E-Marketing Techniques for Boosting Traffic
By Matt Hodkinson
The over-riding aim of e-marketing is to generate excitement about your Mom e-business by using some of the most accessible tools available; the Internet, e-mail, discussion forums and Blogs can all assist you in marketing your products and services to the web-savvy masses.
The most important task facing you as a marketer is to identify with your customer. If you can’t relate to your target market, their needs and point of view, then you shouldn’t expect them to relate to your sales techniques. Companies spend millions, nay billions on market research each year, and it’s for a good reason. Techniques such as focus groups and research questionnaires give businesses an insight into the world of their potential customer. Armed with this knowledge, it’s a great deal easier to not only pitch your products, but sell them too!
The next thing to do is to define your niche. Too many businesses describe themselves in a generic manner, which often leaves the target market confused as to whether their products and services are suitable for the job at hand. Be specific. If you sell Cell phone accessories, that’s your niche. Don’t tell potential buyers that you’re in the Cell phone business. That leaves you in competition with a much larger pool of businesses and will lead a greater proportion of people to your door, which have no intention of buying your products. An accurate description of your business will lead to higher conversion rates with your customers.
It makes sense, also, to keep up-to-date with developments in your industry. Research the organizations and special interest groups that are involved in your niche business area, and subscribe to their newsletters and discussion forums. You may even be able to strike up advertising and promotional opportunities with them, and gain access to their contacts. Networking opportunities will help to grow your business fast, and best of all, it’s all targeted to your chosen niche.
Once you have identified your niche and customer profile, you can begin to communicate with your audience. Be sure to set up an email list (see our related articles on this subject) and send out a newsletter or regular updates. A weekly email is fine, though sending out many each week may alienate your potential customers, and have the unwanted affect of causing them to unsubscribe. Be succinct in your communications, keeping things short and to the point; the idea, after all, is to drive them to your website, not have them trawling through pages of email content. With that in mind, don’t forget to add a link in each newsletter!
To keep site visitors coming back for more, and to keep the search engines happy in listing you at the top of their rankings, it makes sense to keep your site content fresh and up-to-date. Be sure to add new articles, products and resources every week. You can even tell your email list all about the new additions in your newsletter. A blog is a great way of adding new content to your site, or driving people to visit. Entries don’t have to be daily, but keep them fairly regular, and to the point.
Not everyone will arrive at your site via your email list of from referrals, so be sure to implement your search engine optimization strategy, and maintain it every week of the year. There are many techniques available (see our e-business category for more), and ranking well in Google, MSN, Yahoo etc. will keep a steady stream of new custom knocking at your door.
Writing articles, and distributing to the submission sites, provides another opportunity for creating inbound links to your site. If you can produce 500-700 words on a subject close to your niche, and submit it to sites such as ezinearticles and articlecity, webmasters will be posting it on their Blogs and web pages, and creating new ways for people to visit your site.
E-marketing doesn’t have to be difficult, but what you put in at the beginning, can generate multiple returns with the right techniques. Mompreneurs everywhere should dedicate some time each week to boost the amount of traffic coming into their e-business site. Try some of the tips outlined in this article, and see the effect on your visitor numbers.
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