Business Resources - TouchBase

An Entry Level Guide

Online marketing is no longer the preserve of Big Business, household brands and teenage entrepreneurs.

Today, businesses of all sizes and all marketing budgets, with and without websites, use the internet to cost-effectively target, source and convert new customers.

But for many firms, knowing where and how to start is a barrier to internet marketing. Uncertainties about budget requirements, IT expertise and the options available are common to many smaller businesses that have yet to get online.

In a series of articles, we set out to provide a practical overview of the choices and steps available to you as an entry-level online marketer.

We'll give you a rundown on the pros and cons of the key online tools you can use to attract targeted customers from the web to your business.

And we'll show you just how simple it is to begin building your online presence and generating business from the internet.

Online Marketing - a Simple Overview

There are 4 main options available to a business that wants to begin using the internet to find new prospects and customers. In this first article, we look at two of them and show how you can start now to build the foundations of successful online marketing.

1. Local Search and Local Directory Advertising

This should always be step 1 in the process of getting your business online.

Local Search - using internet search engines and online business directories to find local traders - is growing at an extraordinary pace.

Figures in the US, comparable to the UK, show that 63% of all online users performed a .local search. in July this year. This is a 43% increase year on year.

And online local searches lead to customer action. The same study showed half of all local searchers visited a local merchant as a result of their search behaviour, while 41 percent made contact offline.*

So with local search, you don't even need to have a website to get your business and your marketing online.

Here's what to do.

Search engines like Google and Yahoo receive the bulk of their local business information from online Business Directories. So...

Step 1: Submit your business details as a free listing on each of the major online business directories - yell.com. touchlocal.com and thomsonlocal.com. If your business is already listed then make sure the details are up-to-date.

Step 2: Do an online search to find any specialist online business directories that would fit your business, and submit your business details as a free listing on these.

Step 3. Work with a reputable online directory that for a small annual fee will invest time and money on key search words, to increase your visibility to the major search engines like Google. TouchLocal.com also specialise in this service.

Using an online directory service can take the pain out of building and marketing your own website, in fact you do not even need to have a website. Your business profile page becomes a central place to display contact and product details for the search engines to find.

2. Display Advertising

The internet is full of display advertising, just like a magazine or newspaper is. Ads on the internet come in different sizes, button ads being the smallest, followed by banners, and then skyscrapers.

Sold by the website owners (publishers), the cost of an ad may vary, according to the position of the ad on the website and according to the number of page views or impressions (people who open the web page and can see the ad) the website delivers.

Publishers will charge for an ad on a cost per thousand impressions basis. This is the equivalent to a cost per thousand readership that a magazine would charge for display advertising.

Creatively, an online ad can be as simple as text in a box with a link to your main business directory profile, or to your website if you have it. Graphics and animations all help to attract attention, but they are not essential.

The Pros and Cons

Display advertising like this has no search aspect. So if a customer is using a search engine to find the products or services they want, they are not going to be shown your ad.

This means your ad spend is more risky. You are not paying for highly targeted customers who are searching for your product. You may be paying for a much broader set of visitors to the website your ad is featured on.

Rule no 1.

If you are in a niche or very specialised market and you know of a website dedicated to this speciality, then display advertising can give you real value for money.

Rule no 2.

If your objective is to get high volumes of traffic to your website, and your priorities are volume, over targeting, then display advertising on very popular sites can deliver what you need.

Rule no 3.

Try to spread your risk. Look for deals that are Cost Per Action based, rather than cost per 1000 page views.

If the action involves a user clicking on your ad and going to your website rather than simply viewing your ad, then you can expect better value from your advertising.

This form of risk spreading has developed into Affiliate Advertising, Search Marketing and Paid Clicks, which we'll talk about in detail in future issues of TouchBase.

Rule no 4.

Remember, online display advertising is trackable and measurable. The publisher can show you precisely how many people viewed the page your ad is on, and how many clicked on your ad.

This is a level of accountability that print advertising just cannot offer you.

In our next issue. The low-down on Search Engine Marketing, paid clicks and Google adwords

* Source: comScore networks\marketwire.com