With social media fever at an all-time high, it’s easy for people to lose sight of the fact that these tools are only one piece of an overall online marketing strategy.
While Facebooking, Tweeting and the like are fabulous methods, they’re not the only game in town. For best results, you want to have a mix of marketing tools in play all at once.
Who do you want to reach?
However, before you even begin implementing any marketing strategies, you’ll want to be absolutely clear about whom it is you are trying to reach. Who is your target market and what do they want? What’s your message? This is where many of my clients get stuck and it does take time and effort to discover. But once you have that, reaching that target audience becomes a whole lot easier.
Give ’em more
At that point, much of your job focuses on driving traffic to your blog or website so that prospective clients or customers can find out more. (You DO have a website, right?) One of the best ways to increase the chances that someone will eventually buy from you is to build a list of email addresses.
As I mentioned in my previous post, you want to have a way to capture people’s email and name so that you may keep in touch with them, build trust, and make offers down the road. It’s a good idea to encourage people to provide their info by offering something in exchange, such as a free report or e-course. Then, keep yourself on their radar by sending them a regular email newsletter.
Just one slice of the pie
Social media is a terrific way to drive traffic and build your list, but it’s only one way. Consider these other techniques as well (just a few of many):
*Commenting on high traffic blogs and forums
*Writing and submitting articles to article directories like Ezinearticles.com
*Offering free teleseminars
*Guest blogging
*Utilizing your email signature
*Being a podcast or internet radio guest
*Implementing basic Search Engine Optimization on your site
*Pay Per Click (Google Adwords)
Additional pieces of the puzzle
It’s outside the scope of this post, but you should make sure you are using some form of a launch strategy when you are ready to begin selling a new product or service. Unfortunately, “if you build it they will come” doesn’t apply to online businesses. You need to create a buzz and sense of excitement about your upcoming offer to increase the chances that people will buy. This is known as the “pre-launch,” and it can make a giant difference in the number of sales that you make.
One final area I’ll mention is copy. Copywriting is an awesome skill to learn in order to make your sales pages really effective. Your words matter and they can have a huge effect on a person who is considering making a purchase from you. There are plenty of resources available to learn about this, and you don’t have to become a master of it. Knowing and using a few key techniques can really go a long way.
So, be a well-rounded marketer. Use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube along with the other strategies I’ve suggested and the results you are looking for—more traffic, more subscribers, more clients, more sales and more money—will certainly follow.
