Using a Website to Market Your Business

There are many different ways to advertise your business on the Web. Placing banner ads, orchestrating an email marketing campaign and tactfully mentioning your business on industry related forums and message boards are just a few of the popular options for Web marketing. Another Web marketing strategy involves creating and advertising a website to promote your business. You can use your website in a number of ways.

Some of these ways include providing more information about your business and the products or services you offer, letting potential customers know how to reach you and even selling your products and services via the website. This article will highlight the advantages of using a website to market your business and will outline some of the ways the website can be useful.

One great advantage to using a website to market your business on the Web is that you can place descriptions and photos of the products or services your business offers. This is important because many consumers use the Web when researching products and services. Having an online presence gives your business an advantage over the competition because consumers are much more likely to select your products or services over the products and services offered by your competitors who do not advertise online.

Another advantage to marketing your business on a website is you can use the website to not only market but also sell your products directly. Again this can give you an edge over the direct competition. Consumers who use the Web to research products and services are often very anxious to make their purchases and they would be more inclined to select a retailer or service providers who offer the opportunity to purchase products or services online over a retailer or service provider who only allows for purchase in a store or via phone.

Still another advantage to using a website to market your business is the ability to reach a large, worldwide audience. The Web essentially knows no boundaries and advertising on a website means the business owner can reach competitors around the world instead of being limited to their general location. Advertising via other medium such as television, radio and the print media is somewhat limited and may only reach potential customers in a relatively small geographic area.

Adding to the advantages of using a website to market your business is the fact that Web availability is 24 hours a day around the world. This essentially offers you a storefront which is open 24 hours a day. While your competitors may be limited to their regular business hours, your website will enable you to reach your customers at any hour of the day.

This is especially important for reaching potential customers in other time zones and for reach customers in your own area who are simply too busy to shop for products or services like the ones you offer during regular business hours. Many potential customers work long hours and appreciate the ability to research and shop online after hours.

One final advantage to using a website to market your business is you can actually generate a profit from your website in other ways than through sales to customers. You can also use your website to generate income by selling advertising space to other business owners who are marketing their own products and services on the Web. However, care should be taken when advertising on your website.

First of all you should not sell advertising space to direct competitors. This is important because this may cause you to lose potential business if potential customers opt to purchase product or services from competitors who advertise on your website. An ideal advertiser is one who offers products and services which do not directly compete with your own products or services but would be of interest to your potential customers. You should also take care not to place too many advertisements on your website. This is important because too many advertisements may detract from your business and may cause you to lose potential customers.

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When Email Marketing Yields Unexpectedly Great Results

The basic concept

Sometimes the benefits of email marketing are quite different than anticipated. Most Web marketers understand the basic concept of email marketing which is to email promotional materials to a large group of Internet users in an effort to promote interest in particular products or services. This concept is easy for many to understand, but we will attempt to describe and, perhaps, elaborate on a few of the more beneficial aspects of email marketing.

In the following paragraphs we discuss the basics of email marketing, but we will also explain how – sometimes – email marketing can encompass much more than originally planned. This additional reach can be either a positive or negative influence depending on the quality of original emails and the reactions of subscriber list recipients.

Simple & cost effective

Email marketing is a very simple concept which can also be extremely cost effective; but the general idea behind email marketing can be narrowed down to this simple characterization: An email is sent to an email subscription (or distribution) list with the single purpose of creating an interest in the products or services being offered by the originator of that email. In theory this concept could not be simpler but email marketing can get significantly more complicated when being implemented.

One of the biggest complicating factors is the potential for emails used in a marketing campaign occur when one or more of those emails are misinterpreted as spam, either recipient of such emails or a spam filter provided by the Internet service provider. This potential alone creates a major complication because Web marketers have to make a significant effort to ensure that their messages are not trapped by a spam filter or immediately deleted by the recipients for appearing to be spam.

After clearing initial hurdle

Once the misinterpretation hurdle is cleared and email messages get through to recipients, they have a small window of opportunity to make a positive impression on those recipients and influence them to make a purchase or at least visit the business owner’s website. One effective method of getting such a result is to provide quality content while keeping advertising subtle and at a minimum while making sure to feature a clear call to action. These are all factors which have been proven to help get the message across and entice potential customers to make a purchase or at least visit a website to get a closer look at those products and services.

As previously stated the goal of an email marketing campaign is to subtlely persuade email recipients to either make a purchase or visit a particular website for more detailed information; and when an email recipient performs either of these actions, it is considered a huge success. However, thanks to the power of a forward button, email marketing can actually be much more successful than even the business owner intended.

Better than word-of-mouth

One of the great aspects of email marketing becomes evident when email recipients receive an email that they think is worthwhile and are likely to make a purchase, but may also forward the same information on to a friend or family member they believe may also be interested in learning more about the particular product or service. This ability to forward email messages can be compared to satisfied customers in the offline world using word of mouth to tout the quality of products or services they have bought and like.

However, the ability to forward a worthwhile email message is exponentially more effective than using word of mouth to spread the word; because with just a few clicks of the mouse the original email recipient can forward any message to several of his/her friends simultaneously. This can result in significantly better results than the business owner had originally expected with no additional effort and time being exerted or money being spent.