Using the Internet is a low cost, relatively quick way to increase sales and profits in your business. There are many tactics which can be easily implemented, and the three that give you the biggest return quickly are email marketing, social networking, and direct advertising.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an excellent way to acquire new business, increase sales from existing customers and build customer loyalty all at once.
Email marketing can be used to send sales notices, discounts and coupons to your subscribers. When utilized well, it can also build brand loyalty and word of mouth marketing that helps acquire new customers as well.
By sharing information, tips and advice with your email subscribers instead of just sales campaigns, they'll more readily open and read each message you send. And by offering valuable information along with encouragement to forward the email on to friends and colleagues, you can turn your subscribers into enthusiastic marketing mediums that will help drive more business to your website or offline store.
Social Networking
Social networking is another excellent way to increase business on the Internet, because it acts like a word of mouth--or viral--marketing medium. Customers respond better to companies who establish a relationship with them, and those relationships are easier to create on social media networks such as Facebook and MySpace.
Facebook and MySpace are used by consumers to stay in touch with friends, family and business associates around the world. By setting your company up with a profile at one or more of these social sites, you can begin to attract customers and fans to your network.
Each time one of your customers adds you as a friend or becomes a fan of your company on a social networking site, everyone else they are friends with gets a general notification. In most cases friends and family will check out the extended friends network, and if they like what they see they may add your company as a friend as well. This creates a viral effect because each person exposes your business to their own network of contacts.
Advertising
Direct advertising on the Internet is much like using classified advertising in the newspaper, but it's much more targeted and cost effective. When you choose to advertise online through services such as the Google AdWords network, you are exposing your advertisements to millions of people around the world instead of just within your local community. Online advertising also allows you to target your market much more effectively as well, so less advertising dollars are wasted.
If, for example, you want to sell lamps in the United States, you can set up Internet advertisements which only appear to people in the U.S. who may be interested in buying lamps. This targeted focus of your advertising helps to ensure ads are only shown to those who are interested, and this helps improve the overall return on investment your business receives.
