One of the most fragile states of business to exist within is that of entrepreneur. Bright intelligence, drive, and determination have aided you in refining an idea for a product or service structure, and helped you develop a company to support those efforts. With limited funds at your disposal, and perhaps just yourself to build the company from the ground up, there are some important online marketing strategies for entrepreneurs to set your company and brand up for success.
Brand Yourself First
As an entrepreneur, you are the face of your rising brand. Entrepreneur points out the value of using social media to literally turn your own following as an individual into a business. Branding yourself before the business allows you to establish a personal image for potential clients and investors to feel comfortable with before getting to know, and use, your brand.
The Takeaway: Branding yourself affords you the opportunity to network with others, and at the same time help build your company’s brand recognition up.
Market on Social Media
You won’t get rich overnight marketing yourself or your fledgling brand on social media, but that doesn’t mean there is no value in time and money spent in this marketing channel. Building a following on social media and nurturing it over time gives you the potential to share content and keep your fans informed through a more personal mode of communication than just posting blogs or populating your website with information.
The Takeaway: Social media marketing provides you and your brand with greater visibility and higher inbound traffic to your site than linking.
Related: The Changing Role of Social Media in Online Marketing
Email Marketing
One of the marketing channels with the greatest potential for return on investment (ROI) is email marketing. This is due in large part to the fact that it will cost you minimal amounts to execute your email marketing campaign, while still offering a powerful means of turning viewers into consumers. All you have to do is build a list of email subscribers from your base of existing customers and social media followers.
The key to a good email marketing campaign is to send simple content-based newsletters to your subscribers on a scheduled basis.
Be sure not to overwhelm your readers with a high volume of emails,
or be too sporadic in your efforts.
The Takeaway: The goal is to encourage repeat traffic to your site, create greater engagement with the brand, and keep your name and products at the forefront of consumer thoughts.
Content Marketing
This final strategy for online marketing is extremely flexible and can change from one entrepreneur to another. Content marketing can be employed in a variety of ways, and is largely dependent upon the type of product/service you are offerings, and the manner in which most of your target consumers would consume content regarding such an item.
Offering white papers or ebooks as downloads on your website. These encourage people to download from your site when visiting, signup to newsletters or other subscriber services, and cultivate conversions.
A blog is another example of content marketing, and is used to attract a higher rate of inbound traffic on your site.
Videos are also a great example of content marketing, and are particularly useful to consumers if you sell complex products. For example, a walk-through video can help consumers find answers to questions they have about using your product when they don’t have time to wait to speak with someone in person or receive an email response to their inquiry.
The Takeaway: Let your content speak for your brand, and showcase why your business or service has “can’t be missed” value.
There are many ways to market your brand, both personal and that of your new business. The online marketing strategies covered above do not represent the extensive list of options, but rather provide you with a good starting point as an entrepreneur looking to get your brand off the ground.
Related: The Changing Role of Social Media in Online Marketing