An Easy Guide for SMEs to Start Online Marketing
Tom is a laptop technician. He is planning to start a business for selling and repairing old laptops.
But he feels a little bit stressed about how people will know about his business?
At the start, Tom was thinking of promoting his business through advertising boards. He also thought of distributing pamphlets to every person who will come in contact with him.
Then someone suggested to Tom that he should promote his business through online marketing. But Tom thinks it almost impossible for him to promote his business online.
According to Tom, he is not a techy guy, so it will not be easy for him to focus on online promotion.
This problem is not only tension for Tom but also every business owner. Some of them are planning to start a business and want to promote their goods and services online.
To help these people, I am writing this easy guide to start online marketing.
This guide is for you if you are planning to start a business or already running a business. And want to market the goods and services of your business.
Use this guide, try to grasp every point that I have discussed below and practice them. This way, you can get practical knowledge along with theoretical knowledge.
I have made this guide easier for you. You can easily understand every term of this guide without any technical knowledge. No more techy stuff!
Start with this first one.
Think! Why do you need Online Marketing? Set Goals.
That is important.
Never do anything without planning. First, take some time to understand the reasons behind every work.
In online marketing, it is no different.
Define your goal. This process is essential to making an efficient online marketing strategy.
Without any goal, it will be difficult for you to evaluate your strategy.
Take the example of Tom. In his case, the target was to tell the potential customer that his business exists on this planet.
In this case, the goal is to aware people about business.
In the same way, you should define your goals like engagements, followers and sign-ups. But do not restrict yourself with fixed parameters or numbers.
Be flexible and never bound yourself with the results.
Create A Blog! Choose One Free or Paid Platform, Not A Big Deal.
Yes! Creating a blog is the first thing you should do.
If this is your first time to start a blog and has a low budget, use free blogging platforms.
Wordpress.com, Blogger.com or Medium.com, all these platforms are best.
And the best thing is that you can switch anytime on any platform. We are living in the 21st-century! Use technology where possible.
If you ask me the best and easiest? Use Medium!
You can start your blog in minutes and publish articles straight away. No hours of designing, no domain-hosting and the best thing is that the search engine is friendly.
The blog is for engagement of your customers directly with you.
With the help of a blog, you can share information about your goods and services.
Medium is also providing subscription form for each blog with subscribers exporting option.
Prepare Your 4–5 Social Media Profiles for Online Marketing.
Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
You can replace any of them as you need. Do not overthink about choosing any platforms.
As we discussed, you always have options to change your choice.
What is the process to prepare social media profiles?
Preparing means making your profile ready for your customers and search engines.
How to do that?
I have discussed social media optimization in my social media marketing quick guide you can read if needed!
In preparation for social media profiles, create a unique cover page. Profile username should be the same in all social media accounts. Write a simple and easy to read descriptions with the targeted keyword of your business.
Link your social media profiles with your blog and your blog to social media profiles. Use the same profile picture everywhere. It will help users to remember about your business brand.
These steps will help your brand to look different and unique in the market.
Publish Talking Content(Not Only Appealing).
Did you notice? I have used the word talking!
Why?
It is the biggest secret of the marketing world that marketing is all about engagement.
If you want engagement, talk to customers.
It will change the pace of marketing. It will set a robust platform for online marketing of your brand.
Direct relationships with customers are significant.
When you start talking to your customers, they feel you care about them. Care for customers will give wings to your brand marketing.
Publish to the point, easier to read blog articles on your blog. Share these articles on all social media profiles.
Ask your followers to share these stories on their profiles. That is the start of the conversation. At blog and all your social media profiles, put a call to action link, like a Sign-Up form for customers. This way, you can collect customers ‘ emails. Use these emails for Email Marketing.
This method will help you to make direct connections with customers through their mailbox.
Final Thoughts.
All these simple steps are part of Online Marketing strategies that you can use on any brand. You can also choose other ways of conversation, as you will be ready to expand your online marketing projects.
But keep in mind that caring for customers should be your priority.
So follow this unique online marketing guide to start your small but robust marketing plan. With this basic structure, you and other people like Tom can create any online marketing plan from scratch.