Driving Traffic To Your Online Store
There’s still a lot of confusion about online marketing and social media, as well as how and where the two intersect. At last month’s Ask the Experts panel both were a hot topic as we discussed how to drive traffic to online stores. Many of the foundational rules apply to non-selling websites as well.
First and foremost, as with any marketing program, you must have a strategy – the why you’re doing what you’re doing – or you won’t be successful. I cannot stress this enough.
Not having a strategy is like going to the grocery store without a recipe in mind. You’ll come home with a bunch of ingredients, but there’s no guarantee it will be the right combination to actually prepare an edible dish.
Because it’s perceived as free, people are all too willing to spend endless hours online. Time is money, so it’s not free – make sure you spend wisely.
Here are a few things to consider before you get too far into your online marketing:
- Determine your target audience. Who are you trying to connect with? Even if you have a broad market, choose a niche type of client to focus on. Use Sponge Marketing™ and prove success with one type of customer before branching out.
- Locate your target audience online. Find out what blogs or newsletters you ideal customer follows and reads, where they go for information, and what type of information captures their attention. This may be very different than what they do in “real” life.
- Observe your online audience. One thing that frustrates traditional marketers is the idea of actually conversing with their customers rather than telling them stuff. Social media is a new paradigm, one that requires a dialogue not a monologue.
- Choose tools that connect you to your customers. Not everyone uses social media, certain types of people prefer video to text. Linked In may mean nothing or may be the only appropriate tool for your targets. Figure it out, don’t try to do everything.
- Develop a key message. Figure out what you’re trying to say, then say it. And, as I always, it’s about what they need to hear not what you want to say.
- Engage. Figure it out, don’t try to do everything.
We covered a lot of ground with the sold out Ask the Experts attendees, more than I can cover here. You can read a bit more about it on fellow panelist Jonathon Narvey’s post at Write Image.
Leave a Comment
