You are probably very excited about the idea of starting to market your business online. In fact, you may have a lot of things running through your mind right now. You may be thinking of your web page's color, design and everything else. You simply cannot contain your excitement. But sometimes you may fail to realize the most important things about marketing your business online; thus committing some of the top ten sins in the world of online marketing of you business and the next thing you know you'll wake up one day flat broke with nothing to show for your efforts.
It is therefore important that you educate yourself with these common mistakes that businesses often make when using online marketing so that you don't loose your shirt.
1. Poor Planning
It is not enough that you have the resources and have the willingness to succeed when it comes to marketing your business online. The most important thing is actually your marketing strategy. How are you going to put your site in the limelight? How are you going to advertise what you have? How will you sustain your web page?
Basically, everything starts with planning. The reason why many businesses fail with online marketing is because they never planned. They've been too excited and they forgot to build the foundation of their online business plan. At first, everything went well, but when the point of frustrations came, they packed up and ran home sucking their thumb because they were never prepared for such circumstances.
2. A Lifeless Site
If you were a visitor and you came across a site that was dull, plain text and no life at all, would you even spend a minute to go over the page? Probably not. The design of your page is very crucial in attracting visitors to stay at your site. A common mistake of businesses is that they often cut costs so much that they neglect even the physical features of their site. Remember, people usually look at the appearance first before they delve int! o the co ntent. You can also show pictures and videos just to make your site realistic. If you don't capture visitors' attention, how can you expect to capture their sales.
3. No Defined Product Services
Knowing your products' edge from your competitor's is very vital. You can never sell what you have when you can't even compare its advantages to other similar products from your competitors. Businesses fail because they are very general when they market their creations. What happens is, visitors feel that what you have is the same as what other businesses offer and so, you lose sale.
4. No Identity
As much as possible, most businesses always want to save money. So we choose to have our business in a free web space rather than having our own domain. The result is, when buyers type in the keywords for the product or service they want, your site won't even be recognized because you don't have your own web address. The probability of online marketing failure is then very evident because without anyone visiting your site, how can you even sell your product or service ?
5. No Target Audience
Focus is very important in any business. When you lose your focus, you end up a loser. The common mistake of the business owners when it comes to online marketing is that they lack concentration and they cannot think of the most specific technique to get their consumers' attention. In other words, if you sell women's products, then focus your attention in reaching out to women. Don't beat around the bush because it will do you nothing but loose you money. If you know your target audience and you know how to approach them, then get ready to fill up the money train!
6. Poor Customer Handling
Relationship with customers determines the life of any business. Many businesses assume that once a consumer buys from them, that's the end of it, which is undoubtedly wrong. Many businesses die because they do not know how to keep their visitors coming back! . Just b y interactive communication, you can build your trust and have the favor of your customers. However, if your mindset is purely on profit, then you probably won't survive.
7. Vintage Information
How would you like to read a newspaper article from six months ago? Online marketing doesn't work well unless you continually update your website because no visitor wants to visit a site that is not updated and is stale with old news. People love to be a part of a trend, so if you have outdated content on your site, just don't expect to gain many new visitors.
8. Wrong Marketing Strategy
We tend to think that if we have more advertisements, we win the game. We spend our money for ads, we hire a lot of people to optimize our site, and we do everything and spend everything we have too quickly. This is the reason why businesses often fail. Because we don't know what a good strategy is. We keep on spending money without even thinking if it will be effective for our business. In the end, we will learn that if there's no more money, there's no more business. This can be very frustrating.
9. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow Style
If you were a customer and you went to a website that you could view today but was gone tomorrow, would you close a deal with that site? Of course not. Online marketing is something that should be paid attention to by the business owner. It is not enough that you have your site; you must maintain it and you should not allow even a single day for your site to be unavailable for customers. If this happens, you will lose the trust of your buyers.
10. Spamming
This is the downfall of many businesses who use online marketing to build their business. Sometimes, we are in a hurry to generate income. Sometimes, we're very eager to earn money that we opt to do business the wrong way. Many businesses are already banned by search engines such as Google simply because they spam using unverified email addresses they bou! ght from brokers. When caught, kiss your online business goodbye!
So, there we have it. These are top ten sins that can lead your business' online marketing into a dead end. Nobody would want to see his business bankrupt right? So it's important that you heed these things as you start your online marketing, especially these ten. But, if you are able to do good job with your online marketing, then business success is within your reach!
Tom Leung, Business Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer, speaks about how online marketing is moving from clicks to conversions. He discusses how you can use controlled online experiments to increase your conversion rate, and covers what you should be testing. He then shares case studies with the help of WiderFunnel, a Website Optmizer Authorized Consultant.
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