How often each day do you hear the words “economic crisis”? What are you and your business doing about it?
Many companies are battening down the hatches and looking at cost cutting measures. Cutting staff, reducing training budgets, buying cheaper raw materials and even sourcing goods differently. Whatever, the outcome of this economic downturn, there is one thing you can be sure of: more people will be buying, using and interacting more with the Internet at the end of it, than before. Here’s what we’ll find:
- More money will be spent on Internet advertising revenue; less on traditional media.
- More people will click on Internet ads and banners (Google, Facebook, Yahoo!)
- More people will be buying products from online retailers.
- More people will be searching for services online.
- More people will be visiting company websites.
- More people will be emailing businesses with queries, to the detriment of the telephone.
- More people will be searching the web using their mobile phones.
- More people will be interacting through social media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc).
- More brands will be interacting with their customers.
- More brands will be damaged by their customers.
In essence, this means that now is a great time to start thinking about how your business or organisation is using the Internet and to identify how you can create a clear competitive advantage over the competition.
Here are some thoughts on what your business could be considering at this moment.
Website – find out what your customers require and exceed their expectations online. Take a look at what your competitors are doing – look at all of them – and come up with something that is ‘better than the sum of the parts’. Are there any extra elements you could add to the site which would make people likely to buy/contact you? Start speaking to your customers and find out what they want from your website. Data mine Google Analytics for those little gems that are hidden within the stats yet which could yield some useful insights into customer behaviour.
SEO – now’s a good time to speak to an SEO expert (or do it yourself). Take a look at the content on your site, have a look at how Google Analytics and find out your top keywords and pages and decide if they need reviewing. What about inbound links? Spend some time finding some good links. Have you set up a Google Site Map, verified your site and started exploring Google Local?
Press Releases – When was the last time you wrote a good press release for your site? Never? Well, now’s a good time to start. Make sure it’s optimised and take a look at services like PrLog (free) and PR Web (not so free).
Calls To Action – Are you 100% happy that visitors to your site know exactly what you want them to do? Are you sure that customers have clear calls to action on each page? We’re talking email buttons, telephone numbers, pdf download buttons, etc.
Google AdWords – want to put the Ansoff Matrix to the test and discover the delights of market penetration, market development, product development and diversification? Well, with a well-thought out and structured AdWords campaign you could you find new buyers of widgets in Wisconsin today! Time and again I have seen companies reap HUGE rewards by implementing a Google AdWords campaign. And another thought – if you’re a UK manufacturer or hotelier, the weak pound makes your products look much cheaper to Europeans!
Training – if you’re not upskilling and getting to grips with all the applications available to you, then you should start thinking about it now. How about other members of staff? Are there any Internet Marketing training programmes they could go on (plug intended!)? What about the raft of conferences that are about in Winter going into Spring? I’m thinking Future of Social Media, SMX Travel @ Fitur, SMX West, Technology for Marketing & Advertising, Internet World or Search Engine Strategies.
Email Campaigns – have you been collecting emails from visitors? What are you doing with them? If your site has a shopping facility and you are simply receiving emails and dispatching products, then now’s the time to think SMARTLY about what to do with all those satisfied clients. Start filtering the emails and properly organising. Get a product like Email Brain or Constant Contact and start SPEAKING to them. They were happy with your last offering and the chances are that they want to hear from you and buy form you!
Embracing Social Media – ironically we are probably at one of the most exciting times in the history of the Internet and some of the applications that are coming out: suite of Google Tools, Youtube, Flickr, Podcasting, Blogging, Twitter are starting to have an impact on the way businesses operate. If you haven’t already, now may be the time to look at some of these tools and work out how they could be used as part of your Internet Marketing strategy.
There are so many things businesses can and should do and the list really does go on, and on. The current economic downturn offers a fantastic opportunity to create an Internet advantage over rivals and ensure that you organisation comes out of all this at the top of the pile. Don’t forget – out of the last economic downturn companies like Google emerged.
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