Online Promotion – What It Means for Business?

With 200 million clients looking for products and sellers online; regardless of the size and nature of your business, you simply cannot afford to ignore the impact of online promotions. Research has revealed that online advertising has a considerably higher ROI than conventional methods of marketing. Add to this the fact there are a myriad of online promotion techniques that will suit the budget and requirement of all businesses and its easy to see why humble family owned establishments to major conglomerates have shifted their focus to online marketing. Here is a look at why and how you should promote your business online and information on free and paid tactics.

Why should you market your business online?

If you have not experienced the benefits of online marketing first hand, chances are that you may be asking yourself the all important question , why should you market your business online when there are scores of other options available? There are several benefits to online advertising that can be offered as an answer to this question; however, the distinctive advantages of using the Internet to market your business are the cost and reach factors.

Pay less and get more:

In this day and age of cut throat competition, more bang for your advertising buck is the need of the hour. After all, a reduction in marketing costs can easily equate to greater discounts and benefits for your clients which may be the perfect lure to increase footfall. You can not only get stupendous response by using online marketing but also you will only have to spend a fraction of your marketing budget to achieve these results.

Reach millions of customers:

Another distinctive advantage of online marketing is the greater reach of your advertising campaign. Unlike TV or Radio commercials or even the Yellow Pages, where you are billed every time your advertising message is played or you have to wait for the client to look up your business, with online marketing, you are targetting customers 24/7. Also, you can reach local as well as national and international clients with the same techniques.

How to market your business online?

When marketing your business over the Internet, the crucial factor to consider is the online visibility of your establishment. To let potential clients know about your products and services, your business has to be placed in such a way that they can find you easily.

However, there are millions of sites selling the same products and services as your business, so you will need to make your site stand out to attract attention from target segment. To devise a successful marketing strategy, you will need to understand , how people look for businesses online.

Most netizens rely on search engines to find a service or product of their choosing. The problem is that Google will usually offer thousands of websites in response to a single query, so where your site is positioned on the SERPs will be vital to the success of your online marketing campaign.

There are several ways in which you can dominate the search engines; you can use paid tactics such as PPC campaigns or choose organic strategies which get your site a higher page rank and greater visibility.

Paid Tactics

Paid tactics are those which require the website owner to incur a cost for implementing the marketing strategies. The most popular paid online promotions techniques include:

PPC:

Email marketing:

Social media advertising

CPV

Buying links:

Expired Domains:

Paid Reviews and blogs:

Paid directories and classifieds:

These are the Internet versions of print media advertising such as Yellow Pages.

Free Marketing Techniques

Another option is to pay a popular review site or a blog to talk about your products or company; however, Google may not take too kindly to this technique and may treat it as paid link building. You can also use expired domains to display your advertisements;. however, the domain will have to be niche specific to get any real benefits from this approach This is one of the most controversial forms on online marketing; here you pay the owner of a website to endorse your products or site. However, search engines will penalize you if they find that you are buying links: Cost per view is the latest breed of paid campaigns; in this form of advertising, video ads and toolbar ads are placed in computer games, software and sites.: It is also possible to place banner ads on Facebook and other social media platforms; alternatively, business owners can cash in on the popularity of certain members by offering to pay them to include their advertisements in the messages they send out to their friends. In this form of marketing, the advertiser pays the owner of a list to include an endorsement of the company’s products or an advertising message in his mails to the people in his list. Pay per click campaigns are essentially banner advertisements which are displayed on various websites and even Google SERPs. The owner of the business does not pay for the display of the advertisement but has to pay every time a visitor clicks on the ad regardless of whether he/she buys the product.

These techniques are not necessarily free but they are aimed at increasing the visibility of a business/website in the cyber world. A business owner can choose to incorporate them in his overall marketing strategy on his/her own, highly limiting the cost of advertising or employ the services of an SEO firm. Popular techniques in this category include:

Get your own website:

A website is just the first step:

Article marketing:

Press release marketing:

Social media marketing:

Google Places:

Link Exchange:

Youtube marketing

Blogs and Forums:

Google and the other search engines love new content and one of the easiest ways to get fresh words is to use a blog on your site. Alternatively, you can also add your two words of wisdom on other blogs to get a link back.: Use Youtube to offer informative videos about products in your niche and help to increase traffic to your site. Although link exchanges are not highly rated, they can yield fantastic results. Try to get in touch with as many webmasters in your niche as you can and inquire about link exchange. This is another offering from Google that allows you to target local consumers. The site displays information about local businesses to visitors. Harnessing the power of social media to let people know about your products is another free marketing technique. You will need to open an account with a popular social networking platform and build a large fan following to make this strategy work. This option may call for a small fee; however, by working with paid services, you will be able to ensure that your press releases is displayed on hundreds of sites. If you know enough about your niche and products, you can write articles and submit them to various ezines to build links and enhance your standing with the search engines. With a website in place, you will now have to worry about driving traffic to your site. There are several techniques that can help you to get traffic; the most efficacious yet simple strategy is to offer valuable content. Yes, those good ol words still matter when trying to attract clients. Your website will be your online calling card, advertising and brochure rolled into one. So, if you want to cash in on the immense allure of the cyberworld, you should get in touch with a professional web designing agency and get yourself an impressive website.

These are just some of the paid and organic marketing techniques that can be used to enhance online visibility and drive traffic to your site and business. If you are new to the world of online promotions, you may want to start with the free techniques. On the other hand, if you have a few marketing dollars to spare, try PPC campaigns.