The old way to market your business is to YELL out your message through traditional media advertising as often as you can and hope your customers hear you through all of the noise. The new way is to engage in two way conversations with your customers by utilizing digital marketing tools in combination with traditional media.
Digital marketing gives small businesses an opportunity to engage customers in a one on one conversational and interactive experience. Digital marketing tools include blogging, social network sites like facebook and linkedin, video and photo sharing applications like Youtube and Flickr, email marketing campaigns, and many more powerful tools that keep popping up every day. In Julie’s last post, she talks about the importance of developing a fully integrated marketing plan that includes advertising, publicity (PR) and promotions and targets the right audience. Don’t forget to add digital marketing into the mix.
If your goal is to drive traffic to your website and generate new customers, you might engage in search engine optimization tools, point per click advertising (like google adwords), start a blog about your company or your expertise, and start an online PR campaign by commenting on other peoples blogs and joining online conversations about your field.
If your goal is to develop better customer relationships you might explore creating your own social network at Ning, try an online suggestion box service like Uservoice, and implement an Email Marketing campaign through services like Constant Contact, Vertical Resoponse or iContact.
If you are ready to get into the digital marketing age, the IWCC Entrepreneur Center and SBDC are free resources and can help you get started. Call us at 712-256-6552 or email me to get the conversation started.