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1 Turn your web site into a selling machine
Web sites should no longer be online brochures. Take advantage of your online presence and let your web site do the selling for you. Content rich sites that educate your users keep them coming back often and establish you as an expert in your industry. You begin to establish a relationship with your users and with that comes trust to start doing business with you. The right web strategy can launch your business to the next level, but only if your site sells!
2 pURL campaign or Personalized URL
These campaigns mix the best of both worlds by utilizing a personalized direct mail promotion that promotes a link address for a web site that is in your client’s name (i.e. www.yourcompany.com/JohnSmith). These campaigns are growing in popularity because they tend to get higher response rates than traditional direct mail campaigns. In addition, the micro sites allow you the opportunity to include survey questions to gather valuable information on the respondents and either update or add them to your database. You have access to reporting functions that let you see, real–time, how many recipients actually visit their personalized site, and full reporting on their survey responses. The system also kicks emails to you or your sales staff for those respondents that display an interest in your offering or request to be contacted. The Direct Marketing Association’s recent study on these campaigns showed an astounding 43% of the recipients of pURL promotions actually visit their personalized micro site. U Creative Group is proud to be a cost competitive solution to your pURL campaign needs. Our new system offers a very cost effective turn–key solution. Call or email us for more details.
3 Pay-per-click (sponsored) ads on the internet
If you haven’t tried pay-per-click ads, and you want to generate more traffic to your site, it’s time to give PPC a try. These programs, offered through the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) help you increase your chances of first page search engine results exposure. If you’re competing online for organic (non-paid) first page placement and finding it very difficult to get your site up there, pay-per-click might give you the edge you’re looking for to improve your rankings. There is a slight learning curve but the programs are fairly easy to maintain on your own. To get even better results from your PPC programs create custom landing pages for your ads that link leads back to your web site after you hook them with the landing page.
4 Online news releases
News releases can greatly improve the traffic to your web site, are great for raising awareness about your brand and could get you some free publicity! Why wait for a journalist to write your story when you can write it yourself? Once your release is distributed over the internet, it’s available for viewing by anyone searching for your products or services online. Even if they don’t know they’re looking for you specifically! The release will also make its way to journalists and bloggers, so there’s also a potential for your story being picked up by the media. But even if it’s not, the power of the blogger sometimes trumps the journalist when it comes to positive buzz!
1 PR
Many newspapers are making it easier for you to get exposure through their publications with online tools for submitting your business news and events. Check the web sites of the papers in your area (or call them if you can’t find anything on their site) to find out how they prefer you get your news to them. For most, the days of submitting a hard copy press release are gone and you’ll have a much better chance of getting your newsworthy items picked up if you submit in their preferred format. Also, if you advertise try, negotiating a contract that includes editorial content along with your display ads. Publications are especially willing to negotiate or sweeten the pot in tough economic times as they see advertisers drop out of their publications.
2 Online Lead Generator Partners
There are a number of online services that will generate leads for you. In addition there are government agencies that will push leads to you as well. Fees for such services vary greatly so you’ll want to do your research before signing on with one of these vendors. (resourcenation.com, the RFP Database )
3 Start a blog
Start a blog with valuable information on your industry and link back to your web site. If your site is well designed once you get the link from your blog you could just have a qualified lead. Some blog services are absolutely free and are very easy to set up on your own (blogger.com for example). The key to blogging for generating business is frequency of your posting. We recommend that you try to post new entries at least 3 to 4 times per week. Your posts don’t need to be long (in fact, they shouldn’t be more than 500 words) and should be pertinent to your products or services. Don’t try to sell directly from your blog. Just offer information that readers will value and they'll want to know more about.
4 Seminars / Workshops
Use your expertise to develop a presentation that gives good value to your participants and showcases how you might be able to help them to meet their goals or solve their problems. At the very least you’ll end up improving your own business out of the process of developing your presentations and it’s great for brand awareness and credibility.
5 Joint “Stuffers”
Ask other businesses if you can include a promotional “stuffer” in with their invoices to their clients or in their shopping bags, etc. These can be produced very inexpensively and can get you exposure without the cost of mailing or paid print advertising. You can do this as a reciprocal deal and include their stuffer with your invoice mailing or shopping bags.
6 Joint Ventures
These are partners that offer products or services that are complementary to your own. Promote one another on your web sites, in collateral, in your email marketing campaigns and in your presentations. In this way you can offer additional value to your customers while generating more income that requires little work on your part. Work out the details of commissions and payment terms up front so that your arrangements for payments are very clear.
With these easy tips you can boost sales. And because they are free to little cost what do you have to lose?
Get great tips and news sent to your email by joining our monthly newsletter. Contact us or call at 303.679.6328 if you’re interested in learning more about these newer marketing vehicles.
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