Question: I recently launched a website for my sporting
goods business. Do I need to do anything special to attract
customers to my website? I know nothing about search engines
and marketing as such. Please tell me where to begin. - Sean
M.
Answer: Sean, that is a question that has been asked
by every business person who has ever launched a website.
If I build it, will they come? Of course they will - if you’ve
built a website that appeals to dead baseball players.
For those of you who didn’t get the “Field of Dreams”
reference, let me put it this way: No, Sean, if you build
it they will not come, at least not without some effort on
your part.
Assuming that a website will automatically attract customers
is the single biggest mistake that many business owners make.
It is this mistake that eventually leads them to dismiss their
website as a failure and abandon their online sales efforts.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a client
say, “Well, I threw up a website, but nobody ever came
to it and I didn’t sell a single thing from it! Dang
thing was a waste of time, if you ask me …”
Forgive me, but “threw up” is the operative term
there. These short-sighted entrepreneurs (God love them) mistakenly
think that all they have to do is throw up a website and that
their business will automatically double overnight. And when
nothing happens they blame it on the infallibility of the
Internet, on El Nino, on the Bosa Nova, on their customers…
everything but their own lack of marketing efforts.
If you build it, will they come? That, Sean, depends totally
on you.
When it comes to attracting customers, opening an online business
(or an online branch of an existing business) is no different
from opening a traditional brick and mortar shop. Without
a little fanfare and a well-devised marketing plan, chances
are your website will become just another spot of roadkill
on the Information Superhighway.
The first step in devising your marketing plan is to ask yourself
this question: Who is my customer? Who is it that I want to
attract to my website? Believe it or not, this is a question
many entrepreneurs fail to ask. The identity of your customer
is incredibly important because if you don’t know who
your customer is, how can you expect to market to them?
The next question concerns the locality of your customer.
Do you want to attract a local or global clientele to your
website? If the answer is local, then you will gear your marketing
efforts toward customers in your own backyard, which means
incorporating your website launch with your offline marketing
efforts.
If the website is the online branch of a brick and mortar
business, include the website URL in all your print materials
and advertising campaigns. Consider running ads in the local
paper, on radio or TV announcing the launch of your site.
Use direct mail or in-store posters to announce the site launch
to your existing customer base. In short, keep doing what
you’re doing to attract customers to your physical store,
just add your website address to the mix.
Just remember, it’s important to consider your website
a branch of your brick and mortar business because that’s
exactly what it is. A good business website will help you
sell more products, widen your range of clientele, and increase
your revenue without adding overhead. Don’t sell your
website short. Make it work for you.
If you are seeking a global audience, your marketing efforts
will be quite different. Attracting customers from around
the world is a more difficult task than attracting customers
from around the block. Fortunately, the task is not impossible.
The Internet has leveled the playing field in many ways. Now every
business, no matter how large or small, has the ability to
do business internationally.
In the most basic sense, an online marketing campaign to attract
global customers should include the following efforts.
Register With Search Engines
There’s not enough room in this newspaper for a thorough
discussion of search engines and their effectiveness (or lack
thereof) in driving traffic to a website. Suffice it to say
that 95% of search engine traffic comes from Google and Yahoo,
so start there. It’s also important to realize that just
registering with search engines does not guarantee you traffic,
but it certainly can’t hurt.
Unfortunately, the free search engine lunch ran out a couple
of years ago when search engines figured out that people would
actually pay for listings and higher placement. Since that
time the only way to guarantee a high (or at least higher
than others) ranking is to pay for it. The two most popular
pay-for-placement programs are Yahoo’s “Yahoo Express”
and Google’s “Adwords.” Visit their respective
websites for details on these programs. Be prepared to spend
several hundred dollars at a minimum to get your site listed.
Exchange Links With Similar Sites
One free – and potentially effective - way to drive customers
to your website is through link exchanges with sites of similar
interest. Locate sites that make a good match to your own
and contact the owner to ask if they will link to your site
in exchange for you linking to theirs. If you sell golf balls
on your website, set up a link exchange with another website
that sells golf clubs. You post a link to them and they post
a link to you. It’s called digital back scratching, and
if done properly, can work well to drive traffic your way.
Go to Where the Customers Are
If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed
must go to the mountain. One little known way to attract customers
to your website is to market your products on a mega-site
like eBay. There are thousands and thousands of people on
eBay at any given time and each one is potentially your customer,
so it's a great place to drum up business. Your goal is not to
make a living selling on eBay, but to use eBay as a marketing
tool to drive traffic back to your website. Go to where the
customers are, then bring them back home with you.
Let’s use our golf ball example. Post a few auctions
on eBay selling your golf balls at a ridiculously low price
so your auction attracts plenty of attention. When customers
make a purchase, add them to your client list and send them
an email inviting them to visit your website for more great products.
eBay also lets you create your own “About Me” page
that you can use to advertise your business.
We have just scratched the surface, but hopefully this is
enough to get you started. I wish I could tell you that attracting
customers to your website is easy, but the truth is, it's
anything but. It takes hard work, creativity and above all,
perseverance.
