put to work, Demers noted. To get started, he suggested collecting subscribers from your customer base that’s already in place and your social media followers as well as other opportunities.
“From there, even a simple content newsletter can help you encourage repeat traffic to your site, facilitate more engagement with your brand and keep your brand top-of-mind with your audience,” he wrote.
