Online business promotions.
Whether your business is run entirely online or whether you have a business that does some work online, advertising your goods on the web can be an excellent way to expand your customer base and reach a much larger range of clients. While the online world can sometimes seem overwhelming, creating effective online advertising is largely the matter of a few simple steps and an evolving appreciation of who your customer is. With a little planning, you can be advertising your goods online in a short time--whether the goods are books, children's toys, clothing, office equipment or just about anything else--and thus build a more profitable business.
Instructions
1. Establish a website. Online advertising is most effective if it drives customers to a specific location. Companies such as Intuit and Homestead specifically focus on small business websites, and even the mega search engine Yahoo offers small business websites. To set up a website, begin by creating an account and then select from the available templates. Once you have chosen a template, begin adding the information about your company to it, personalizing it for your business with font changes and images. Preview the full website before sending it live, and then select the option to publish the site.
2. Purchase keyword advertising through advertising services like Google AdWords, Overture (through Yahoo), and Bing (through MSN). Keyword advertising presents brief information about your company in the search sidebar when consumers complete web searches for related items. In other words, if a consumer is looking for used books, when they type this into the search bar, websites related to "used book business" will show up. Ads using this keyword will display on the sidebar and if the consumer clicks your advertisement, they will be taken to your website. Best of all, business owners can spend as much or as little per day and on each ad that they want. For example, the business owner can set a budget of $10 each day, with each ad click costing $.10, depending on the value of the keyword. More competitive keyword terms can cost upwards of that. Once the daily budget is reached, the ad stops appearing.
3. Purchase banner ads on websites related to the material that you are selling. To set up a banner ad, first check the website on which you are interested in advertising to see what the advertisement policies are. In some cases, the website will create a banner ad for you. In other cases, you can create your own with a photo program (such as Photoshop or the free online program Picnik). Standard banner ads are 468 x 60 pixels and can cost anywhere from $20 per month on a small industry website to upwards of $5000 per month on a site like Yahoo.
4. Establish a periodic email newsletter that goes out to current and potential customers. Offer a sign-up on your website, and then send out the newsletter in which you can advertise--for free--sales and great deals on your products. Your newsletter should contain such details as major business news for your company and your industry, information about sales and promotional products, and other specifics about what is happening for your company during the period that the newsletter covers. For instance, a monthly newsletter should include information about sales, news, and so forth for that month. Your newsletter can be sent daily, weekly, monthly--whatever term you prefer to reach out and touch your customers.
