How to be a lean, mean marketing machine

Guerilla warfare is marked by extremely subtle, flexible, somewhat unconventional, yet highly effective tactics. This issue of Hints & Tips features an article with some great "guerilla" marketing tips from our partner, AllBusiness. When it comes to making small businesses successful, they are on the front line, so hold on to your helmets and read on!

Guerrilla Marketing for Your Online Business

A Web site won't help your business if no one visits it. In fact, experts suggest that for every dollar a business spends designing and maintaining its Web site, it should spend 10 dollars promoting the site.

Not every business can afford that kind of investment, but these guerrilla techniques for promoting your firm's Web site can help make 1 dollar do the work of 10.

• Conventional ads on unconventional sites. Many Web sites advertise on big-name sites like Yahoo, America Online and eBay. These sites provide great exposure if you can afford it, but chances are you can't - at least not with enough frequency to really make an impression. Solution: Seek out smaller sites that have some relation to yours and advertise on them. You'll save money and reach a specialized audience that probably will be more receptive to your site.
  
   
• Newsgroup postings. Posting press releases or short articles about new events and information on your site can be very useful. Practice proper newsgroup etiquette in order to avoid being "flamed" (criticized or insulted) by irate users who object to blatant commercial use of their newsgroups. Pick newsgroups that are related your site and that allow commercial posts. Also, keep your postings brief and to the point - for example, one or two paragraphs describing a new section on your site.
  
   
• Links, links, links. Links are the lifeblood of the Internet. Seek out sites that appeal to your firm's potential customers, and ask to establish reciprocal links with them.
  
   
• Newsletters. Encourage visitors to register on your site so that you can reach them by email or other means. Send them email newsletters that announce new content, features and other changes at your Web site. You can sweeten the deal for people who agree to provide their email addresses by giving them discounts on your products or setting up a special members-only area on your site.
  
  Make sure that you send email only to visitors who request it, and always give people an easy way to unsubscribe from your mailing list. Your site should also include a privacy policy that tells visitors what information you collect, how you use it and whether you give or sell information to other parties.
  
   
• Viral marketing. Many successful Web sites develop "viral" marketing plans that literally reproduce themselves. Free email services, for example, add tag lines to their customers' outgoing messages with the name and Web address of the service. Many Web sites can benefit from this approach. A site that sells specialty food items, for example, could allow customers to email recipes to their friends directly from the site, along with a line telling them where the recipe came from. Viral marketing schemes are cheap, they tend to find the right audience for your products or services, and they require little effort to maintain.
  
   
• Differentiation. Your Web site should stand out from the competition. That means conveying useful information in an efficient, streamlined format. So many Web sites suffer from tacky design or useless bells and whistles (such as annoying background music) that tasteful, well-designed sites look even better by comparison. Treat your Web site as a key business resource, not as a hobby or a sideshow to your real marketing efforts.
  
   

AllBusiness | Champions of Small Business
AllBusiness is a leading online provider of small business solutions helping entrepreneurs start, manage and grow their enterprises.

http://www.AllBusiness.com