Boost your Profits – 5 Interesting Ideas for Free Internet Marketing Promotion January 3, 2012

There are endless advertisements one may find online for free internet marketing promotion. A well-developed & fool-proof internet marketing promotion strategy is sure to drive targeted traffic to your website & boost up your profits within no time.

Research & studies indicate that, employing free advanced website traffic strategies is an excellent means of achieving huge online success without having to spend much. Although, this may initially seem daunting for SMEs, the fact is that a low cost strategy is sure to create a win-win situation for you.

Here are few power ideas that can assist you with free internet marketing promotion:

Write & Submit a Keyword-Rich & Quality Article: There are numerous authority article submission sites like e-zine articles, article base, isnare, etc, where you can submit a high-quality article relevant to your site, mention the name of your website & enjoy hits from curious visitors. The key thing is to get the maximum number of hits, even if that means manually submitting your article to numerous article directories.

Active Participation in Blogs & Forums: The most important thing to do here is to first find a list of forums, blogs, social networking sites & boards that are relevant to your own website. Then try interacting with online friends to make your online presence felt strongly. Though this may take time, it is definitely one of the most cost-effective ways of driving in target traffic free of cost.

Use Advanced Web Tools: The internet world is full of such advanced tools that can churn out impressive results, that too without having to empty your wallets. There are endless free web tools that can be used for monitoring & automating your internet marketing campaign right in the comfort of your home.

Directory Submissions: There is no harm in continuing to submit your website to authority directories. However, before you start doing that, make sure that your website is well-developed because web-directories have a tendency to overlook poorly done websites.

Although it cannot be said for sure that by employing the above mentioned free internet marketing promotion strategies you are sure to generate a good amount of targeted traffic for your website, one thing is for sure that, the traffic generated would be of quality & you would definitely not be ending up shelling your pockets off your hard earned money.

 To avail of any help on internet marketing promotion please write to us on media@smejoinup.com

 

Cost Effective Ways to Create Brand & Sales Leads December 16, 2011

“If you don’t put yourself in a position to be noticed, you never will be”.

This holds very true for the SMEs, especially for the start-ups, who wish to make their presence felt in a strong & influential way. With the business world becoming ever-competitive, there is a need for SMEs to generate that “X” factor. However, this is not possible unless you have a clear understanding of who your target audience is & what appeals to their buying instincts the most.

1.Social Media Strategies/E-Marketing – Referrals and viral marketing can accelerate your lead generation initiatives in a fun, fast & free way. Use sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc to develop interactive & niche groups & create a buzz about your products & services within minutes & in the most cost-effective way.

With more than 770M users on FB worldwide and a whopping 38M in India itself growing at a mnthly rate of around 8% we cannot ignore this medium for our own marketing.

2.Print and Radio Advertising – A well-crafted advertisement placed time & again in the right publication or broadcasted repeatedly on the radio is an effective way to generate leads & help build brand awareness in today’s competitive business environment.

Eg: People of all ages, regions, castes & creeds enjoy listening to radio. The youth is especially fascinated by the new-age radio channels like Mirchi, My FM, etc. This automatically turns the youth into brand ambassadors of a product or service.

3. Brand Building and Emotional Benefits – People buy benefits rather than features. What appeals to people are not just the features of a service or product but the benefits that tag along.

Eg: Taglines like – Dissolving tablets allow us to take medicine on the go.

Another recent eg is that of Fast Track. The company knows that owing to their own durable watches, people would not be looking to buy another watch soon. Hence, to instigate people to buy multiple watches, they have come up with taglines like – “How Many Do You Have?” And “Move On..”

4.Direct Mail / Email / SMS Marketing – Sending out direct emails to your customers gives your strategy a personalized touch & also it is extremely cost effective. Our common human tendency is such that we enjoy reading mails & SMS’s addressed directly by our name. This tendency can easily be enchashed upon by the SMEs.

Eg: Most people must have received a birthday or anniversary wish message/card from a company at some or the other time. Such messages tug at the emotions of customers & pave the way for a strong & long-lasting customer-provider relationship.

5.Partnership Marketing/ co-branding/ strategic partnerships – Such type of swap branding can enhance the visibility of SMEs & also help strengthen identity.

Eg: An advertisement for tie on a website selling formal shirts. A customer looking to buy formals may most probably be interested in buying a tie along with the shirt. What better a deal for the customer to buy both the things through one single site.

6.Provider-driven Brand Image – This kind of branding serves to build credibility for the provider. After all, customers are always on the lookout for businesses they can blindly trust.

Eg: A punchline of Allstate’s:  “You’re in good hands,”

7.Word of Mouth – One of the most potent, viral & cost effective marketing communications is the word-of-mouth. If you can create a buzz about your products & services amongst the common man, your battle is half won.

8.Content Marketing – The use of blogs, forums, newsletters, whitepapers and e-books are some of the best cost effective ways of content marketing.

Eg: Post open end questions about your products & services on blogs & forums & let people do the talking.

9.Active Participation in Social, Community, Business events – This is the best & most cost effective way of creating leads in your niche market. Showing active participation in such events not only supports your brand image but also brings you at par with prospective co-branders.

Eg: Attend Tradefairs, Business Gatherings, etc.

10.Youtube Video for a Product – For the tech-friendly SMEs, creating innovative youtube of your products & services can enhance your brand visibility. Unlike the TV commercials, this kind of branding is absolutely free with the same or most of the times greater response than TV ads.

It is important for SMEs to remember that, “When there is an original sound in the world, it makes a hundred echoes.”  Thus, unless & until SMEs start ‘thinking out of the box’, they cannot take the lead.

 Contributed by Sushmita Kalashikar

For any of the above requirements pls send a mail to media@smejoinup.com