How do visitors find your business or website?
While you are thinking about this let me put this another way...
- You have a business and you want more customers or clients?
- You have customers/clients and you want them to keep coming back?
- You have tried advertising in Yellow Pages etc without the results you expected?
- You may have tried advertising on the internet and found it even more expensive?
- You have a website but no visitors and you don't know how to get visitors to find you?
- You have too much competition locally and you are losing customers or clients?
Providing service and quality to your clients and customers is not enough without encouraging interest in your business or service. It's not enough to sell once and let that client or customer walk away without encouraging them to return just like the superstores do with their special offers and promotions which eventually lead to loyalty.
The two income streams for any business are: New customers/clients and Existing customers / clients both of which are important and need regular attention and stimulation.
New Customers and Clients
Publicity through paid for advertising done regularly can blow your budget with little or no return but an online presence with a website and active participation in social media puts business's and services on the map-literally!
As busy business owners you may not have had the time or desire to learn about the internet and the various marketing strategies even if you already have a website but the universal problem for all website owners is how to to put your business or service in front of prospective customers or clients? It is not enough to have a website built and to think they will surely come?
Without internet marketing and social media interaction it is quite likely that Your Website Will Never Be Found unless your service or product is unique and your website is Search Engine Optimised (SEO)
Existing Customers and Clients
They bought from your shop or restaurant or they came to you for a service that you provide but do you ask for their names and addresses before they leave? If you don't you are leaving money on the table as they say...
Or maybe you do take names and addresses but what do you do with them? Do you establish contact within a few days while their purchase or your service is still fresh in your recent visitors mind? Do you maintain contact with Special Offers or seasonal promotions? Your competitors surely do!
How do they do it? They establish a rapport with their clients and customers with news letters via the mail or by email. Regular mail is not cheap and it is labour intensive and it may end up as garbage and become landfill-what a waste of a tree!
Email is quick and easy if done professionally with an Autoresponder service but do people read all their emails? A recent survey suggest that 80% of emails don't get through for one reason or another such as SPAM filters and the sheer volume of Junk Mail!
There Are Solutions-Email Marketing and Mobile Marketing
Email Marketing -Can be setup on your computer with a specialist Autoresponder service for a small monthly subscription of around $20 to start and pro-rata depending on the volume of email traffic. Visitors to your website would be opted in when they fill in their name and email address and click the Subscribe button, a confirmation email follows which has a link for them to click on to finally confirm that they requested the information or service to be sent to them. This is known as the Double Optin to ensure that businesses and service providers conform to the CANSPAM legislation
You would prepare a series of messages to be send out at regular intervals which can be programmed ahead of schedule. The messages would contain a link to your business or service website that your customers / clients can click to find out more and take advantage of any Special Offers etc that you are promoting
Mobile Marketing
Almost everyone has a cell or mobilephone which is never more than 3 feet away from them! Hmmm, think of the possibilities! Before you get too excited you can't call everyone or send them a text message as that would be called Spamming and anyway the mobile service providers don't give away lists of phone numbers to just anyone!
But what if you could collect the mobilephone number from each of your customers or clients? So that you could send them a message when you have a promotion or Special Offer... What? There could be hundreds of numbers to call and a mobilephone or cellphone is not ideal for sending SMS (Short Message Service) to lots of people at the same time.
The answer is to use a Web to Mobilephone service provider so that bulk messages can be sent out from your computer while online to all your subscribers mobile or cellphone numbers that you have diligently collected!
