Submitted by: Wendy Suto

There are many facets of Internet marketing and it’s important to stay current on all of them. Whether you’re the marketer for a company or an entrepreneur, the Internet is an amazing resource for getting the word out about your company. However, it’s important to have a marketing plan and goals set before you begin your Internet marketing campaign. It’s also important to understand that online marketing is an ongoing process. In order to stay one step ahead of the competition, you must constantly promote your brand on many different networks online. Here are some Internet marketing tips that work like a charm.

Respond to your fans/followers/customers online. One aspect of Internet marketing is social media marketing. When you create a Facebook Fan Page or a Twitter account, your main goal is to attract fans/followers and turn them into returning customers. One key way of doing this is to interact with them. If a fan or follower asks a question, recommends your business online or posts to your wall to thank you for your great product or service, it’s important to respond. When you respond, it shows your customer that they are doing business with an actual person, not a company. When they start to look at you as a person rather than a company, they’ll relate to you more and therefore be more likely to buy from you again.

Really understand the concept of corporate blogging. Many businesses use corporate blogging as a way to get the word out about their product. However when your business blog is nothing but an advertisement, people will not want to return. It’s important to make sure your business blog is full of information your target audience actually wants to read. Then you can throw in the occasional promotion or sale announcement while you have their attention. For example, if your business is a hair salon, don’t only use your blog to advertise the specials of the week or the services you offer. Instead, write blogs that tell customers how to do different hair styles, different beauty tips, routines and more. That way, your customers will want to return back to read the interesting content of your blog, but they re still visiting your site, therefore subconsciously keeping your business in mind. Then when it comes time for them to get a haircut or manicure, guess who they’ll be contacting.

Give your fans/followers incentive to follow you. This includes offering them special daily, weekly or monthly promotions, specials or contests. Make sure the information on your social media network is interesting and fun so people will want to check back often. Ask your followers questions and comment on their responses. Remember, people do not join social media networks for any other reason then being social and communicating. You can sneak in advertisements, such as highlighting or announcing a new product or service, but don’t spam people with ads or you will lose followers fast. Instead focus on providing your target audience with information they care about as well as specials and encouraging conversation. Once you get people talking, they’ll start expressing how they really feel about that new product you just launched, and you’ll be able to use their opinions to make the next product launch even better.

Use decoy offers. A great strategy to encourage customers to purchase your product is to place another, less appealing offer next to it. For example, offer one of your products for $20, but also advertise your weekly special as $25 for two products and free shipping. The consumer will want to go with the weekly special because it appears to be a much better deal than the first offer. People are more likely to buy when they are getting a deal. So even if you were initially going to offer your product 2/$25, putting a less desirable option next to it will give them the extra push to buy.

Put in the time. It’s important to put quality time into your Internet marketing campaign. You cannot just set up online ads and let them run. It’s important to analyze what worked and what didn’t in order to keep improving for next time. It’s also important to pay attention to your social media analytics. Check out which tweets enticed people to click the link, then reformat them and tweet them out again. Which Facebook posts or discussions generated the most “likes” and responses? After you complete the research, post more information that is similar to encourage more discussion. It’s also important to keep posting fresh content on a daily or weekly basis. The Internet allows for information to travel very fast, so staying up on everyone’s content can be hard. However, it’s important to stay up on the current trends in order to keep your information relevant and attract new people to your social network page and Website.

About the Author: Wendy Suto, President and CEO of Search Circus, which is a full service certified and ethical search engine optimization and marketing firm that offers Internet marketing, corporate blogging, PR distribution, PPC consulting, link building and more.

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