SEO Is Not the First Step in Online Marketing
On occasion, I talk to prospective clients who have a relatively low amount of cash flow. Some of these are ready to spend many hundreds of dollars on Web site re-designs, SEO experts, and pay-per-click campaigns. If you are becoming desperate at the lack of growth in your sales base, here’s what I suggest you do before you start throwing money into risky SEO, Pay-per-Click and re-design projects.
- First, evaluate what contacts you have made with customers and prospects. Do you have a database of customers who have already purchased from you? Do you have names of prospects collected from a newsletter sign-up script?
- Second, plan some basic content for a 4 paragraph email with or without images that solicits these contacts with a special offer and a request for referrals to friends
- Use a handy email broadcasting tool such as Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or Aweber.
Stick at the email campaign effort for several months by watching response and adjusting your offers or email design accordingly. If there is a market for your product, this approach should have a measurable effect and should begin to raise cash flow. After you’ve learned about your market and expanded your income by taking this approach, you will be in a better position to evaluate SEO, Pay-per-Click, and re-design services.
3 comments June 9th, 2007
