When you’re ready to embrace the benefits of having an effective online presence that is designed to help you get more business, it is difficult to figure out exactly where to start.
You may have a simple do-it-yourself website with GoDaddy or Yahoo that you put together quickly after listening to everyone say you need a website, and this is a good first step, or you may have nothing at all, which effectively means your business does not exist at all online.
At Accelerated Online, we use a 7 step inbound marketing process that helps small business owners establish an effective online presence to reach new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers.
Our 7 Step Inbound Marketing Process
The product manager in me approaches every new client engagement as a new product launch that can be divided into distinct phases. Much like launching a new software product on the Web, there is a business planning phase, requirements gathering phase, design phase, implementation phase, marketing phase, and measurement phase.
Specifically, the 7 steps for creating an effective online presence are:
Each step has a specific purpose and results in a specific deliverable. The entire process can be easily incorporated into a timeline with tasks assigned to specific contributors. If you were to take on this effort on your own, then you would own each step. If you were to work with others, each individual can have specific tasks and deadlines assigned to him or her.
Making the Commitment
Building out your online presence as way to help build your business requires commitment. You need to be ready to invest time, money, or both into clearly differentiating your business online. I’ve talk to many small business owners who say they have a website, but are sour because they say their website doesn’t do anything for their business.
Well, if you look at those sites, typically, they don’t look professional, they have broken links, misspellings, poorly written content, no clear call to action, and nothing notable that would interest a potential customer. It’s no wonder their site is not doing anything for their business!
Over the next few days, I’m going to take a deep-dive into each of these steps to highlight the specific tasks and deliverables involved so you can create your own blueprint for how to create an effective online presence for your business.
Image by debaird
