subject: Marketing With Your Website [print this page] Marketing With Your Website Marketing With Your Website
Yes, having a website to represent your business in the virtual world is crucial in today's society. However, knowing how to utilize that website is perhaps just as important. "I have noticed a direct relationship between my active online presence and the customers knocking on my business door," said Tina Stinson, long time 1&1 Internet customer and owner of Itty Bitty Portraits.
For all businesses, it is important for owners to keep the website up to date and to incorporate new promotions using online marketing methods. Web hosts offer different packages with various feature options. Some features include an e-marketing, or newsletter, tool, blog capabilities, and search engine optimization (SEO) opportunities. In the early stages of Stinson's website, she relied heavily on the marketing techniques offered through her 1&1 partnership and existing relationships.
"Friends and family play a large role in helping you get started with an online presence," she said. "When I began, I created a monthly newsletter and emailed it to all my friends and family who then shared it with their friends. Soon I was getting inquiries to add to my newsletter contacts. The news spread throughout the community and my business took off."
1&1's My business site offers an E-Marketing Tool to make the creation of useful newsletters simple and quick. With design templates and editing tools, professionals can incorporate industry news, updated services, new employee biographies, and current promotions in an effort to develop a more personal relationship with customers. With the E-mail Marketing feature, you can send up to 1,000 e-mails each month and track useful information through the Newsletter Statistics tool. This helps determine the amount of undeliverable mail, unsubscribers, and newsletters received, amongst others.
Another method to increase the quality of relationships between the business and its customers is to create and maintain a company blog. Such blogs have proven to be a beneficial tool in most industries, providing anything from industry news and new product updates to work portfolios and personal experiences. "As a photographer, all of my clients visit my website and blog. It is where they can see what to expect and fall in love with what I do," said Stinson. "My clients rave about my blog and express their love for the photos I take when visiting it regularly which helps spread the word about my business." Blogs also help to put a face and personality to a company. "People love to relate to you and they want to know who they are doing business with. I often share my current day-to-day work and share my most recent work."
If your business is active on social media platforms, it is beneficial to cross promote between the different networks. By utilizing the blog posts throughout the internet, the number of new visitors to a company's website can skyrocket. Networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are free marketing tools which every business should take advantage of. Blogs can even link to a Facebook page which pops up on newsfeeds reminding fans of the website. "Link everything," said Stinson. "I link to my blog posts; when my site gets updated it's linked again, and new pictures are always tagged with links. People forget web addresses so keep it right in front of them." These posts will not only help inform current customers about the company but also attract new visitors to the site. Cross promotion is a great way to utilize traffic between multiple platforms.
It is important to offer promotions exclusive to your website and/or social network audience. Offering a 15% discount to anyone who retweets a certain message or comments on a particular Facebook post, for example, can help promote the business. These campaigns can also encourage visitors to return to the website and recommend your service to friends and family.
"100% of my customers have been to my web page prior to seeing me," said Stinson. She sees a direct correlation between her website marketing activity and business demand. "When I'm posting pictures, showing off new products or announcing specials, my phone is ringing and my email inbox is full. But when I'm on vacation and cannot post as frequently, there is not much interest in what I'm selling. People need constant marketing or what you are selling will fall into the 'maybe someday' categor
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