Despite knowing that your online profile is one of the most important marketing tools you have at your disposal, many companies are still not placing enough emphasis on good quality online marketing. During a time of recession every customer counts and if your online marketing is failing, you could be losing out on a sizeable proportion of your potential marketplace. So how do you get the most out of your online marketing when times are hard?

1. Getting Your Online Marketing Right To Beat The Recession<br />Despite knowing that your online profile is one of the most important marketing tools you have at your disposal, many companies are still not placing enough emphasis on good quality online marketing. During a time of recession every customer counts and if your online marketing is failing, you could be losing out on a sizeable proportion of your potential marketplace. So how do you get the most out of your online marketing when times are hard? <br />Getting noticed<br />PDuring a time of recession it’s increasingly difficult to get your customers to part with their money. No matter how impressive your website or how easy it is to use your shopping cart, your customers are going to need a little more gentle persuasion to head towards the checkout with a basket full of your products and their credit card details. But if your SEO isn’t up to speed, they may not even make it as far as your virtual doors. So the first thing to make sure of to get the customers your business needs is that your website has a good SERP (search engine results page) ranking. Research shows that 90% of customers click on the first website listed on a Google search. So if your website isn’t on page one, you’re missing out on all but the thinnest slice of that business pie. Online marketing has to include strong SEO that gets you noticed by both the human visitor and the search engine ‘bots that list pages containing fresh, original and unique content. <br />Choosing an online marketing platform<br />The way people shop online has changed. Now, static browsing on home PCs or laptops is being replaced by mobile browsing using handheld devices such as Smartphones. Does your online marketing strategy take into account the different type of browsing habits of your customers? If your product or service is aimed at the 18-25 demographic, you may need to rethink your strategy and make sure that your online marketing includes adaptations of your web pages for mobile devices. <br />Social networking – word of mouth equals online marketing<br />Products are reviewed on a daily basis by the people who actually buy them through blogs, comments on Facebook and personal recommendations. Do you have a social network presence? Do you Tweet? This can be an excellent way to beat the recession and raise your online marketing presence on the cheap. Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth as an online marketing tool. By getting people to talk about your products with their friends online you can increase your audience considerably as well as getting useful, real feedback that could help you to improve both your techniques and your products. <br />Email – online marketing to ‘warm leads’<br />Another very cheap and effective form of online marketing is through the use of emails. Getting customers to sign up to your newsletters and then delivering exclusive offers such as discounts for subscribers is a great way to drive people who have already expressed an interest in your products towards your website. If you provide an incentive such as a 10% discount for newsletter subscribers then that can encourage warm leads to turn into paying customers. If your customer’s buying experience is a good one then they will return again and again. The whole point of effective online marketing during a time of economic uncertainty is to make the most effective use of the tools you already have, as well as exploring other ways of promoting your company online. All of these methods are relatively cheap and easy to do, but if you’re struggling to get the most out of your online marketing, talk to a professional Internet marketing agency who will be able to introduce you to a raft of ideas to promote your business online. Get your online marketing right and it could make the difference between surviving the recession with a healthy profit margin, or closing the doors.<br />