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Marketing and business online. The internet has changed the business world offering opportunities beyond what dreams are made of

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Business is all about marketing

Nothing has changed with this concept and I am sure you will all understand that any business requires customers and those customers are recruited from some form of marketing.

The difference is that online marketing is far cheaper and easier than traditional forms and can be set up and operated quickly and at no cost.

Traditional ways to reach customers

For years most businesses operated with a shopfront, a Yellow (or Pink) pages advertisement, and snail-mail. The rest was up to chance. The cost to all marketing was very high and returns were never guaranteed.

At one stage I used a separate telephone number in Yellow pages advertising so that I could gauge the number of calls and justify the $10k a year cost. If it did not work I had to wait another year to cancel my subscription. Which I did!

The outbound sales person

In those days to contact new customers, we door knocked businesses walking the streets all day long trying to get a foot in the door. Rejections were many however sales resulted but at a premium cost.

The true story of Morrie

My first salesperson in a business I had was Morrie a senior guy that had come through hard times and accepted a commission-only sales role.

Morrie worked hard for me and had great success selling about 20 units a month so I decided to add a second person.
Morrie cried real tears that his income would be cut in half with two people out in the field.

I rationalised this with the time-saving in travel and that he could see more customers in a day. The result was that Morrie increased his sales to 40 a month.

Being on a roll I introduced two new salespeople to the business cutting the territory into four.

You guessed it, Morrie was in my office bleating like a wounded pig. It took a lot of smooth-talking to stop him from walking out the door.

The result was his sales increased even further and reached 60units units a month. The others looked at him in amazement as his figures continued to increase.

This was working so well that I doubled the sales force from four to eight hoping to really take advantage of the opportunity.

This time Morrie walked out, spat the dummy, and went home crying all the way. This was just too much for him to take.
Fortunately, he came back after a couple of days and again increased his sales leaving the others in his wake. Morrie maintained around one hundred units a month placing his earnings right up with senior management. Not bad for an unemployed transport driver.

I owe a lot to Morrie we stayed friends and he remained with me for many more years.

However, my lesson from this was that targeting an audience is far better than spreading yourself too wide.

Target Marketing

Now we do this with emails, SMS, Blog posts, and Newsletters in all their forms to break the inquiries down into sales.

For door knocking, we use Social media, retargeting, and remarketing to get the attention of business owners.
Sales can be done online with credit card payments and delivered overnight by express courier.
The work of eight men was reduced to one marketer who has no need ever to come crying to my office.

Target often and hard.

Marketing and business online with Social Media

Using just one media and maximising returns

Life is all about examples and this one was special.

My God Daughter set up an upmarket boutique hairdressing salon catering to a small market niche that was not afraid to pay premium rates. Particularly business women 20-45 that wanted something different.
Her only marketing was on Instagram and in fact, she used that for bookings as well.

Every day of the week she would post three photos of that day's customers proudly displaying their new main.

As a single operator, she did extremely well however she added some family to the mix so had to engage more chairs to fill in when she was not available.

She has never taken a step back and maintained a single marketing focus on a declared niche that has returned big dividends. Now with 5 hairdressers and three kids, the salon is about to expand yet again.

My lesson was certainly in target marketing and maximizing the benefits of one media.

The value of customers and the retention of data

The lesson here was a young lady that ran a Fish and aquarium shop marketing all sorts of exotic fish and the facilities to maintain and feed them.

It was generally a successful business however it ran into some cost overruns that rendered the business non-viable. She subsequently had to close the doors resulting in many unpaid creditors.

Glenda rang me for help and I promised to do what I could to help her out of the situation.
I rang her largest and closest competitor and explained the situation wondering if anything could be of value. He was over the moon with excitement and promised to pay a handsome reward for her database, in fact, enough money to clear the creditors.

Not all stories have a happy ending and this is one of them. Glenda had no idea who her customers were and had no phone numbers or email addresses having run a cash business.

Customers have an intrinsic value and should be captured and treated with respect.

Marketing and business online need Keyword management

The power of Keywords

This is the single biggest factor in attracting customers to your Website, Post or Funnel.

People search by phrases either on the internet or talking into a mobile device. These Key phrases deliver customers to you with the aid of Google.
However, there is a lot of competition among the traffic so you must understand how to pick the right words to get them to your site.

When I first started blogging I had no clue and a recent check confirmed my theory with no first-page listing and hence no traffic.

Now I customize my words I am hitting page one in Google, Bing, and Yahoo most of the time, and hence a lot more traffic and customers.

Most businesses have a website and the number of bloggers grows every day so being found is becoming increasingly hard. This is when a large percentage of sales originate from either your Website or blog.

Advanced Keyword training

Marketing-and-business-online needs authority

Understanding the power of authority

This is a tool that many marketers ignore because it is not deemed important yet it has a high percentage impact on your results.
When readers recognise you and respect what you say you have developed trust and that means they will take any recommendation you make.

It is an ancient rule of marketing that the more times a customer sees your material the greater the chance of them buying. In fact, it was even called the rule of five.

This is a reason for multi-media marketing and throwing every avenue you have to keep you top of mind when the time comes to buy.

Using Email, Newsletters, SMS, Social Media, and even hard mail opens up countless opportunities for you. Importantly this is all done at a low cost so you can get a high return on any spend that is necessary.

The high cost of marketing

Sometimes you will pay a premium for a marketing exercise in the hope of achieving results.

This cost should never be a concern if the results provide a better return than what you spend.
However, hope is never the basis for spending money. Work out what you want to achieve and how you are going to get it and where possible run a trial.

I do this with newsletters, emails, and SMS. I pick a small section of my customer base to receive what I am sending and then analyze the results.
This gives me an idea of what the mass will do and if any changes should be made.


Marketing-and-business-online and trending industries

Remarketing is a trend on drugs

How many times does an advertisement pop up on the internet when you have thought about a product. In fact, they keep coming ad-nauseum sometimes costing the sender money when they are clicked.

First of all, no one is listening to you it is all done with pixels however smartly they are applied.
Maybe you look for a watch repairer and all of a sudden you have new Watch advertising all around you. Then it is jewelry because it matches a new watch and on it goes. They know you are in the spending mode so they take advantage of the timing.
This is simply paid for advertising available to anyone.

Then There is Retargeting

So you buy a watch and are happy with the purchase but now they will try and sell you something else because they know your wallet is open. Perhaps a new band or extra warranty or anything that goes along with the purchase.

A better example may be an engagement ring purchase. You will then get every wedding product possible jumping up in your face including holiday destinations for a honeymoon.
Anything related to a ring purchase could be thrown at you.

Does it work? As long as you pay for the advertising they are happy and people keep using the service so there must be return somewhere.

Marketing-and-business-online concluded

Conclusion

Marketing is the lifeblood of your business and without a good plan, you will be left behind.
We have set ou a few examples for you and things to think about that can make a difference.

You must be better than your closest competitor or they get the biscuits.

If you have to copy another business just go one better and go hard because that stream of customers wants to go somewhere and it may as well be to you.

Target your market with everything you have, you can not overdo it but definitely can undersell yourself by standing back.

Marketing and business online by Peter Hanley

• Why Marketing is Important
• How to target the best client for great sales

• How to do retargeting
• 8 important tips for blogging in small business
• Online training
• 4 Scientific Tips That Guarantee Better Results in Your Blog