Winning through online marketing doesn’t necessarily require a large budget. Today we’re going to help you identify four basic marketing activities that are critical for winning online customers and require only a minimal investment, maybe just your time.

1. Maintain a User-Friendly Website

With millions of websites available, if your site doesn’t help visitors find the information they’re looking for quickly, you can be sure that they won’t hesitate visiting one of your competitors. Although hiring a professional web designer is the costly & preferred solution, improving your site’s usability doesn’t have to be expensive. You can identify potential usability weaknesses by conducting your own initial usability review and answering questions like these:

• Does your homepage clearly identify what your business offers?
• Are navigation links displayed consistently near the top of every page or on the sidebar?
• Can you access your most important information (e.g., contact information, driving directions, etc.) on your webpages without scrolling?
• Are there any broken links on your site?
• Is there information on your site that would be easier to read in bullet points or a table?
• Do you provide opportunities for visitors to become customers on every page?
• For more information on improving your website usability, I recommend visiting the U.S. government’s website on usability or picking up a copy of Steve Krug’s book on usability Don’t Make Me Think from your local library.

2. Own Your Local Search Presence

Statistics show that nearly 2/3 of consumers expecting internet searches to point them to businesses within 15-mile radius from work or home. Today, there’s no question about the importance of owning your local search presence. With potential customers in your area searching for businesses like yours everyday, Google Places provides an easy way to take ownership of your local search presence.

It’s also completely free to claim/edit your local business listing. As a DF customer, we can claim & help administer your Google Places page for you as a standard part of your subscription. If you have claimed your own listing, you can strengthen your presence by:

• Updating your profile regularly with fresh content, like promotions, images or videos.
• Optimizing your local profile with keywords that are relevant to your business. (You can learn the basics of local SEO from this short video)
• Adding your local profile link to your email signature and sharing the link with your customers to encourage reviews.
• Exploring premium paid options, like Google Places Tags and Google Boost that may enhance visibility of your local listing.

3. Manage Your Online Reputation

In today’s economy, your reputation is arguably your business’ single most valuable asset. A positive online reputation drives word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals, which research evidence suggests is one of the most effective marketing strategies for small businesses. Because your customers can start conversations that affect your reputation so easily and quickly via sites and online communities like Facebook, Google or Yelp, managing your online reputation requires regular engagement and an open-mind.

Here are a few ways you can maintain a strong and healthy online reputation for your business:

• Monitor your business profile on major review sites and directories to ensure that all information is accurate.
• Point your biggest fans to your local business listings on sites like Google Maps, Facebook, Yelp, CitySearch and encouraging them to share their great experience with others.
• Avoid potentially negative reviews by making it easy for customers to contact you directly with any questions, concerns or other feedback.
• Address critical feedback by reaching out directly to your customer to try and resolve the issue to everyone’s satisfaction. If that doesn’t work, a professional, public response can demonstrate to potential customers that you are commited to providing them with a great service experience.

4. Be Where Your Customers Are

“You need to be where your customers are and your prospective customers are,” said Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era. Already home to 600 million active users and over 1.4 million local businesses, Facebook is still growing, providing an important opportunity for you to connect with existing and potential customers.

Demandforce Connect for Facebook helps you do just that.  Just launched this year, we have developed three applications that seamlessly connect your Demandforce with Facebook to drive demand for your business.

• Easy Reviews automatically feed certified reviews from your DF portal to your Facebook page in real-time.
• Easy Scheduler allows you to receive appointment requests right from your Facebook page.
• Easy Coupons enables you to post trackable promotions on your Facebook page to attract more customers.

These tools will help you start building an online fan community for your business that can help you keep existing and attract new customers.

What works for you?

These four activities will enable you to build a solid foundation for successfully marketing your business online, but they’re not the only things you can do. If you’ve had a successful experience with these or any other online marketing activities, please share your story with our readers – we would love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. Demandforce Tips for Google Local Success
2. Reviews VS Ranking
3. Is your online reputation really that important?
4. Basic Rules – Dos and Don’ts for your Google Places profile
5. New Business Profiles are here!

Tags: demandforce connect for facebook, internet marketing, Local Search Optimization, online marketing strategy, small businesses, SMBs

This entry was posted on March 3, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Online Marketing, SEO/SEM, Small Businesses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.