01/ 07/ 2005
by Doug Addison
A great way to encourage people to visit your Web site is to put your Web site address on everything: business cards, menus, signs, ads and postcards -- even printed receipts and invoices. A better idea is to give people a specific reason to visit your Web site: to sign up for your e-mail list or to find out about new products and offers.
Let's look at some specific low-cost examples of how your Web site can complement the more common facets of small-business marketing, such as advertising, direct mail, customer support, sale pricing and community outreach.
• If you want your advertising efforts to draw more people to your site, consider paying extra for placement in the Web-specific classifieds, a section of many newspapers that highlights the Web sites of small business. Provide an auto-responder address -- as well as your Web site address -- that people can use to receive more information by e-mail.
• In the realm of customer support, including your Web site address on product information sheets, instructions and catalogs can reinforce the utility and customer-oriented focus of your business and your Web site. And when you can't address your customers' questions or problems by phone, include your Web site address on your telephone voice message or call-routing phone system.
• People love to get a deal, especially when they're surfing the Web. Your Web site can take advantage of the discount-hunter mentality by tweaking your pricing and sales strategy with an eye to your Web site. If you distribute coupons door-to-door or in community mailers, offer people the opportunity to download and print more coupons from your Web site.
• Your public relations or community relations efforts might take on new importance when you see the potential they have for building traffic to your Web site. When your small site is launched or redesigned, send a news release to local media outlets. Better yet, find out if your local television newscasts feature a Web site of the day or week and propose that the next one be yours. If you're the charitable type and donate your business's products or services to local causes, ask the receiving organizations to publish your Web site address in their newsletters or link back to your site from their Web sites.
Excerpted from Small Websites, Great Results, Copyright 2005 Paraglyph Press. Used with permission. Doug Addison is a freelance journalist and Web producer in Austin, Texas. You can contact him at doug@daddison.com.
