Online small business promotion

The great thing about the internet is that any business, large or small, can promote their company for a reasonable amount. While you may not be able to place commercial advertisements on web sites, you can certainly participate in pay-per-click marketing promotions and other online promotions. The benefit to online small business promotion is that you can do more than just have your name inserted into national pay-per-click ads, you actually set it up by your geographic location. If you are a small, local business, advertising to just your geographic location is a big money saver. Here are some simple online small business promotion tips:

Tip # 1 - Find your target audience

In order to know which types of marketing will actually reach your target audience, you need to spend time finding out where they are. What web sites do they frequent? How often are they online? Do they order through your web site? Use Google Adwords to track the incoming links to your web site. This will also help you see which customers find your web site due to search engines.

Tip # 2 - Advertise

Now that you know where your target audience is, you need to reach them. Participate in a pay-per-click marketing campaign on the search engines or on the web sites that your customers frequent. If you can get your ad on these sites, it will increase your visibility and it will help to improve your online presence. If you want to get your customers to click on your ads, use action words. Try to give them a reason to click on your ad as soon as possible in order to boost your sales quickly.

Tip # 3 - Advice

A great way to gain the attention of your customers is to offer them advice. Start up a blog or produce a video series on YouTube. Let your customers see you in a position that builds your companies reputation. Get on some of the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and start paying attention to the discussion threads. This is a great way to find out what your customers are talking about and it puts you in a position where you can respond to them and boost your credibility.

Tip # 4 - Surveys

If you really want to attract attention from your customers, start using surveys. Create a unique URL for your customers to go to and encourage them to fill out the survey. This is a great way to boost your web site traffic and it's a great way to gain insight into your target audience. Of course you will need to offer something in exchange for the surveys so be prepared to offer some type of compensation or discount to your customers that fill it out. If you are using social networking sites, use their free survey applications to build your survey. This will save you a ton of time from building your own and integrating it to your web site.

Tip # 5 - Competition

Since small businesses often find themselves in the middle of competition with the big companies, it's important to recognize the competition that is immediate to your business. Stop trying to compete with the big wigs that have millions of advertising dollars and opt for local marketing that gains the attention you need from your customers. Again, try to only use the local pay-per-click marketing campaigns and get on sites that locals frequent. Your local newspaper is a great place to advertise to a local audience and they often feature pay-per-click ads, banner ads, and even commercials on their sites.