Promoting Your Business in a Digital World

Transcription

1 Promoting Your Business in a Digital World By Amy Potts

2 Agenda Introduction Evolution of Digital Marketing Looking at Your Customers Your Marketing Plans Talking to Your Customers Your Branding Your Web Site Maximize Your Web Presence Using Social Media Establish Yourself as an Expert in Your Field Scheduling/Tracking Ongoing Resources Needed Extra Tips

3 Introduction Amy Potts Working on the web for over 17 years Work with variety of clients from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies Written over 113 issues of Amy s Biz Tips Create campaigns using both digital and print Use social media daily Web Address -.com LinkedIn Profile - linkedin.com/in/amyapotts/

4 Evolution of Digital Marketing First Search Engine First Mobile Access Via the Web First Social Network Site - Friendster st iphone Rapid Usage of High Speed Broadband Internet Connections Content Marketing

5 Looking at Your Customers Who are your customers? What is their age? What is their usage of technology? Where do they hang out online? What is their education level?

6 Your Marketing Plans What are you goals? What s the purpose for your site and campaign(s)? Are you a B2B or B2C company? What s your business message? Does it resonate with your customers? How would your customers search for your business (what words would they use)?

7 Talking to Your Customers Think about your customers and what they want not what you want to talk about! Your site and content should always help make your customers job or life easier. Your message is not about you it s about the customer. Write your web content and messages in the way your customer would speak not using your technical terms. Focus on your customers: You need to think like them, not think like you!

8 Your Branding Keep your branding the same everywhere (web, print, advertising, social media) Colors Logo Messages Graphics Even special promotions still have to include your branding Focus on long-term objectives: Building brand and influence is a very long process but is worth the effort and time.

9 Your Web Site What you need to get started Creating your site Site Design E-Commerce Going Mobile Analytics SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

10 Your Web Site What You Need To Get Started 1. Domain Name 2. Outline of Features Such as ecommerce, database, multiple addresses, blogging, etc. Will you maintain the site yourself or have someone outside of your business 3. Web Hosting (GoDaddy, NetNation, etc) Decision will be based on features and needs

11 Your Web Site Creating Your Site Three ways to create a site Work with a professional web designer They will walk you through the process Do it yourself While cheaper, you will have to learn all the tricks-of-the-trade to make an effective site Pre-made platform and templates Again cheaper, but learning the software can be frustrating and moving the site in the future may be a hassle

12 Your Web Site Site Design What do you want your site to say about your business? What categories (navigation links) do you want to show? Do you have pictures, video and graphics available to use or will you need to create them? Have you started to write your content for the site? What sites, either in your industry or another, do you like, dislike, or want to emulate? Create a list or bookmark list. Incorporate varied content: Content is not just a text it includes video, audio, pictures, etc. Make your content interesting and relative to your brand and customer.

13 Your Web Site E-commerce Each hosting provider supports a different shopping cart program To accept credit cards you can use PayPal or contract with a Gateway processor To think about before starting: Shipping, processing costs, and taxes Create an Excel list of your products and their attributes along with item number, price, weights, shipping methods, etc.

14 Your Web Site Going Mobile Mobile design is different than a regular web site Think about the size of the typical mobile device and how much you can show without scrolling Code will need to be added to your site to direct mobile users to the mobile site Not all mobile sites from large companies are friendly example: Optimum

15 Your Web Site Analytics Once you have your web site launched you want to understand who s visiting Google Analytics gives you this information and let s you track your social media efforts You create an account, Google will provide you with code that needs to be added to your site html code

16 Your Web Site SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Getting top rankings costs money & takes time The top search engines change their algorithms often To work around this Use common words user will search on in all your web content Include your address, phone number and contact information Your site needs to have links to all pages on your site Using social media will help your search engine rankings Focus on people versus search engines: You want content to be easily accessed and crawled by search engines but the focus should be directed towards your viewer

17 Maximize Your Web Presence with Various Marketing Channels Facebook LinkedIn E-newsletters Advertising Your Web Site Search Engines Traditional Advertising Pinterest You Tube Patch Online Advertising

18 Using Social Media Digital Marketing Channels Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) Websites/Blogs (WordPress, newsletter) Multimedia Advertising (YouTube) Visual Sharing (Pinterest) Hyper Local Sites (Patch.com) Online/Search Engine Advertising (Google Adwords) Marketing Focus more on marketing channels other than search engines you can no longer solely rely on search engines to drive traffic to your web site.

19 Using Social Media Outlets LinkedIn Post announcements, contests and events on both your personal and business pages. Use groups related to your business to share ideas and announcements. and business pages. FaceBook Post announcements, contests and events on both your personal and business pages. Twitter Use to create an instant buzz about something happening now. Pinterest great place to post visual images of your products or showcase your accomplishments. Patch hyper local site that accepts local news, events and blogs YouTube create a video showing what you do, who you are or something funny (that might go viral) Focus on sharing across all outlets: Post your announcements, news, contests, events, customer comments, a new business deal, etc. on every outlet that will get your message seen by the right customers!

20 Establish Yourself as an Expert in Your Field Write a blog or newsletter about your field of expertise Answer questions on LinkedIn Groups Don t be worried if you are not a good writer if you know your stuff it will flow naturally or simply recommend links to an article of interest to your audience Promote it in multiple ways via social media, your website and with s Create a schedule for yourself Focus on what you know best: Create an aura of confidence amongst your peers and customers by writing about what you know your industry!

21 Schedule / Tracking This is one of the most important things you can do to make your Digital Marketing successful! Create a schedule for yourself: when you will create content/advertising and what days it will be shared on social outlets Keep a list of where you have posted your content (include date, outlet, message, and responses) Keep another list of future ideas for content jot down a couple of words or more to jog your memory.

22 Ongoing Resources Needed Determine who on staff will be responsible for these functions in the future: Creating content Posting content Managing responses Gathering and analyzing web traffic and social media outlet traffic Updating you web site and working with your web consultant or hosting company

23 Extra Tips Google maps Yellow pages Mapquest Superpages Association sites

24 Newsletters I Like SocialMediaExaminer.com daily newsletter on social marketing SearchEngineWatch.com daily newsletter on SEO TargetMarketingMag.com great newsletters and webinars on marketing ClickZ.com daily social marketing articles

25 Questions???

26 Promoting Your Business in a Digital World This session picks-up where the marketing plan discussion ends. Using the definition of the ideal customer that was established in the marketing plan, it is important to understand if and how the vast number of available digital tools may be utilized to effectively and efficiently reach that customer. Led by a marketing expert, this session includes an overview of the evolution of digital marketing (web-based and mobile) the plethora of options that are available to small business owners. Topics include ways to attract customers including: web-based advertising search optimization ways to inform or engage customers including websites and mobile applications and the importance of having a strong and consistent online reputation through social media.