So you have started a business and now, you need to attract new customers in order for your business to expand and become successful. The best way to do that is to make your business known, that is the crucial part of attracting new customers, regardless of the industry your business belongs to.
There have always been two ways of making your business known – through word of mouth or with direct advertising. Since the internet is available to almost everyone now, there are new options to make your business stand. So if you improve your online presence, you can attract so many possible customers all around the world and expand your business possibilities.
The First Step
In order for your business to attract more customers and be present online, the first thing you need to do is create a website. Choose your company’s name as a domain name so that people can easily find your website through various search engines. Describe your company and include every piece of information you think will be useful to your future customers.
You should add a shopping section to your website if your company is in the sales department, so that the customers can directly buy from you at any time of the day. To create a website you will need a good hosting solution, so choose the hosting plan that suits you the most and you will be one step closer to achieving your online presence.
The Second Step
When you have set up your website, now it is time to create and post relevant content and articles that will cover all your company’s services. The content you are going to post can be anything, installation instructions, product descriptions, information about a certain industry, etc. Having articles on your site will attract more traffic to your website and give you more visitors and every visitor can be a possible customer.
The Third Step
Advertise. Advertise as much as you can on other websites by using sponsored advertising. Choose sites that are similar in some way with your company, the products or services you offer, so that someone can notice them if they are looking for related websites. Every time someone clicks on your link, you will get more traffic, and even if your ad isn’t clicked on, you are still exposing your business to possible customers.
The Fourth Step
Communication. It is important to communicate with your customers through a blog or newsletter.
Create a blog on your website with all the important information you wish to give to your customers which will explain everything you could not fit into a short ad. If you add a personal touch in customer relationships, you will increase the company’s loyalty.
Allow the customers to sign up for newsletters, email notices and slip some more ads into the emails you are going to send them.
Don’t send out emails often, maybe just a couple of them every month, so that you avoid spamming since that can result in people losing interest.
The Fifth Step
Expand your business presence on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Create a company page where you will post useful information and announcements.
Hire an employee who will work on your Twitter account, to keep track of mentions, post tweets and answer questions potential customer might have. Present your company online, create a certain image and don’t respond to any criticism that you may encounter.
The Sixth Step
It is important to create a unique online presence that will match with your company’s offline presence. Your content should be unique, from your online activities to advertisements and special deals, so that you can successfully increase interest in your company’s online presence.
So, let’s sum up, the things you are going to need the most for creating an online presence for your business are a properly hosted company website, pages on social networks, a Twitter account and a mailing list.
With all this and having our steps in mind, we guarantee that you will create a good online presence and that you will both expand your business and attract new customers. So, start taking these steps, one by one, and you will be amazed when you see how it will affect your business.
The author is highly qualified and writes blog posts weekly.
