So, you have become the proud owner of the online store. Well, I wish you achieve your online business objectives. Certainly, you must have worked really hard, invested a lot of money, and took real pain in planning, designing and developing your e-commerce website. Here, I would like to ask you a few questions which are: “Are you sure your online store will enjoy web traffic that can fulfill your business objectives and goals?,” “Do you think your e-commerce website or online store would get higher ranking from search engines?” and “Have you integrated your marketing message in this online store and is it perfectly made to get this message across?”

Well, it is not enough to have an online store or e-commerce website made. In this age of fierce competition, online marketers have to leverage the online marketing strategies available to promote their business and generate leads. Such strategies require hard efforts from the marketers and are really crucial. If you do not implement online marketing strategies then you won’t enjoy web traffic, cannot generate leads and moreover your website will be lost in this virtual world of Web.

Following common online marketing strategies must be used to market your products or services over internet and attract web audiences.

1. E-Mail Marketing –
   Very important and still a gem for marketers. E-mail marketing gives you a platform to get in touch with your target audience and customers. It helps two way communication between you and your clients or prospects. All you need to do this build a list of e-mail ids of your visitors and send them, newsletters, information about offers, schemes and events on a regular basis. E-mail marketing is a direct form of marketing and connects you well with your audience.
2. Search Engine Optimisation –
   Importance of SEO or search engine optimisation can never be ignored. SEO is a long term process and help your website get higher search engine rankings. Today, almost 80 percent of web audience refers search engines to find out a website that serve information, products or services they are looking for. If your website is search engine friendly then it will certainly get good traffic volume which you can convert to achieve your business goal.
3. Pay Per Click Management –
   After you successfully launched your online retail store, the first online strategy that you can utilize to market your store is PPC or Pay Per Click. It is an exclusive advertising model or a type of paid search marketing. It is really cost-effective and offer promising results quickly. In PPC, a marketer has to pay only for the clicks that online visitors make to get redirected to your website from search engines.
4. Banner Advertising –
   It is a type of display advertising on internet. The primary idea behind banner advertising is same i.e. to get a stream of web traffic flowing into your website. Marketers advertise with the banner ads of their website on popular websites. The idea is to get your information or marketing message exposed to a lot of online visitors and attract them to visit your store and convince them to buy your products or services.
5. Social Media Optimisation –
   In the present web scenario, the best way to market your business online is social media optimisation. Today, the trend is social networking through several websites. Social media optimisation (SMO) is almost no cost way to advertise or market your business and build a solid customer base. You can reach masses and enhance your online presence and brand reputation. Also called as Social media marketing (SMM), SMO gives you an opportunity to interact with web audience and let them form opinions about your store or business. It helps you create buzz.
6. Video Marketing –
   Sometimes words fail to paint pictures and impress your target audience or your online visitors just browse through your website and do not read content. In such condition, you have only a few minutes to impress your audience and get your marketing message across. To do this video marketing serves as the best online marketing strategy available. Simple, you can upload a video of your product or message to your website. Web audiences, usually watch videos and understand what you want to express. It is an impressive way to address your online visitors personally and convert them.
7. Online Press Release –
   Just like traditional press releases, online press releases help you share your news / views, opinion or information about events, products, services, etc. with online visitors. Press releases help you generate traffic to your website which gets redirected from PR directories or websites. Online press releases help you build and maintain strong public relations.
8. Blogging –
   Blogging is not a new online marketing strategy. However, it could help you tremendously with your marketing objectives. Blogging help you share your views, information or news with web audience. It gives you a platform to interact with them directly. By blogging you can inspire online visitors to participate in online discussions and provide you an opportunity to find out what your web audience thinks about your products or business.
9. Viral Marketing –
   Viral marketing is nothing but a new form of traditional word of mouth advertising. Here marketer can create a buzz around his website, products or services and business. Viral marketing give opportunity to marketers to improve their brand awareness. It creates a buzz and inspires audiences to share your marketing message with their friends, family or relatives on social networks and through other mediums. It is very effective medium but requires close monitoring otherwise you may end up with ruining your brand image.
10. Web Analytics –
    It is not an online marketing strategy as such but it is the back bone of all your online marketing efforts. The best advantage of marketing your business online is that you can track the performance of your campaigns and make necessary changes as desired. Web analytics help you understand visitors’ behavior, their responses towards your marketing efforts. Web analytics can measure the effectiveness of any of your online marketing campaign.

