How to Promote Your Online Store
by Denise O'Berry
Published on this site: July 26th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
OK. So you took the leap and started your online store. But,
oops, there are no customers and your store is lost in the
crowd. All is not lost. You just need to be very creative
in how you market your site. The key thing to remember as
you market your site is "people buy from people, not
companies."
To make money online:
- You must get traffic to your site.
- You must convert that traffic to paying customers. To
begin simply create a T-chart. Label one column "Traffic"
and the other "Conversion." Then brainstorm what
methods you will use to to make those happen and turn them
into an action plan.
Traffic suggestions for you:
- Pay per click
- Offline advertising
- Article marketing
- Newsletter
- Autoresponders
- Word of mouth
- Joint ventures / strategic partnerships
- Talks to groups
- Participation in online forums / discussion groups
Most online stores are extremely competitive (what's not
these days?) and they compete on price - one of the worst
ways to compete. What you need to do is find a way to take
the focus off the money, find your unique value and promote
it from there.
So how do you do that? First you have to know who your prospect
is so you can speak to them directly. Hint: Your market is
not everyone or anyone. Once you know who your prospect is,
you can implement tactics that will convert them into customers.
Here are some ideas that will help your conversion rate:
- Bundled products
- Free gift with purchase
- Regular newsletter
- Autoresponder course
- Helpful content on your website
- Companion blog for your website
These should get you thinking about where you need to go.This
is not by any means a complete, comprehensive list - just
a start. Begin by putting all of your ideas together in an
action plan. Use your action plan to drive what you do every
day. Spend at least one hour on these tasks per day. In no
time you'll find you've made a lot of progress.
Denise O'Berry helps small business owners take action
to grow their business. Find out more at http://www.smallbusinessmatters.com.
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