Michelle is part of the Every Company Counts “Ask the Experts” panel .  Recently she was asked the question below from a participant and we’d like to address that here with our readers as well.

Question:
“We've tried a mix of advertising mediums including print, radio, and lately Google AdWords.  Results have been mixed.  We've been reading a lot about internet advertising and affiliate programs.  There seem to be a lot of options.  Our question - What is your recommendation for a small company to market themselves nationally on the Internet?”

Response:
You are absolutely right. There seem to be as many options for marketing to customers on the Internet as there are Internet customers themselves! 

My recommendation would depend on several factors, including your individual business/industry, your existing marketing efforts and the state of your website.  However, every small business should have the following four components in their online marketing strategy.

Build a Strong Online Presence
Since you already have a website, you should understand the “results metrics” of your current site before investing any money in driving more visitor traffic.  There’s no point in getting more eyeballs to look at your site, if you can’t convert visitors to customers once they get there. Understand your website’s “conversion rate”, or the number of sales generated divided by the number of visitors in a given period.  Make any changes you feel will compel visitors to take action – from every page of the site, not just the homepage.

Increase Visitor Traffic 
Once your site is ready for visitors, I would not hesitate to employ some low-cost pay-per-click advertising programs like Google and Yahoo offer.  These give you the opportunity to get not just any visitors, but very targeted, qualified leads – people actively searching for what your website offers.  Since you only pay for the people who actually click on your ad, it can be very cost effective. 

Google AdWords is excellent for targeting specific geographical regions as well.  For a great overview, visit AdWords.Google.com.

Social Marketing is also a great way to get people talking about you or your product. This includes blogging, podcasting, article marketing, social networking, affiliate marketing and anything else that can basically be placed under the category of word of mouth.

However, again ,these are geared towards bringing in leads to your site.  I would not devote a large amount of energy in this direction unless I felt fairly comfortable that my website was conversion rate was high.

Build Relationships
Everyone knows it’s more cost effective to keep a customer than find a new one.  Email marketing is an excellent means of maintaining relationships with current customers as well as leads.  When your website visitors give you their email address, you get many future opportunities to connect with them and invite them to return to your website.  While they may not purchase from you the first time they visit, over time they will get to know your company better, and every communication increases the chances of “a conversion”.

Measure Results
Measure every marketing campaign you run!  If you can’t measure it, don’t buy it.  You have to be able to say with certainty how any campaign performed.  How many people did the advertisement drive to your website?  How many people took action as a result of that visit? 

If you don’t know how the campaign is moving you closer to your marketing and sales goals, you can’t make informed decisions about whether to continue or repeat the campaign. Measuring results is the only way to know how to invest your precious marketing dollars.