Interactive marketing is expanding by leaps and bounds on the web. As a consequence, the Internet is the hottest place for growing your business. There’s a lot to learn about marketing on the web, and most business owners don’t have time to keep up with technical challenges like search engine trends, proper ad placement, and the like. More and more businesses are jumping into the Internet marketing arena with both feet, though. That’s because there’s a lot to gain. Think about what might work for your business, and then take the plunge. To learn more, visit our Services page, or call us at 866-799-0220.
Affordable Website Upgrades
As your business grows, so can your site. Upgrades are easy and affordable. Adding components can help your business reach its full potential. Blogs, permission-based email marketing, viral marketing techniques, calendars, job boards, and the like are hot. You should know what’s going on!
Blogs
What’s a blog?
A weblog, or “blog,” combines text, images and links to other web pages related to your business’s products and/or services. Blogs offer commentary on subjects like recipes, current events, or local news. Usually a blog has a subjective, informal tone, like an online diary. Customers can post comments to your blog entries. As people respond to each other’s comments, it creates a feeling of community.
What does a blog do?
With blogs, people can share ideas, opinions, and information quickly and easily, from anywhere on the Internet. In your blog, you could add links to sites devoted to a hobby your customers share. Your blog might include “What’s New” updates, or questions for your customers, such as “Give us your honest opinion about our latest product!” or even, “Where should we open up a new location of our store?”
Customer Satisfaction
Gaining access to your customers’ opinions and suggestions with a blog can help you understand your market, where you’ve been, and where you’re headed. And, if someone did have a bad experience with your company, a blog gives you a chance to rectify that. If you’re responsive, even unsatisfied customers might keep coming back!
Refer a Friend
Give your customers an easy way to refer their friends to you. A Refer a Friend option lets visitors and subscribers share your URL with their email contacts. You capture their contact information and use an auto responder to send follow-up emails, re-introducing yourself and your business. As an incentive for your customers to refer their friends, you might offer a “freebie” -- a $5 gift certificate, or a free gift next time they shop.
Calendars
Why a calendar?
With a web calendar, you can post your business’s events and classes, or even community happenings that might interest your customers. Calendars can also be interactive; for example, your clients could schedule their own appointments at your spa or salon. All appointments, whether coming in by phone or Internet, would be coordinated by your scheduling coordinator.
A reason to visit
Updating the information on your website on a regular basis creates a reason for visitors to check your site often. Keep customers visiting your site by adding a calendar that’s frequently updated with special events they care about.
Job Board
Use a job board to post jobs when you need to fill a position, and provide an easy way for job seekers to get you their resumes. Good customers can make the best employees: they know your business, and take an interest in its continued success. Give them a convenient place to find out when you’re hiring. Even if your customer isn’t looking for a job, he or she might know someone who is.
Promo Creator
Coupons and Sales
You can publish coupons and sale information on your website with a promo creator.
Coupons and sales enhance relationships with existing customers, and they help attract new ones. If you update your promotional information regularly, customers will visit your site often to keep up with your current offerings.
Survey Creator
This tool lets you gain priceless information about your market. You might want to know how to budget your advertising dollars. With a simple questionnaire, ask how your customers find you. Did they see you online, in the Yellow Pages, or in print? Did they hear of you in a radio ad, or word of mouth? To grow your business, understand your customers, who they are and what they want. A survey creator gives you the information you need.
Contact Form
With a contact form, your customers can contact you with questions or comments on your products and services. Customers fill in boxes with their personal information, and, of course, their comments. When they click Submit, the information is emailed to your email address. You could also just make a hyperlink to your email address, which creates a blank email for people to send.
Photo Gallery
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Give potential customers a chance to see what your business has to offer by posting photos of the inside of your store, or of your products and services. Include a photo of the outside of your store or your sign out front, so first-time customers can recognize your business.
Portal
A portal is a website that serves as a point of entry to a larger resource, such as the World Wide Web or a large corporate website. It usually includes a search engine or a collection of links to other sites. Portals provide rapid, seamless, personalized, and secure access to information. Corporations use portals to share information both externally – with customers and partners – and internally, among sales, marketing, manufacturing, operating, and support personnel.
E-commerce/shopping cart
More and more consumers every year are opting to shop online from the convenience of their own homes. If your business is not set up to sell products and services online, you are limiting sales opportunities to hours of store operations when you could be open for business 24/7. Just think of all the extra sales adding e-commerce to your site could generate!
Contact NordicInteractive today
For more information about these and other add-on components to maximize your website’s value, visit our Services page, or call us at 810-373-2334.