Marketing 101

Emily Tool-Tips Blog , , , ,

It doesn’t have to be expensive; quality of content and consistent communication are your most powerful resources.

There are lots of great tools for web-marketing which are free or inexpensive. From Facebook to Yelp! to Twitter  – the trick is finding what works for you and what you will stick to.

Got Google? Google has many FREE tools for businesses such as adding your business to Google maps, creating a Google Place page, Google Checkout, and of course, Google Analytics. Google Analytics tracks your web traffic and provides all kinds of fascinating insights such as keywords used to find your site, referring sites, and allows you to set goals for your site as visitors pass through specified pages or complete tasks (like submit a contact form).

Stay in touch! One of the hardest things to do – but one of the most productive – is simply to stay in touch with people. Email marketing is an excellent way to stay in touch with existing/potential partners and clients. It costs only your time (and that low, monthly fee) and is well worth the effort.

Newsletter services (like Constant Contact, iContact and MailChimp) range from FREE (with some subscriber limits) to minimally priced (around $15/month) and provide you with a library of professional templates and the ability to design from scratch. But, the real power here is in creating and managing your mailing lists. Most of these services also provide ways to link your existing social networking accounts.

Don’t try to be all things to all people – keep your messages simple. Too much information and your audience won’t know what they are supposed to pay attention to so focus on the one aspect of your business that you would like to promote each month (week or quarter) … and, don’t forget to ask your readers to to act (visit your website, complete a survey, contact you or forward your email).

Printed materials like postcards and seasonal greetings are always a good idea and now that everything is sent whizzing back and forth electronically, a well-designed promotion sent by snail-mail can really help your business or service stand apart from the crowd.

Just like a physical business, your website needs to be actively and consistently promoted in order to be successful.

Websites are flexible and dynamic – let that work for you. By updating your pages with new content, exchanging links with related or partner sites, creating a Facebook page or blog you are promoting yourself and creating content that (1) is related to your website and (2) links back to your website.