How To Thrive Online Without Spending a Fortune
A common theme out there is that in order for you to have a successful online business, or have your current business thrive online you have to spend zillions you don't have.
Yes, there are some expenses but they are very manageable and get reduced over time as you get better at it.
Getting your business to thrive online means that you have figured out a way to generate leads and nurture them, and eventually make sales because of your Web Presence.
How do you do that?
Let me simplify the web for you … particularly internet marketing/inbound marketing and how you can leverage its power regardless of the business or industry sector you are in.
On the front end, it boils down to:
- Design
- Content, and
- Social
There is a forth tangent which is Metrics … but I don’t directly included because in order to measure something, you have to build it imperfectly first then go from there. Then closed loop marketing, and analytics lets’ you know which way to drive any future efforts.
...and I look at email marketing as part of a very effective and needed content strategy, but content nevertheless.
Everything else is tools in a toolbox!
On the back end, meaning internally (your organization), then we are talking about social collaboration tools and emerging technologies that makes the enterprise more lean and efficient! But you are still sticking to a same basic premise, create value for your employees in the same way you do so for your customers. Make the business a better customer value producing machine.
But today, we are talking about the front end … creating value for consumers and the way that doing so generates business opportunities with potential users and consumers of your value. In a way that doesn't cost you a fortune!
Design – Even though I don’t consider design to be the most important leg, it does need to be addressed first and with function in mind. If your house is not in order, how can you host a party?
Your design needs to be simple, clean and usability-wise make a visitor:
- bookmark the site
- comeback to the site
- subscribe
- call you
- download your content
- request information from you
- Buy something from you
Read as much as you can about design trends, but focus your reading on how design affects marketing.
As far as Content Management Systems –Word Press is by far the best way to go because it gives you total dummy proof control on the back end.
Hubspot (not an affiliate) –Pricey but totally worth it, it comes with a full CRM (customer relationship management) system and closed loop analytics suite plus an array of metric driven bells and whistles. I’m currently using both. They also put out an amazing amount of free-educational content.
For e-commerce sites, I would look at Magento and Zencart platforms. Here's a good comparison article.
Content – What you will hear referred to time and time again a, content marketing. The content on your site is going to take on two basic types and 3 different formats (pics, text and video):
- Static –your homepage, about, services, contact … or any other page where the content doesn’t change much overtime, except for updates.
- Then there is the content you are constantly producing for your readers, a.k.a potential clients that are looking for information that addresses their needs and pain points on a steady and consistent basis. This content takes place mostly on your blog and I refer to it as dynamic content.
If you are not blogging, you are losing an obscene amount of business opportunities and sales, not to mention authority in your particular line of work!
Social – Syndicating your content is what leverages your social graph in a way like we’ve never been able before. On this topic my takeaway will always be, the tools are just that. Is the integration that matters most and your ability or not to share the good stuff!
Integration with your business model, with your employees, with your customers. Without a strategy, Social Media becomes just media.
So when you kinda break down the Design-Content-Social trilogy:
Design is where your valuable content is housed for consumption, and Social is how you share and promote it to the Web.
The costs to get your business web ready can vary, but a solid start rarely costs you more than a few bucks and your willingness to learn!
