In this post I’m going to elaborate on some of the best ways to market your offline business on the Internet. If you have an existing business, whether it’s a store or a bigger corporate layout, then read up because this article will reveal some important things you need to consider.

Why Offline Marketing Alone Won’t Cut It:

There are millions of business owners who still shrug off the idea of marketing their business on the web. In 2009, moving towards 2010, it’s now imperative that your business is seen on the web. If you don’t you can kiss your future business goodbye…

Why?

Your customers of tomorrow is the web users of today.
If your business is not seen on the web, future prospects will definitely shop elsewhere. The information highway has allowed us all to do solid research on businesses before we do actual business with them.

How To Market Your Business On The Web

1. Start With A Website

No business can successfully represent themselves online without their own website.

If you don’t have a website, then it’s time you get one. There are no two ways about it. You can get a small corporate website designed for anything from R1000 – R5000 depending on your needs. It’s money well spent. Consider it the foundation of your online presence.

2. Engage Users At Their Online Social Hangouts

There is a very good reason why so many companies are blocking their employees from using social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube. It’s because people are addicted to it. Millions of people use it on a daily basis and South Africa is no exceptions with far over 1 million S.A citizens using Facebook on a daily basis.

Are you presenting your business on these social networks?
If not…then you should start a.s.a.p because your competition is probably busy using it.

For a good read on marketing your business on Facebook, do yourself a favor and invest in "Facebook Era":

The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff

3. Give Google A Shot

If you have a website then people need to see it. You can have the prettiest looking website with the best flash action scripts, but if only 1 or 2 people visit your website a day then you won’t see any results.

Google is the biggest search engine and it’s widely used by South Africans. It’s for that reason and that reason alone why you need to get your website on Google.

This doesn’t mean your website should just be "listed" on Google, but it should be ranked as well…meaning that your website should come up in the Top 10 for words or phrases that people type in.

You can achieve this in 3 ways:

• You need to approach an SEO expert – they will be able to optimize your website to rank in the natural results of the listings. It takes a while to rank though.
• You can approach a PPC expert – they can set up a paid advertising campaign on Google which allows you to start advertising your business on Google within 24 hours.
• You can do it yourself – if you have the time and money to spend, you can learn how to do it yourself.

4. Use Portals

South Africa has some very big online portals which your business can utilize to drive TONS of possible customers. Almost all of these portals allow advertising. There are dozens of portals, for example: Aardvark, Kalahari, Bizcommunity, iAfrica and many more.

5. Make friends with bloggers

Bloggers are the FUTURE of the web. They create loyal readerships and allow big companies to create brand awareness among hyper demographics.

There are literally thousands of South African blogs. Afrigator can give you a good list of current active blogs. By establishing good relationships with these bloggers, you have the opportunity to present your business and it’s products/services so that the blogger might post a article.

Such articles can lead to years of free exposure for your business.

Conclusion:

Your business needs to be on the web period. Take a look at your current marketing budget and make some space for an online marketing campaign. It’s well worth the time and money if executed correctly.

Regards
Reinhardt Gallowitz