In today's hyper connected world, business is all about Finding, Winning, Keeping and Growing high value customers online. With channels such as social media networks, blogging, search engines, micro blogging sites and professional networking sites there is a world of opportunities awaiting the wise online entrepreneur.
Everyone who has a website realises the need for some form of marketing to promote it. Everyone agrees that search engine optimisation is necessarry. Everyone believes enriching website copy with relevant keywords for higher rankings on search engines - but how do you apply these concepts?
For those who live and breathe the internet (like us), this is easy. We know the in's and out's of the internet. However, for you, the journey is a lot tougher. With varying schools of thought around how to best utilise the internet to grow your business, it is quite a daunting task to begin the process let alone know where to start.
Hence, we have put together a simple but highly effective success formula for online marketing that works in 4 simple, strategic steps. Do these and you are guaranteed success.
FIND
Every business needs to "find" customers. Every business has a strategy for finding new customers. However, is that strategy effective? Have you thought of using the online space as aggressively as you use the offline/physical world?
Another aspect of this strategy is to be "found". With 6 billion people and over 8 billion web pages, the competition for a shot at the top 10 search results is just as fierce as the opportunities. To have a website is one thing, to make it work for your business is another.
WIN
Once there, website visitors do not intend to spend any more than 15 seconds to get an answer to their "right-now" problem. Quite often you will find that today's customers know more about your products and services than those selling them. The power of the internet has given the controls in the hands of a customer. With less than 15 seconds to spare, you need to engage your website visitors in an instance, prevent them from getting distracted with all the other "fluff" on your website, drive them to the answer to their "right-now" problem and watch them convert from visitor to lead to customer in no time.
KEEP
"It is 85% cheaper to retain a customer than to get a new one" - ever heard that? It's true. Customer retention is the number 1 growth strategy for CEOs of the top 500 companies in the world*. It does you no good to relentlessly "Find" new customers without having a robust "Keep" strategy. Understanding the value of establishing long term relationships will reveal the gold hidden in converting your customers into your brand evangelists.
GROW
Every business has a way of making profit. It may be dependent on the dollar value of a transaction, volume of transactions, volume of customers or volume of turnover. One of the key ways to increase the bottom line is by increase the transaction value per transaction. In simple terms, this is called "Upselling" - The "would you like drinks and fries to go with the burger" concept. Growth requires promotion and targeted communication with your customer base. When you first did business with someone, you sowed a seed. When you communicate with them regularly you are watering the seed, preparing it for harvest in due time.
