Ways to Grow Your Business Online

Your business is up and running, your website marketing methods win customers is getting traffic – now you’re ready to grow. Let’s take a look at four online marketing methods to win more customers and keep them coming back: business listings, paid advertising, email marketing, and social media. First up, business listings. We’re talking about online directories, review sites, and maps. Great ways to reach customers. And most of them don’t cost you a penny! Google My Business, Google Maps, Yelp, Bing, MapQuest, Foursquare –these are just some of the many places you’ll want your business to appear.

Search engines pull information from these marketing methods win customers‘ sites and display it under your web address for local search results. Not sure where, or if, you’re listed. Simply search for your business online and see where it shows up; then claim your listings. This allows you to make updates and respond to reviews – which is especially important for managing negative reviews. An easy way to manage all your directory listings at once is to subscribe to a service, such as GoDaddy’s Get Found.

Adding and updating your info in one place m̲a̲r̲k̲e̲t̲i̲n̲g̲ ̲m̲e̲t̲h̲o̲d̲s̲ ̲w̲i̲n̲ ̲c̲u̲s̲t̲o̲m̲e̲r̲s̲ and then sending it to multiple sites and apps with a single click can save you loads of time. Let’s move on to paid online advertising – an investment that can generate big returns. Search engine advertising and sponsored ads are designed to drive traffic to your website. Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook, and LinkedIn are among the many places offering paid online ads – often called pay-per-click advertising. In general, online ads are affordable and easy to execute. They can target a specific demographic, location, or interest, and provide valuable metrics for measuring what’s working and what’s not. When people click your ad, be sure they land on a focused page with a clear call-to-action – one that converts them from prospects to customers. Now, to email marketing. It’s a powerful way to reach customers – if you do it right. Do it wrong and you may end up annoying them,
or worse, getting slammed as spam.

Always remember – one email equals one call-to-action. Have a clear goal and zero in on it with engaging but concise messaging. Use your customer’s name, send them emails triggered by certain events, like their birthday, and cater to their interests. Research shows personalized emails have many marketing methods win customers higher open and click-through rates than a generic email. This means better engagement and ROI for you. Reassure customers you will send only valuable emails. They’ll thank you by continuing to open and read your messages. Effective email marketing takes time and effort. You can streamline the process with the right tools, like GoDaddy Email Marketing. This tool provides a drag-and-drop email composer, clickable buttons, address management, and reports that show which emails are opened, clicked, and shared. Finally, there are social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram – just to name a few. Social media channels offer a cost-effective way to generate leads, drive traffic, and nurture customer relationships. With so many sites, it’s worth doing some research to figure out where your target customers – and competitors – hang out.

Then make sure you’re there too. Remember, on social media, content is king. Providing compelling, fresh content is the marketing methods win customers the fastest way to attract people and gain a following. Customers who appreciate your content share your page with their contacts, who share it with their contacts, who share it with…well, you get it. You’ve gone viral! To recap: business listings, paid online advertising, email marketing, and social media are four easy ways to move your business to the next level. Want to learn more? Check out the links below this video.