Small Business Marketing
Enhancing Your Online Marketing Presence
Written by Charles Mburugu for Gaebler Ventures
Increasingly, online marketing is becoming a vital part of ant marketing plan. Implementing the programs in your plan is as crucial. To ensure progress, you should set aside time every day for marketing online. What strategies can you use to enhance your online marketing presence?
The following are ideas you can use to enhance your online marketing presence.
Volunteer for interviews
Webcasts, podcasts, newsletters (ezines), RSS feeds and podcasts are all avenues for online discussions and interviews. You can find publishers who regularly host interviews by searching in directories or general search engines such as Google. You could also search other directories such as podcast.net (podcasts), ezinehub.com (ezines), and sydic8.com (blogs/RSS feeds).
Find 10 major bloggers in your niche
After identifying them, offer them your product as a gift. The aim is to get influencers in your niche to try your product for free. If they are impressed, they may mention it in their blogs. This is a clever online marketing technique. The idea is not to ask a favor of them, advertise to them or ask them to mention your product in their blog. Whether or not they mention your product is entirely up to them.
Join an online network
Online social networks enable you to create a profile page and network with others who share your professional interests. Each social network targets a different audience and they have their rules. Before joining a network, read about it and look at some of the profiles. Some networks you might want to consider include myspace.com, linkedin.com, tribe.net and friendster.com.
Write a press release
First, the press release must be something that the media would be interested in. Make sure you include a link to your blog or website in the press release. You might want to distribute the release online via a service such as PRWeb.com.
Survey your website visitors
Surveys can help you spot opportunities for improvement. Ask questions such as "On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend __________________." Insert your site name, or any other relevant product name, in the blank space. For those who indicate 6 to 10, ask why not. Most likely that the comments will reveal a way you can improve your website. Online surveys can be set up with the help of software packages such as surveymonkey.com.
Study your closest competitors' online marketing activities
Besides getting a better perspective of trends in your industry, you will obtain new insights into promotional tactics and strategies for your own business. While you research, brainstorm some ideas and use them to create a new online tactic or strategy for your business.
Charles Mburugu writes for us from his home in Nairobi. He has a graduate degree in Business Management from Kenya Institute of Management. He is interested in writing about branding, CSR and intellectual property.
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