Here are four ideas that you can incorporate into a marketing strategy that will help boost your customer base by getting to know them, an art form in business that seems to be disappearing daily.
Google Analytics Track visitors to your website with Google’s handy analytical tool. This free tool will tell you where your visitors are coming from, what pages they visited, how long they stayed, who referred them and so many other little goodies. You can even set up to receive emails of this information and customize reports based on the data it collects. You simply attach a small snippet of Google code onto your home page (or where ever you are tracking) and you are done. Knowing all of this information can help you develop a plan specifically for the types of visitors you receive.
Keep a Blog Unless you have been living in a closet for the past 5 years or so, blogging is the big rage. Anyone and everyone can blog so as long as they have access to a computer. On a blog you can write about your business, what is in the pipeline and basically anything else that you wish want to write about. A blog allows your customer base and the web’s user community to post questions and comments to what you wrote. Let’s say you are going to have a sale, you can update your blog as to the specifics and answer customer questions long before the sale begins. A blog is your gateway to creativity and marketing. You are only limited by what you put into it.
Get Followed on Twitter This is the latest craze (well not latest, it’s been out a while now) in blogging, called Microblogging. Twitter is at the forefront of this online revolution and if you don’t have your free Twitter account, you should definitely sign up today. Twitter allows you to post short messages of about 140 characters or so. Then anyone who is following you receives those messages. To get visitors to follow you simply put a link on your home page that reads “Follow me on Twitter”. I have about 500 people following me right now and when I post new articles I make sure I tweet my followers the link to it so they can read it. In an instance I just marketed my article to nearly 500 people, and did so all for free. Now that’s getting the word out on a shoestring budget.
Go Where Your Customers Are Now that you know who your customers are and where they come from it is time for you to go on the attack. No you are not literally going to attack your customers, but you are going to go to the social networks and message boards they frequent like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Engage in discussions, join groups, find old friends and pass along to them that you run an online business and ask them to tell their friends and the process goes on and on.
Using each one of these ways to market your online business will go a long way to attracting new customers. When you combine all of them you will definitely increase your chances of having a successful business.