I’ve had several clients ask me lately, “Which should I choose, website, newsletter or blog? How do I know which one to put my money and efforts into?” They are not really exclusive. You shouldn’t choose “either – or” but use all three for different reasons and in different situations.
You should balance your marketing plan between
"active" and "passive" marketing.
Your Web Site
Every business needs a web site. Consider it an electronic brochure or yellow pages ad. It is the basis of your marketing efforts.
A web site is very passive, just like any kind of
advertising - your customers must put out the effort to find
you. But, before spending thousands of dollars, try starting small, such as a very small web site (one to three pages). This is a great alternative if you are just starting to develop a “web presence”.
Use your web site to explain who and what you are, location, hours, menu of products and services – basic information about your business, this way when people Google your business, they get what they need to visit your storefront. A small web site works best if you are not trying to sell a large catalog of items.
And remember, the great thing about the web is that it is very easy and inexpensive to make changes and additions to your site. So as your business grows and changes – so does your web site.
Your Newsletter
Email newsletters are a very “active” marketing strategy, rather than passively waiting for your customers to find your web site,
you go directly to them and electronically “shake their hand”. It is a very effective way to increase sales, and develop loyalty. National testing indicates that people react very emotionally to email – they consider it very personal. This is why everyone hates SPAM so much.
The difficult part of email newsletters is developing your mailing list. It MUST be permission based – that is you can’t buy or rent lists of email addresses. People must give you their email addresses knowing that you will be sending them a newsletter. It is illegal to harvest email addresses – that is called SPAM!
However, there are lots of ways to gather email addresses. Networking, using a form on your web site, and any time you ask your customers for their name and address, make sure you include their email address.
Email newsletters don’t have to include tons of information every month, the shorter – the better.
People don’t have much time to read 4 or 5 articles or scroll through reams of information. A short newsletter once a month is very effective and not that difficult to produce.
Your Blog
A blog is a slang word that combines “web” and “log”. It is a simple web site, written in a casual, personal style, with frequent entries and the most recent information first.
Blogs allow readers to leave comments, making them interactive.
This helps you communicate with your target market – a great way to introduce new ideas or products. Blogging can establish you as an expert – you increase your reputation the more you
blog.
The problem with blogging is that you really need to commit time and energy to blogging – you really should make an entry every day and commit to making those regular entries. Think long and hard about whether your business can afford your absence for an hour every day to write your blog entry.
A blog is not quite as passive as a web site, since your target market can interact, giving you direct input about your business.
But a blog is not quite as active as an email newsletter because your customer must make the effort to go to your blog site to find out about your business.
The best marketing plan will take advantage, in some way, of all three of these, depending on what will work best for your business.
Call
or click on Pouncy
Designs
for quality web site assistance at 253-847-0231. If you already
have a web site, call for a FREE evaluation!
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