13 More Marketing Tips To Supercharge Your Business

1. Understand and stick to your theme.  After you have identified your target audience and know what you want to offer to them that is unique and what they want based upon market research, stick to it.
   
2. Give rich, relevant product information. Web users want access to as much information as possible, but they want to find what matters most to them, in as little time as possible.
   
3. Sell benefits, not features.  A large percentage of marketing communications don't stress the benefits that the products or services bring to their audiences, but stress product/service features instead. The unfortunate outcome is that sales are adversely affected.  An old sales technique is to describe the solution or feature and tell why that is an advantage, but always stress the human benefits that the prospect will obtain by buying the proposed solution.  Why People Buy Your Products or Services.
   
4. Provide price comparisons. Make it easy for the customer to buy now, without leaving the site.  This is important for price sensitive markets, where comparisons can be easily made. Otherwise, you should focus on value pricing instead of competitive pricing.
   
5. Keep it simple. Is your web site easy to buy from? Try Amazon.com’s One Click Ordering to see how easy it is to order.  Hold onto your wallet when doing so.  :)))
   
6. Give marketing top priority.  Frequently entrepreneurs put marketing on the back burner, but it's importance cannot be over-stressed. Marketing (or the lack of it) can make or break a business. 
   
7. Plan your promotional efforts carefully. Don't spend too much time, money and effort on expensive marketing methods, overlooking low-cost ones.  Be cautious with the way you use your limited capital. You can lose a lot of money quickly, if not careful. A full page print ad in a large circulation magazine, for example, can run several thousand dollars for just one issue, but may not pay for itself in sales. On the other hand, free publicity and other forms of low-cost promotion cost next to nothing, yet can be valuable marketing tools.
   
8. Use repetition in your marketing efforts. Many fail to realize that marketing is most effective when the marketing message is repeatedly brought to the attention of the target audience. A sizable number of prospects won't respond to marketing communications the first time, for various reasons. But presenting the message repeatedly - perhaps a second, third, fourth, fifth time, or more - will eventually convince a percentage of them (as long as they are legitimate prospects) to act on the offer. Repetition increases the credibility of the business in the eyes of the customer, particularly if the promotional efforts are seen in different media.  The key is using marketing methods you can afford to use repeatedly without breaking the bank.  With a limited amount of money to spend (and who isn't limited) you will get better results concentrating your promotional dollars on smaller audiences to create multiple exposures then diluting the message over a wider audience.
   
9. Use cross-media promotion, even if your business is solely a web business. For example, you can migrate non-web customers to the web, remind web users to come back, and find customers that haven't found you that can be effectively targeted using traditional media. As you well know, each medium has its strengths and weaknesses. And remember to tie the different media together. Your credibility grows when the customer sees you in more than one medium.
   

10. Use the Web to build brand recognition. The best way that you build a brand is to deliver a quality product.  First build a reputation through satisfying customers, getting good public relations, then promote the brand.  Be a customer service leader. Sales and marketing promotions can drive traffic to your site. Additional marketing can increase the frequency of customer visits. But, high-quality and responsive customer service can make lifetime customers out of your customers.

11. Collect customer data. You will need it for personalization and other one-to-one web marketing efforts.  The basic benefit is increasing targeting and decreasing waste in marketing program budgets. The data you gather will make your marketing more effective and more efficient.  Customers will be more likely to buy because you have presented information that is uniquely relevant to them. You can create cross-merchandising (a.k.a., upselling, cross-selling) programs that can increase your average online order size. Most importantly, this personalized interaction will increase customer loyalty over time.
    
    You must seek the permission of your users to successfully collect data.  Inform them on how you will be using the data. Let them know that the information will be used to alert customers to new goods or services that are most relevant to them and that it will enable you to present personalized content and product information. By establishing this trust-based relationship, you'll be sure to capture relevant and accurate information.
    
    Remember to also make it easy for customers to access information serendipitously by not locking them into their personalized view.  Let them explore!

12. Take advantage of the Web's real-time nature. This will increase frequency of visits. Just remember to match the timing information with your audience and your goals for the web site. For some web sites, it make perfect sense to present real-time news, for others it make sense to present information hourly, daily, monthly or quarterly. Once you have determined what timing is best for you and your customers, make sure you communicate it to them so they know how often to visit your site.
    
13. Ensure privacy.  In order to speed along the pace at which people will buy online, explain how encryption provides the necessary security and how shoppers can tell when it is being used.