A Few Tried and True Internet Marketing Strategies (and One Terrific Offline Marketing Idea)

If you’re trying to think of some ways to market your business online, here are some ideas to get your noggin’ churning. Some are these you’ve no doubt have heard of and possibly have tried yourself.

Have you been writing and submitting articles to article directories and ezines (electronic magazines)? Writing informative articles chock-a-block with good information that your target market will find useful is a terrific way to brand yourself as the expert in your field. There literally are hundreds of article directories and ezines on the Internet, almost all of them allowing you the opportunity to post your article at no charge. For extra SEO oomph, write your articles with keywords you know your target audience uses and you’ll have a better chance of having your article — and your article’s resource box with a link back to your website — pop up first in the search engine results.

Have you checked out Yahoo! or Google groups yet? There’s probably one — or even several — niche groups filled with members of your target market. Join one or more groups and be sure to join in the discussion. Hold the blatant sales pitches. Instead, offer helpful and informative comments to the posts of others; the business will come to you in good time.

Connect with your target market via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Post regularly and keep your posts 80 percent about business and about 20 percent personal. Again, watch the blatant salesmanship and instead offer tweets and posts of value to your readers, friends and followers.

Finally, don’t forget old fashioned in-person networking. Explore membership in your local chamber of commerce or even BNI International. Put a new twist on offline networking by finding a networking group online: search Meetup.com to see if there are any groups near you that may be interested in your offerings and join. Meetup groups often have very affordable membership dues — or are even free! Not as many businesses think of joining a Meetup group (just about everyone thinks of joining the local Chamber), so your competitors. probably won’t be at the meetings with you.

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