Why your business must incorporate these 4 elements in your marketing activities. If you want to succeed at getting low-cost or even no cost leads that convert into sales and profits these are 4 areas you must include. What are these 4 must have components?
Social Media. At the very minimum you must have a Twitter account and a Facebook page. Why are they so important? Because they give you free exposure to brand your company and communicate important information to thousands of people every day; thousands you would never be able to reach on such a cost-effective basis.. In addition, to Twitter and Facebook, if you are engaged in a business to business (B2B) product or service you will want to also participate in LinkedIn. It is the largest and fastest growing business networking site on the internet. If used properly, the LinkedIn network can result in more referrals and connections than you could ever hope to garner from more traditional prospecting and networking activities. These networks along with others such as Yelp, Merchants Circle and countless others are creating ways to close the gap that has been described by such terms as “six degrees of separation” — accelerating the speed of making connections and forming relationships which lead to profitable business transactions.
Blogging. You may think that blogs are just for politico’s, hacks and college kid’s or bands and others with political or social agendas. This could not be further from the truth. Today, blogs are a means of branding you, your company and your products which also allow for almost immediate feedback loops from your customers. They are also a way to establish your expertise in your particular field or niche. Search engines love blogs because of the two-way communication, back links between relevant website content and the constant flow of new quality content that can be created for the blog. A blog is a dynamic and continuous way of promoting without selling. Done properly, a blog will bring an enormous amount of attention and traffic to your business. The idea of creating inbound traffic instead of using the traditional marketing channels is one of the great attractions to blogging. Free advertising in the form of relevant information that brings people to you and your blog for answers to their questions and solutions for their problems.
Article Writing and Free PR. Why are these two together? Because they each provide very powerful low-cost and even free marketing for your business. Writing articles by itself may seem like something for professional writers not something for main street business owners. Again, if you think this, you may be surprised to learn what effective small and medium business are doing to get more web and foot traffic. When you write the right kind of content for articles, your information can be distributed to highly targeted audiences of thousands of people who might otherwise never hear about you or your business. Why? Because the article directories reach people who are looking for specific information that you may provide. They are another form of search facility and one which also is highly valued by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and others when returning search results. By writing and publishing your articles to relevant directories, you are increasing your chances of being found by and acquiring new customers. We do not recommend that you become a full-time writer. No, you want to write articles that provide valuable information but which also leave the reader wanting to know more. You want them to get in touch with you for that information.
PR, whether a press release, news story, television or radio appearance or a nice article in a magazine about you, your company or your accomplishments is one of the best forms of advertising and a testimonial that can get more inbound phone, foot or web traffic for you.
Video Marketing. If you have not already started doing video marketing, especially on your website; boy, are you missing another big low-cost and very effective means of getting inbound traffic. Why? Because videos are powerful story tellers, they brand you better than almost any other single thing you can do. They make you and your business more real and believable to your current and potential customers. Plus, they really do a great job in getting you found in searches. YouTube was absorbed by Google for a very good reason, YouTube was catching Google as one of the top search engines on the internet. So, Google bought YouTube to own all that traffic. Video in the form of short infomercials is a very compelling way for you to increase the credibility of your company and people love to see the people they do business with.Ignore this marketing tool at your peril.
In the next installment we’ll explore more need to have marketing techniques and tips for making your inbound marketing so effective you will dominate your competition.
What’s the bottom line? You need to implement a marketing action plan that, at a minimum includes these main elements. Why? Because you want to increase the number of customers who find you from organic means at the lowest possible cost. As we’ve all witnessed in recent years and months, the traditional media which rely upon outbound marketing such as yellow pages, classified ads, radio commercials, TV Ads, direct mail and even email campaigns have lost a great deal of effectiveness or have become too expensive.
Should you abandon the old stand-by’s? Not necessarily, but it is time you consider putting some resources into new media and following the trends toward inbound marketing, lead nurturing and customer relationship management centered on methods that cause customers to initiate actions to find your business. We’re talking about low-cost or no cost marketing that brings real dollars to your bottom line here.
