Internet Marking - The 2 Things to Consider Before you Begin

Right

After a bit of waffle on the last 2 blogs about how to most effectively use the web to promote yourself, this time I am going to get to the point and actually tell you something useful...


As I started to say in the last The number one rule of developing an effective online presence is to NOT RUSH AT IT! Before you even consider your web presence you need to decide what you are doing in your business, the strategy you use online has to reflect 2 things:

1. What you are selling?
Are you selling a service only or are you/do you intend to sell products (hint: you should really be aiming to sell products at some point)? Are you aiming a specific geographical location? Businesses or individuals?

All these will effect the online strategy you have got, so you need to know your target market so you know the most effective (and cost effective) form of online marketing.

If you are aiming to get clients in your local town only, but most of your hits on your site are coming from the USA, it is not being effective, even if you are getting lots of traffic!

As I say in the practice builder handbook, there is no point getting thousands of hits on your website if none convert to sales, it is much better to get only 10 hits but all 10 convert.

You need to have a very well defined idea of your target market and this, as with everything, comes down to research, research, research...

2. The rest of your marketing strategy
Online marketing should only be part of your marketing strategy, you cannot rely on that alone. The rest of your marketing strategy will effect what sort of web presence you need. If you are doing predominantly, word of mouth marketing, or tendering for business contracts you will need a very different website than if you are producing and selling your own products.

A lot of people rush in and get a website set up without really thinking through the above points. Take some time to consider and define your target market and larger marketing strategy so that you will save yourself time and money in the long term.

Matt

Want to learn more?

The next Business Builder Master Class in running on the 25-26 April in the Birmingham, UK. For more details please visit:

http://mattcaulfield.com/training.aspx?i=59