Offline
Promotions
1. Always put your URL on letterhead,
business cards and in e-mail signatures—wherever
potential visitors are likely to see it.
2. If your employees wear uniforms,
put your URL on them so every one of your customers
sees a walking advertisement of your Web site.
3.
Include your URL on all promotional items you
give away—coffee mugs, T-shirts, keychains
and so on. A daily reminder is a good way to get
people to visit your site.
4.
Be sure to include your Web address in all press
releases you send out to members of the media.
By having it at their fingertips, they may be
more likely to include it in articles they write
about your company.
5.
Don't forget to put your Web address in your Yellow
Pages ad. That's one place people see it every
day.
6.
Do you own any company vehicles? Be sure to put
your URL on the side of any car or truck that's
out there delivering your products.
7.
In addition to listing your toll-free number,
put your Web address on the bottom of every page
of your catalog so customers have easy access
to your online store.
Online
Promotions
8. Hone your search engine submission
process so you can get the best exposure possible.
9.
If you're still itching for more exposure, you
can explore search engine marketing, wherein you
pay to have a text ad appear when visitors search
for certain keywords.
10.
Launch a sweepstakes that offers anyone who registers
on your site or subscribes to e-newsletters within
a certain time frame the chance to win a free
gift.
11.
Send out a weekly e-mail newsletter to registered
site members that offers tips and news related
to your company or industry with links back to
your site.
12.
Offer free content to other sites. It's a win-win
situation: The other site gets free articles to
beef up their offerings and you get a link back
to your site and the cachet of being an expert.
13.
Send a well-planned, customer-focused e-mail promotion
to a targeted list of potential visitors and offer
a credit toward the purchase of anything from
your site. Spend time on your e-mail's look and
content: You want to offer value to customers
and not have it appear to be spam.
14.
Create your own link exchange by asking sites
complementary to yours (but that don't compete)
to put your link on their pages and you'll do
likewise.
15.
Hook up with Web affiliates—hundreds of
sites that all link their traffic to yours—and
get visitors from sites with related content.
16.
Get active in online discussion groups and chats
and always include your URL in your signature.
(Don't do any hard selling, though. Most groups
frown on such behavior and will think you're spamming
the group.)
17.
Any time someone orders a product from your site,
include a catalog with their order to get them
coming back for more.
18.
Inspire your visitors to spread the word for you
with viral marketing techniques, from the aforementioned
newsgroup participation to including an "e-mail
this link" on every page of your site.
19.
Not sure what your customers want? Try creating
an online survey to get their crucial opinions
on how well your site is selling to them.
20.
When creating your own ads, make sure you understand
who you're targeting, the goal of your campaign,
and how to creatively use the ad confines to get
viewers to click on your ad, not away from it.
21.
Use other selling venues like online classified
advertising or online auction sites to increase
exposure to your site and products.
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