These 21 tips compiled by Entrepreneur.com will help you get the word out about your e-business.
Offline Promotions:
- Always put your URL on letterhead, business cards and in e-mail
signatures--wherever potential visitors are likely to see it.
- If your employees wear uniforms, put your URL on them so every one
of your customers sees a walking advertisement of your Web site.
- Include your URL on all promotional items you give away--coffee
mugs, T-shirts, keychains and so on. A daily reminder is a good way to
get people to visit your site.
- Be sure to include your Web address in all press releases you send
out to members of the media. By having it at their fingertips, they may
be more likely to include it in articles they write about your company.
- Don't forget to put your Web address in your Yellow Pages ad. That's
oneplace people see it every day.
- Do you own any company vehicles? Be sure to put your URL on the
side of any car or truck that's out there delivering your products.
- In addition to listing your toll-free number, put your Web address
on the bottom of every page of your catalog so customers have easy access
to your online store.
Online Promotions:
- Hone your search engine submission process so you can get
the best exposure possible.
- If you're still itching for more exposure, you can explore
search engine marketing, wherein you pay to have a text ad appear
when visitors search for certain keywords.
- Launch a sweepstakes that offers anyone who registers
on your site or subscribes to e-newsletters within a certain
time frame the chance to win a free gift.
- Send out a weekly e-mail newsletter to registered site
members that offers tips and news related to your company or
industry with links back to your site.
- Offer free content to other sites. It's a win-win situation:
The other site gets free articles to beef up their offerings
and you get a link back to your site and the cache of being an expert.
- Send a well-planned, customer-focused e-mail promotion to a targeted list of potential visitors and offer a credit toward
the purchase of anything from your site. Spend time on your e-mail's look and content: You want to offer value to customers and not have it appear to be spam.
- Create your own link exchange by asking sites complementary
to yours (but that don't compete) to put your link on their pages
and you'll do likewise.
- Hook up with Web affiliates--hundreds of sites that all
link their traffic to yours--and get visitors from sites with
related content.
- Get active in online discussion groups and chats and always include your URL in your signature. (Don't do any hard selling,
though. Most groups frown on such behavior and will think you're spamming the group.)
- Any time someone orders a product from your site, include a catalog with their order to get them coming back for more.
- Inspire your visitors to spread the word for you with viral marketing techniques, from the aforementioned newsgroup participation to including an "e-mail this link" on every page of your site.
- Not sure what your customers want? Try creating an online survey to get their crucial opinions on how well your site is
selling to them.
- When creating your own ads, make sure you understand who you're targeting, the goal of your campaign, and how to creatively
use the ad confines to get viewers to click on your ad, not away from it.
- Use other selling venues like online classified advertising or online auction sites to increase exposure to your site and products.
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