Effective Types of Marketing Strategies To Drive Your Business
There are several types of marketing strategies that can be used very effectively to promote your online business.
Deciding which strategies would suit your business best and when to use them will depend on the following:
- the type of business you have
- your desired outcome
- marketing budget; and
- the amount of time you have to devote to promoting your business.
Make sure that any strategy you have chosen forms part of your overall marketing strategy.
Don't worry though, it need not be a long document or a complex one. However, having an overall approach to promoting your business will prove more effective in the long run.
And, once you've developed your marketing plan be sure to include a timeline as well for when each activity should take place.
My Top 6 Types of Marketing Strategies
- Website
- Blog
- eMail Marketing
- Article Marketing
- Social Networking
- Online Networking
I've put a website as my first priority. Why?
I don't know about you, but when I hear about a new product or a business, the first thing I do is look for a website so that I can find out more about the company and the product.
People like to know who're they're dealing with.
Having an online business is all about building a relationship with your visitors.
A website "puts a face" to the person selling the product, builds credibility and trust.Creating a blog is another way of establishing a presence on the web.
It is cheap and easy but remember "cheap" is not always best. It really depends on what you are trying to do.
Having said that, both a websites and blogs each have a very specific role to play in marketing your business and they don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.
eMail Marketing is another very effective strategy to promote your business.
This sort of strategy uses a list of "qualified" potential customers to promote your business.
Addresses are obtained by you having an Opt-In Page on a site in which you advertise your product.
Building a list of qualified customers can take time but don't be tempted to buy a list off someone else.
It's important to use a list that is current and relevant. You don't want to be considered a "spammer" by bombarding untargeted potential customers with emails. It'll do you more damage than good.
One of the ways you can increase traffic to your site is by having other sites point to your site.
One way of achieving this is by writing articles that relate to your site and then you submit them to an article directory. An interesting article would lead them to your website for more information.
Once they visit your site you'll then have the opportunity of making a sale.
Facebook, Twitter, My Space and other social networking sites shouldn't be ignored.
Yes, I know.... The primary purpose of social networking is for people who want to socialize.
So how does social networking fit into the scheme of things?
Remember, in the "olden days" one of the types of marketing strategies was by "word of mouth".
Well, social networking sites now perform that same function. So having a page on different social networking sites to promote your business can be very powerful.
There are also many networking sites on the web today such as LinkedIn, Plaxo and others.
Here professional people make business contacts and promote themselves. This is an excellent way of connecting with like-minded people in other parts of the world.