So, once again I would like you to congratulate for your online store and remind you to use online marketing strategies discussed above to be successful in all your endeavors.

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In today’s world, it’s no coincidence that you and I could just be related, through some sort of connection that links us through varied networks on several blogs and social networking sites. Even as the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Technorati, YouTube, Orkut, etc. grows, outnumbering believe-it-or-not, even porn sites; social media and networking sites are set to herald the dawn of a dynamic networking community that takes communication to another platform altogether.

1. Make the Online Word-of-Mouth Work for You
   This new communication model offers a dialogue between several users, individuals and businesses that socialise, communicate, participate in discussions, rate and review products and services, as well as provide advice on issues of common concern. The popularity of this medium is word-of-mouth, the most trusted referral system in business, only in this case it takes place across communities in the virtual world. The online word-of-mouth has surpassed advertising and marketing as trusted sources of information and placed control in the hands of the consumer. Truly, to the point of sounding hackneyed, consumer remains the king, a fact that cannot be ignored in the online world. So what is your response as a marketer to capitalise on the opportunities that the social media platform offers? Unlike other skills, social media is easy to comprehend with a little bit of effort especially since it has a remarkably low entry barrier. But before you take the plunge, there are some basis factors that are essential for a successful social media marketing campaign.
2. Identify your Business Goals and Metrics
   As is the case with any business endeavour, you must have a well-defined goal in mind. However, in reality many business bloggers and websites owners are fixated on attracting traffic to their sites without any afterthought of what to do with the traffic. Figure out whether your aim is to create brand awareness, increase sales, do market research or function as an online troubleshooting platform. Whatever be your goal, you need to measure it against the value gained through a social media platform. RSS subscriptions and page views are measurable, as is your influence on market conversations through tracking of inbound links to your social media site.
   
3. Target Relevant Influencer Networks
   You need to gain a proper understanding of who your target audience is, as you don’t want to waste your own or anyone else’s time. Most social media sites comprise of users with niche interests. Proper researching of communities that are relevant to your business interests will enable you to customise desirable content to advance your goals. You need to identify conversations that are relevant to your market community and the drivers of those conversations. While influencers need not necessarily be your customers, they can significantly impact your revenue stream, since these influencers could be dissatisfied customers, brand ambassadors of competitor products or someone with market perspectives that challenge yours. It is significant to note that looking beyond your existing customer base to gain a whole new perspective of who influences your market is an integral advantage of a social media program.
4. Launch Relevant Content
   The success of a social media activity is highly dependent on the value of its content. Again you need to get a sense of the feel, style and tone of conversations and influencers of the social media sites you are targeting. Members of online communities are generally distributed across numerous social media channels. However, while these communities remain the same, the issues raised and the way they are tackled can be very different from one blog to another. Hence, you must have an idea that is as relevant as possible to attract highly-targeted visitors through content that gels naturally.
5. Catalyse Participation
   You’re on the forum or blog to promote a specific business interest; hence you need to influence your audience and get them involved. From participating in conversations and posting articles on common interest topics that engage or challenge the community, you should comment on blogs of market influencers and include them on your blog-roll. Sharing your knowledge, discoveries and anything relevant to the community will go a long way in making your social media initiative a success.
6. Reliable Hosting
   If you abide by the tips mentioned above, you’re sure headed for social media marketing success. You can look forward to hits once your page makes it to the front pages of StumbleUpon, Digg and others. However, what if your website is unable to handle this much-desired traffic and goes down? The value behind your social media marketing efforts goes to naught. You must have a reliable hosting plan in place, especially if you are keen to market your website using social media. It is a critical element in factoring your business success through strategic social marketing.

As you engage customers using social media as a platform to elevate and disseminate information about your business, you’ll increasingly observe how your customer’s stories compete with yours, even as influential members within your community hold the power to advance or reject your unique positioning.

Do write in, I look forward to hearing from you on how you’ve handled your social media marketing initiatives.

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