Written by Roger Sorenson
The Information Age has been a boon for business, as it has allowed for worldwide sales and the move away from brick and mortar operations to an online model. This means lower prices for consumers and better profit opportunities for businesses. If you have a business and you do sales online, there are several things that you can do to increase the visibility of your business and drive sales. With these tips you will see a better response than ever before from customers and you may be surprised as your profits soar.
Use eBay And Craigslist
Even if you use your website to make sales, one of the best places for you to find new customers is to use eBay and Craigslist. Customers use these sites to shop for new products that they might not have ever seen before and things that are unique. If your business carries a few main product lines, you can use eBay and Craigslist as a place to offer some special deals or pricing on those products. You should also include a link to your store in your ad so that customers can see what other products you have to offer. Relying only on Google search results and word of mouth will not be enough to get your business to the next level and transform your company into what you want it to be.
Focus Email Marketing
Another thing that you need to consider is the use of email marketing. It is a great way to stay in contact with your customers and keep your business at the front of their mind. If they only think about your business when they need to make a purchase, you are going to lose sales when another company enters your space. Customers like to feel that they are cared about, and they like seeing news and specials from the companies that they do business with. Now, this does not mean that you should spam your customers with emails every day, or even every week if you do not have something new to say. Potential customers can also be converted to paying customers if you have a strong email marketing campaign that catches their eye.
Social Media
Finally, very few companies can survive these days, especially if they sell consumer goods, when they do not use social media. Setting up a fan page for your company on Facebook gives you a non-intrusive way to interact with your customers on a daily basis and to get instant feedback from them when something goes good or bad. The same thing is true with Twitter, and by having these social media pages your brand will be spread to your customer’s newsfeeds whenever they “like”, “share” or retweet something that you have already posted. This is a very inexpensive way to market your business and you need to do all that you can to use this system.
If you want to be successful in the Information Age, you need to engage your customers in new ways and find new customers through non-traditional means. When you do the little things, you will find that your customers are more loyal and more responsive to what you have to say and your sales will grow accordingly.
I am Roger Sorenson, a small business owner in Cleveland OH. I was slow to adopt the online sales model, and for years my business suffered. Once I started to engage with my customers virtually, I was able to drive more traffic to my site and increase profits dramatically. To create my email marketing lists and my email marketing templates, I use Bethesda List Center at www.bethesda-list.com – they turned everything around for me. They make sure I look good online with professional a
