Make the Most of Your Marketing

By now everyone has heard we’re in a recession. How do you improve your business during a recession? There are, of course, many answers to that but one would certainly be to improve your marketing. Embracing Web 2.0 can be a way to gain visibility for your product/service in a way you might have only been doing through PPC ads and SEO. And while no one is arguing that Google is still king and SEO is still a necessity, Web 2.0 may offer new ways to connect with your target market that (for most of us anyways) is increasingly looking for ways to cut back.

Web 2.0, or inbound marketing, focuses on attracting highly qualified customers to websites through creating blogs that customers can follow, forums they can participate in, videos they want to watch and newsletters they want to read. It is pretty much the opposite of print and TV marketing, where a message is thrown into the crowd over and over again. And if you are reading this OfficeClip blog, you are already participating in inbound marketing!

3 Main Components

Inbound marketing campaigns, according to Hubspot’s Marketing Blog, have three main parts:

1. Content– The content is what attracts the customers to your tool

2. Search Engine Optimization– Nope, this has not gone away, it still has to be a huge part of any marketing strategy, as users will still use your site as a starting point.

3. Social Networking– Things like Facebook and Linkedin allow you to spread the word about your company in a personal way and gets other people talking about you! In addition, Jake Kilroy of Entreprenuer.com, talks about the benefits of using Twitter, a networking site where you constantly update your status, have people “follow” you and “follow” others with whom you share a mutual interest.

Communication is Key

Perhaps the main point of Web 2.0 is that consumers want you to communicate with them and they want to be able to give you feedback! This is why blogs are so common now, even though it can be challenging to get one started and develop a following. Another way to interact with your customers is through email-yes, its been around longer than social networking, but it is still a great tool! Using  OfficeClip’s Web Contact Manager can help you organize all your customers and send out recurring email campaigns, updating them on any news, tips, changes, etc. with your company/product.

In the end, inbound marketing alone will probably not be enough, at least initially. PPC ads, emails, phone calls, etc., can still be effective as long as you do them well. But a combination of these strategies will enable you to connect with your customers in the ways they want…and that’s always best!