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In the previous two segments in this series I came to the conclusion that

(1) The business environment is changing in ways that make it attractive and even necessary to promote your business online.

(2) Virtually any viable product or service that can be marketed locally using traditional methods can also be marketed to a local market using the internet.

As I mentioned in segment 2, online marketing requires patience and persistence. It is not enough to simply throw up a website and expect people to come to it. They won't. But there are ways to increase the impact of your marketing efforts on the web and in this segment I will try to indicate some of them.

Some techniques are used to create long term impact and others are used to create a short term or sometimes even an immediate impact. It is helpful to think of these things seperately.

Creating a long term impact - getting established on the web

It is useful to think of the web as a giant community of people with a very, very wide range of interests. This community is informally organized into smaller communities each of which has its own areas of interest. There is a community of web designers, and a community of online poker players, and a community of health care professionals, and another one of music downloaders. These are just groups of people who share certain interests, and there are thousands and thousands of communities of this kind.

Each of these communities is what marketers call a "niche". In one sense a "niche" is an "area of interest". For instance, "online gaming" is an area of interest. "Photography" is another area of interest. When a marketer advises you to focus on a niche, he or she is telling you to focus on an area of interest.

But a niche is much more than an idea. It is a group of people — a community of people — who share certain likes and dislikes. So that means when you are advised to "focus on a marketing niche", you are really being told to target your promotional efforts at a specific group of people. So it is important to use the tools and techniques that best inform and persuade people.

This makes it clearer what your objective is. You want to make an impact on the people within your target group. You want to make them aware of you and your products or services. You want to convince these people you have a good product, and you want to get them interested in buying it.

The best way to make a lasting impact on any group of people is through persistence and repetition. To make a person remember you, you have to get in their face — usually, the more often the better. So the objective of any long term marketing stategy is to make the people in your target group familiar with your company and products and to get them to think positively about them. You want to create a positive "identity" for yourself and your products, and you want to impress this identity upon the people in your target group. usually this is done by persistence over time, and repetition of a clear and positive message.

Well established techniques for building an online identity

1. Create a clear and persuasive website

The first, and possibly most important technique for building a memorable online identity is to build a website that makes it clear who you are and what you do. Clearly identify your product and spell out what makes it unique. Always keep in mind that your objective is to create a positive impact on the people who visit your website. Do not assume they are familiar with you or your product. Keep it all very simple and very straightforward.

2. Make your website search engine friendly

At the same time you want to make your website "search engine friendly". This is usually called "search engine optimization" which is often shortened to SEO.

Impressing the search engines is absolutely critical to your online success. This is why SEO has become such an important topic among internet marketers. It is beyond the scope of this article to get into the details of search engine optimization. For an introduction to the topic go to this series of articles about Search Engines and Keywords.

SEO briefly boils down to this:

3. Impress your target niche by writing articles that show your unique point of view

Every internet marketer agrees that writing articles and posting them on websites and getting them published in ezines is one of the easiest and cheapest way to establish an online identity for you and your product. Write enough articles and place them in enough places and pretty soon people will get to know you and your products. This is the easiest possible way to gain credibility and familiarity.

4. Make aliances with the leaders in your field

Once you have carved out your niche it is time to introduce yourself to the market leaders in your field. Many times there are cooperative ventures you can undertake with them. If you have a product they can benefit from, you can benefit from the exposure they can give you.

5. Exchange links with the important high traffic sites in your area of interest

Getting links pointing to your site is one of the best ways to enhance your online presence. Not only do these links generate traffic but they help with your search engine rankings. When you begin, do not waste your time building link directories. Target a relatively small number of sites who get real traffic, and give them a link from one of your highest ranking pages in return for one from them that is likely to generate some traffic and get you some exposure.

In order to generate local traffic, focus on exchanging links with local agencies, organizations and companies. This will make important promotional people in your local area aware of your presence, and it will solidify your place as a key player on the local scene.

The best way to get "immediate" traffic

Generally speaking the web is not a very good medium for generating immediate response. But there are some techniques that work amazingly well when properly employed.

1. Pay Per Click Advertising

The most familiar example of Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) is Google Adwords. You create little text ads that come up when people do searches on your targeted keywords. Let's say, for instance, that I want to promote my product called "Linknet". I create a simple ad that promotes my product and then I program it to come up when someone does a search for "website promotion" or "link purchase". Both the creation of the ad and the programming of the target keywords is done right within the Adwords interface.

My ad's position on the page will be determined by the amount I am prepared to pay each time someone clicks on it. If a person clicks on my ad they are taken to my "landing page" — a page pitching my product — and I am charged the amount I previously bid.

This may sound complicated, but it is really not. Once you have a campaign set up it will essentially run itself. All you have to do is create a landing page that sells enough of your product to make it worthwhile.

In theory this will work for any product. You only pay when someone clicks through to your site. It can be effective for limited markets (like local markets) because you can define your ad so it only comes up when someone does a search for something in your local area: for example, "indian food in denver".

Running an effective Adwords campaign requires diligance and constant testing. But it is flexible enough to allow you to run a short, inexpensive test. That way you do not have to commit a large amount of money to your campaign. I outline this in quite a bit more detail in an article called Testing Products with Google Adwords.

2. Email campaigns to targeted mailing lists

If you have been fortunate enough to develop an email list of customers or prospects then it is possible to generate immediate response by doing an email campaign to your list. The success or failure of this sort of campaign is directly related to the nature of the offer you make. Most companies dealing only with local markets will not have had the opportunity to develop this kind of list. My own experience with email campaigns of this sort has not been good. Response rate has usually been very low. But other experienced and successful marketers claim it is the best and cheapest way to promote their products.

An alternative is to run a joint venture with another local company or organization that might share your target online market. For instance, say you run a hair salon. You might put together a special offer especially for the members of a local health and fitness club. When they send out their regular email newsletter, your offer could be included.

Or say your Indian food restaurant is located close to a large office complex. You could approach the webmasters of some of the corporate offices located in the building and propose running an online ad for a luncheon special. In exchange you could have some kind of advertisement for their company in your menu.

The ideas here are as varied as you care to make them. The point is, with a bit of imagination and perseverance you can use online media to reach your local target market. And it will almost always be for a lot less money than the traditional alternatives.

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