Marketing a Small Business on a Budget

Setting up a small business can be expensive and you may not have a huge budget available for your marketing. This article offers help and advice on managing your advertising in a cost effective manner.

Marketing is vital to get a business noticed by its target audience and this is possibly just as important if not more so if your business is on a small scale. With so much competition around you cannot simply sit and hope that people will find you or before you know it your business will be making a loss. Many people assume that marketing is going to be incredibly expensive and never make it past handing out a few leaflets. However this need not be the case and even those on a tight budget can find marketing methods to suit their needs.

Lead Generation and Email Marketing

Setting up a website is incredibly important as this gives you somewhere to refer potential customers to but you need to make sure that you are thinking about every visitor being a possible sale or lead. For this reason you should try and make sure that you entice them into leaving their contact details so that you can contact them with future promotions and offers and generally remind them that you exist. This can be as simple as you make it and many people often just have a short contact form for their name and email address. This is a great way to market your business without being expensive or too time consuming.

Search Engine Optimisation

This type of marketing is something you may have heard of since SEO, or search engine optimisation, is incredibly popular and does not cost much to put in place. It will however take a little time and effort initially to establish important keywords and phrases that people use to search for what you offer and make sure these are placed in all of your web content. In this way you should find that people are able to locate your website quickly as you will rank well in the search engines. If you are in a competitive industry search marketing companies could help you to increase your rankings.

Pay per click advertising

This is another marketing strategy that does not cost much but will take a little time and effort on your part; however the results will be worth it. It is important that you understand how this works before you begin otherwise it could end up costly. For this reason you should take your time to do your research or perhaps consider hiring a marketing consultant of some kind to make sure that you are doing it right.

How Link Building could Increase your Website Rankings

If you wish your marketing to be a success you will need to make sure that any online content ranks well within the search engines. This short article offers you a brief glimpse into link building and how this may help your business.

Setting up a business can take up a lot of time and requires a great deal of commitment to make it as successful as possible. You will need to focus on your marketing if you wish it to really take off since there is so much competition around that it is easy to get lost in the crowd. For this reason you should make sure that you come up with regular online content and that you keep your website and/or blog ranking highly in the search engines. Perhaps one of the best ways to help improve your internet marketing rankings is by using link building which essentially aids website optimisation.

What is Link Building?

If you have a computer then you will almost have certainly used a search engine to find something online and you will realise that most people only tend to use the results on the first page. Therefore if your website ranks lower then this you will often find it is overlooked; which is of course bad for business. This is where link building can prove to be useful since it allows you to increase and improve the ranking of your website so that it is on the first page of results. This may at first seem like it could be quite time consuming and whilst it will take time and effort initially the results speak for themselves.

Link building basically refers to the quality, quantity and the relevance of links that are focussed on your website. Say a link to your website is included on a number of other websites then it will be seen by the search engine as being of greater importance. Therefore marketing links that point people in the direction of your website tend to increase the popularity of your internet marketing and should increase the ranking of your site.

How Link Building Works

Link building tends to be focused in two different ways as some websites may ask for a reciprocal link, meaning they require you to place a link to their website on yours so that you help each other. Or you may be able to find one way links which will not require help from you. In some cases these sites may charge a small fee so it may be worth looking for other businesses that are perhaps linked in someway with what you do, but are not in direct competition and helping each other out for free. If you go down this route then try to pick sites that already rank well so there is a greater chance of your link being viewed.

Considering a career in PR

Getting a job in public relations can often seem like a glamorous choice – travelling, working with high-profile clients, maybe even celebrities – but it can be stressful and it’s certainly not for everyone. Before you decide to embark on this path, you need to be sure you are the right kind of person to cope with the challenges this sector can throw at you.

A career in public relations involves a lot more than you might think: It is not just about marketing a person or brand. To succeed in this industry, you need communication skills and the confidence to talk convincingly to a wide range of people. You will almost certainly have to give presentations to clients, as well as liaising with journalists or other groups, so if you are the shy retiring type you may find it difficult. It also helps to have strong writing skills as you may well be called upon to put together press releases, newsletters and other promotional material.

Creativity is also an essential attribute. Many a UK PR agency is involved in the building of a brand from the outset – including aspects such as product development, packaging, in-store placement - not just the marketing side of things. This being the case, do you think you would be able to contribute effectively to brainstorming sessions to come up with original ideas? Above all, this requires the confidence to put your ideas across and not be embarrassed if they seem a little ‘out-there’.

Organisational skills and the ability to work under pressure are also a must. PR work doesn’t come in a steady stream like some jobs. You may have periods of relative calm followed by a frantic few days trying to organise an event or product launch, etc. This means you must be prepared to work flexibly – even staying late at weekends and during the evening if the project in hand demands it.

Still interested? Then you will benefit enormously from some kind of business qualification. Whilst it isn’t an absolute essential, a UK PR agency will tend to prefer its employees to have a bachelor’s degree in communications, English language, journalism or public relations. Of course, nothing can compare to on-the-job experience but with the increasing competition in this market today you may find yourself at a disadvantage alongside other candidates if you have no formal training.
You should also research the kinds of roles that appeal to you: Do you see yourself as a media analyst? A marketing executive? Try to speak to people already working in the industry to get a feel for the pleasures and pitfalls of such positions.

Whilst there is fierce competition for such roles, trying to land yourself an internship at a PR company is a great way of getting a feel for the industry, and is also a good way of establishing contacts or finding a mentor – an invaluable asset when you’re starting out.

If variety is important to you when making a career choice then public relations could be the right path for you. There are certain skills you need your foot in the door there are wide and exciting range of roles to choose from.

Tips for Successful Online Business Marketing

In order to successfully run a business you need to give careful consideration to internet marketing. This article will advise you on the areas you need to think about.

It is important to understand what internet marketing is and how it works if you wish to make a success of your advertising. In the main, marketing online is about providing your potential customers with information on what it is you do or sell and offering them answers to any questions that you may have.


Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO is something that is often talked about but many do not realise how important it really is. Knowing what your target audience will search for is vital if you wish to gain their attention. Often the best way to do this is using a tool that will tell you what terms people are searching for when they visit sites such as Google. You can then include these keywords and any other variations within your text.

Blogs

Many businesses believe that blogs are no longer really used or read and that this is not an effective method of internet marketing. Blogs can take many different forms and they are in fact a really useful way to provide readers with clear information on what you do, as well as offering them advice.
It is also important to remember that blogs still rank well with search engines as they are generally updated regularly as well as containing high quality content. Therefore by having a blog linked to your website you are greatly increasing your internet marketing and the chance for potential customers to find you.

Can your Customers find you?

Having a website is vital and once you have one set up and have made sure that it is search engine optimized it is all too easy to forget about it and assume it will run itself. However it is important to keep trying to generate traffic by other means of internet marketing. Try to make sure that your website is featured on social media websites and perhaps consider taking out adverts as well.

It is also worth bearing in mind that once customers have found your website they need to be able to contact you. To make it easy for people to do this try posting this information on the footer of each page.