Low-Budget Online Marketing. Holly Berkley

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      LOW-BUDGET ONLINE MARKETING FOR SMALL BUSINESS

      Holly Berkley

       Self-Counsel Press

       (a division of)

      International Self-Counsel Press Ltd.

      USA Canada

       Copyright © 2012

       International Self-Counsel Press

       All rights reserved.

      Introduction

      With the Internet boom of the mid-1990s came the end of corporate-controlled media. The Internet revolution gave everyone a voice, regardless of income, status, or political views. It quickly took the small business beyond the boundaries of the neighborhood and allowed entrepreneurs with limited budgets to compete on a global level.

      However, it didn’t take long before deep pockets and major corporations starting taking a bigger and bigger piece of the Internet space. In early 2000, big businesses used their budgets to develop massive online co-branding campaigns and to push out flashy high-tech ads across major web portals. They hired SEO agencies to optimize their websites to show up at the top of Google, and the once cost-effective pay-per-click ad buys got too expensive for the small entrepreneur with a limited marketing budget. It seemed that the small businesses could no longer afford to keep up.

      Fortunately, today, with the massive growth of the social Web (blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter), the playing field is leveled once again. The social Web allows even business owners and marketers with limited technical experience to post business updates quickly and to communicate with customers efficiently — sometimes without ever picking up the phone or even opening up a storefront.

      Today, small businesses have a few other important advantages over the major corporations: speed, flexibility, passion, and personality. In fact, these very traits that make small businesses special are what will help them thrive in today’s online world.

      After working for high-priced web-design agencies and consulting for some major corporations I learned firsthand just how much money some businesses are willing to spend to market their products and services over the Internet. When I started my own web design and online marketing company in 1999, I was forced to find low-cost ways to give my small-business clients the same type of services I offered the big-budget clients at the agency. I started looking for ways to replicate the six-figure marketing campaigns for small businesses. The Internet is the perfect medium for this, because you can test ads and concepts for a fraction of the cost of print, radio, or television ads.

      Advertising on the web is extremely targeted and measurable, making it the most cost-effective form of advertising available today. There is no other medium that allows small businesses to truly compete with the big guys.

      This book provides online marketing case studies of top companies such as Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, Pepsi-Cola, Banana Republic, Jenny Craig International, bmw, and Amazon.com, and explains how you can create similar campaigns for much less. You will learn how to generate quality website traffic and sales leads while saving money at the same time. I will show you how to turn a website into a trusted resource and how to entice customers to frequent your online store.

      This book does not explain how to set up an e-business, but rather how to improve the marketing efforts of an existing business. It is for any group or individual hoping to market an idea, company, service, or product with limited resources and funds. Through it, you will learn —

      • how to use Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networking sites to promote your company,

      • the most effective way to start and promote your blog,

      • how to market yourself online to a local market,

      • how to ensure that your company website is designed to specifically attract your ideal customer,

      • how to use email marketing to reach potential customers,

      • the importance of co-branding and how to choose the right online partners,

      • how to create custom content that keeps your audience coming back for more,

      • how to position yourself as an authority in your industry, and

      • how to spend your marketing dollars wisely with cost-effective ad buys and search engine registration techniques that will put your website ahead of its competitors.

      This book will give you the information you need to take high-end online marketing and web design concepts and make them work for your business and your budget.

      1

      The Benefits of Online Marketing

      What’s the difference between a $1,000,000 online marketing campaign and a $1,000 campaign? Surprisingly, not much. Sure, the million-dollar campaign might have flashier graphics, a highpriced ad agency, well-known celebrities, or a more sophisticated database to store and track all the market data, but the concepts behind the two campaigns are almost identical.

      As a small business, you have an advantage that many big corporations don’t: speed. Speed in the ability to quickly update your blog, react to reviews on Kudzu.com or Yelp.com, post coupons on Foursquare, get creative on Facebook, and keep up with Twitter; this puts small business ahead of big corporations in interpersonal relations. While big businesses get slowed down by branding, legality, and processes, opportunities to reach out and react to customers in real time are passed up. That’s why working toward a powerful online presence is so essential for small businesses. Regardless of budget, you have the influence and power to put your message online and get it heard.

      What Is Online Marketing?

      So what exactly is online marketing? Online marketing is the process of putting your product or business in front of more than 1 billion active Internet users worldwide, who are looking for services and information online. It is the process of turning your current website, blog, or profile into a powerful medium to maximize your business and sales potential.

      Online marketing is much more than buying ads online. It’s about how you communicate with your customers via email, message boards, and chatrooms. It is about updating your website with important product information and offers. It is any kind of promotion your company does using the Internet.

      The center of your online marketing efforts should be your website. The feelings consumers have when they visit your website carry over to how they perceive your entire company or organization. No matter how effective your marketing campaign is, if you don’t have a well-designed, professional-looking website, people will not buy from you. (See Chapter 10 for details on improving the design of your website.)

      The advantage of online marketing is that you don’t have to have a multimillion-dollar marketing budget to put together an effective campaign. There are now shopping cart templates, website templates, and even online marketing templates created by companies such as Yahoo!, Google, PayPal, and Microsoft that help companies with limited budgets get their e-business quickly off the ground. Also, if you know where to look and the right questions to ask, you can take very sophisticated online marketing strategies and implement them on almost any size budget because there are so many resources available to you. (See Chapter 11 on working with web developers.)

      Prerequisites for Successful Online Marketing

      Before getting into the details and