While the methods and techniques for attracting customers online are limitless, there are some basic fundamentals that still hold true. Integrating these basics into your online marketing will help drive customers to your business.
Customer Attracting Basics
Three of the most important basics are name recognition, providing
something of value, and repetition.
* Name Recognition - Let’s look first at name recognition. This means
that your future client recognises your company name and connects it
mentally to the industry in which you operate. The more often your
soon-to-be clients see your name in connection with your market niche,
the more comfortable and secure they will feel with committing to you.
* Provide Something of Value – Providing something of value to your
clients can include a number of things. It can include a free gift,
advice, information, invitations to events or special offers.
* Repetition –The more you repeat information and a company name to
your prospects, the more likely they are to have confidence in and
remember your company. Familiarity breeds favourability.
Top Ten Customer Attracting Methods
Now that we have covered the basics of attracting customers, we will
look at some of the methods that apply those fundamentals:
* Give away something of value – People love free stuff. If you offer a
free gift to visitors just for providing their email address, you will
be amazed at how much traffic you generate - it will be well worth the
investment. The gift can be something as simple as a well-written
report, or a free trial of your product or service.
* Search engines – The higher that you rank on the search engines, the
more traffic you will generate. Ranking higher on search engines
requires you to employ as many of the methods covered here as possible,
with all of them linking to your website.
* Pay Per Click – The PPC method is not free, however it is very
effective. Even if you have a small allowance in your marketing budget,
PPC is often worth the investment. However, you must properly manage
this portion of the campaign or you will quickly blow through your PPC
budget with little or no success.
* Email Signatures – By simply including a one-line promotion in the
form of your website address as a signature file on all of your email
accounts, you can generate significant traffic to your site.
* Blog Posts – Blog posts are a great free way to promote your site.
Include the same email signature when you post to blog sites and again
you have a free ad. Running your own blog is also a great way to
attract a following.
* Message Boards – Once again, including a tagline when you post to
message boards will draw people’s attention to your website. When you
post regularly to message boards you employ those name recognition and
repetition fundamentals.
* Classified Ads – While there are both free and paid classified ads
online, this is yet another avenue to market your business. Be sure to
promote any free gifts that you are offering in your classified ad.
* Article Marketing – This is an essential portion of any online
marketing campaign. It employs all three of the fundamentals we have
discussed. A good article provides free valuable information to the
reader while repeating your company name and therefore making your name
more recognizable. Article marketing is also a great way to help boost
your search engine rankings.
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Business Internet Directory is one of the longest established Internet businesses in the UK. We’ve always been about getting businesses noticed on the web, and we now deliver an integrated service designed to help our clients build their business online.
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