Now that 2011 and the holidays are over, it's time to get back to work and get ready for a great new year. Hopefully by now you have already planned your marketing goals for the year. But in case you have not it's time to decide on what forms of marketing you will be putting in place. If you are dumping money into the old outdated print media forms of marketing you can expect to get what you have been getting, and maybe even a little less.
It's time to start thinking about Internet marketing, and there are so many avenues you can take in this media. Here are a few to consider:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is a great long term solution for your Internet marketing channels. I say long term because over time it's really going to give you the lasting results you need, and it really is an ongoing project. SEO does require some expertise and time, a lot of time. It's not a set it and forget solution. As a matter of fact no marketing campaign should be treated as a set it and forget solution. There are many aspects to a good SEO campaign which consists of on page and off page optimization. Making sure the pages on your website are ranking in the search engines for the keywords people are searching to find your type of business. Creating fresh content on an ongoing basis and building links from other ranked sites to your website. Hiring a reputable, proven company to take on this task is a good thing, it will save you lots of time and money in the end. - PPC (Pay Per Click)
I classify PPC as a short term solution, and I say that for a reason. PPC is very expensive, and competition is very high for the keywords you may be trying to get listed for. PPC works on a bidding system along with a bunch of other criteria attached to it in order to get the best prices for each keyword. With PPC you pay per click, hence the name Pay Per Click. With that said a lot of people think, well great I don't pay unless someone click on the link, and yes that is true, but you pay for every single click even the ones where people come to your site and leave right away. In some industries the click can be as much as $60.00 per click. In the event you do try a PPC campaign and hire a company to do it for you, the very first question to ask is; How much do you markup the click? Most of the bigger companies in this this field won't tell you because it' well over 75%, and if thats the case walk away, because you could never compete with at such a high cost per click. - Email Marketing
Don't count out a good email marketing campaign in you marketing efforts. You just have to focus on it a little different. Email marketing is a great tool to keep your name in front of your customers every month. You know the old saying, out of site out of mind? Just sending a simple monthly newsletter with information is a great way to keep the communication going. - Social Media Marketing
Social media is often misunderstood by small business owners, but if you're not taking advantage of it, it should be considered a big miss on your end. Social media is the new referral and testimonial. It's the place where happy customers are sharing their thoughts about all the things that are happening in their lives. Imagine if you just gave some rock star service to a customer, you can bet they are going to share it with their friends, and the average person on Facebook has 130 friends.
These are a few of the powerful marketing tools you should be incorporating in your business this year.
