The 7 mistakes most small business owners make marketing their business online.
The 7 mistakes most small business owners make marketing their business online.
Many small business owners understand the potential of the internet to market products and services. Their real challenge comes when they actually try to implement their business visions online.
Below are 7 mistakes to look out for when marketing your small business online.
(1) Most small business owners don’t know the strategic goal of their website.
Most small business owners know the importance of having a website but don’t quite know the reasons why.
It is important to understand that a website is merely a tool. Just like any other tool, it is a great servant but poor master. Your website won’t guide you, you need to guide it.
The way you guide your website is by understanding exactly why you decided to create one in the first place. If you planning to build a website, spend some time considering exactly what purpose you hope it will serve. Some potential strategic purposes include.
- to build relationships with your target market
- to sell a specific product or service
- to generate subscribers
- to generate advertising income
- to funnel traffic to other websites
- to build credibility for your expertise
Once you understand why you are using the internet you can then focus upon the how (the how is actually the easy part!).
(2) Most small business owners make the mistake of taking marketing advice from their web designers.
Web design and web marketing are two very different disciplines. Most small business owners think that as soon as they get their website live then they’ll have a flood of people beating down the door to do business with them. The actual reality of the situation is often something quite different.
Remember that there is no point having a beautifully designed website if no one ever comes to visit it!
An effective website should not only be functionally designed but should also help the business owner achieve their commercial goals.
(3) They can’t decipher what sites are already doing well on the web.
If you want to achieve success in any discipline you need to find out who’s already doing well and what you can do to replicate or model their success.
This is no different on the web. There are businesses that are doing very well on the web and there are businesses that aren’t. Your job is to work out which ones are doing well in your market place and learn from them.
(4) They spend too much time on their site design and no time at all on marketing their site.
Small business owners would actually be much better off doing the reverse. Firstly creating a simply designed by nicely functional site and then investing the rest of their time generating traffic to their site. Once they have traffic coming to the site the challenge will then be to convert some of this traffic into paying customers and clients.
(5) They don’t build up a list of interested prospects.
Most people will only ever check out a small business website once and they will never return regardless of how much they liked it.
The reason for this is because of all the other millions of sites out there on the web trying to capture our attention. If you want to build long term relationships with your website visitors you need to provide an incentive to them to give you their email address so you can keep in regular contact. You can usually achieve this by giving something of value away for free such as a mini course or free download.
(6) They don’t effectively share and sell their expertise.
The internet is definitely a domain where people with an abundance mindset thrive. Your knowledge and expertise won’t do anyone any good, yourself included, trapped inside your head. You need to constantly strive to find ways to share what you know with as many people as possible if you are to experience the success that you desire online.
(7) They don’t leverage the resources of other people.
This one idea is a recipe for disaster online, thinking that you can do everything yourself. If you want to succeed online then you have to engage and utilise the talents and skills of other people.
Your first challenge is to first work out exactly what you are good at. Your second challenge is to then try and surround yourself with people that are good at doing all the things you neither have the time or inclination to do.
Many small business owners understand the potential of the internet to market products and services. Their real challenge comes when they actually try to implement their business visions online.
Below are 7 mistakes to look out for when marketing your small business online.
(1) Most small business owners don’t know the strategic goal of their website.
Most small business owners know the importance of having a website but don’t quite know the reasons why.
It is important to understand that a website is merely a tool. Just like any other tool, it is a great servant but poor master. Your website won’t guide you, you need to guide it.
The way you guide your website is by understanding exactly why you decided to create one in the first place. If you planning to build a website, spend some time considering exactly what purpose you hope it will serve. Some potential strategic purposes include.
- to build relationships with your target market
- to sell a specific product or service
- to generate subscribers
- to generate advertising income
- to funnel traffic to other websites
- to build credibility for your expertise
Once you understand why you are using the internet you can then focus upon the how (the how is actually the easy part!).
(2) Most small business owners make the mistake of taking marketing advice from their web designers.
Web design and web marketing are two very different disciplines. Most small business owners think that as soon as they get their website live then they’ll have a flood of people beating down the door to do business with them. The actual reality of the situation is often something quite different.
Remember that there is no point having a beautifully designed website if no one ever comes to visit it!
An effective website should not only be functionally designed but should also help the business owner achieve their commercial goals.
(3) They can’t decipher what sites are already doing well on the web.
If you want to achieve success in any discipline you need to find out who’s already doing well and what you can do to replicate or model their success.
This is no different on the web. There are businesses that are doing very well on the web and there are businesses that aren’t. Your job is to work out which ones are doing well in your market place and learn from them.
(4) They spend too much time on their site design and no time at all on marketing their site.
Small business owners would actually be much better off doing the reverse. Firstly creating a simply designed by nicely functional site and then investing the rest of their time generating traffic to their site. Once they have traffic coming to the site the challenge will then be to convert some of this traffic into paying customers and clients.
(5) They don’t build up a list of interested prospects.
Most people will only ever check out a small business website once and they will never return regardless of how much they liked it.
The reason for this is because of all the other millions of sites out there on the web trying to capture our attention. If you want to build long term relationships with your website visitors you need to provide an incentive to them to give you their email address so you can keep in regular contact. You can usually achieve this by giving something of value away for free such as a mini course or free download.
(6) They don’t effectively share and sell their expertise.
The internet is definitely a domain where people with an abundance mindset thrive. Your knowledge and expertise won’t do anyone any good, yourself included, trapped inside your head. You need to constantly strive to find ways to share what you know with as many people as possible if you are to experience the success that you desire online.
(7) They don’t leverage the resources of other people.
This one idea is a recipe for disaster online, thinking that you can do everything yourself. If you want to succeed online then you have to engage and utilise the talents and skills of other people.
Your first challenge is to first work out exactly what you are good at. Your second challenge is to then try and surround yourself with people that are good at doing all the things you neither have the time or inclination to do.
posted by Damien Senn at Tuesday, January 16, 2007
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