Believe it or not some people make very basic mistakes when it comes to the online marketing of their business. Here we identify some of the easy ones to avoid.

Many of the conventional tips and rules applicable to promoting your business generally also carry over to online marketing, so we won’t go into those here because there are lots of places you can find that information. However, there are a few things that are specific to websites and email marketing campaigns and they are what we are interested in.

The mistakes mostly made in online promotion can be broadly grouped under 2 headings; failing to promote your business and promoting poorly.

Failing to Promote Online

Should every business have an online presence? Yes and no. It would be hard to justify spending large sums of money developing a state of the art website if you own a corner store. However, if one of the services offered by that store was supplying lunch orders to a large nearby office complex, then having the facility for office workers to place their lunch order online could be worthwhile.

Here are some things to consider:

• At the very least every business should be contactable via email.
• Don’t concentrate on other media at the expense of your online presence. Surprisingly we have had a client cut back their web presence because a successful television advertising campaign left them too busy to handle the sales enquiries they were receiving through their website! Strange but true.
• People expect businesses to have some form of online presence even if it is only at the most basic level.
• You can have a simple web site operational for a fraction of the cost of Yellow Pages advertising.
• A website is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, which means prospective customers can access information about your products/services outside business hours.

Poor Online Promotion

The old adage that any promotion is good promotion may not hold true when dealing online. You create an instant impression on prospective clients when they visit your website so you need it to be a good one.

Here are some of the traps:

• Free and piggy-back websites – will cost you if they don’t use your own domain name. The easiest way to look unprofessional is to look like you are too cheap to invest in your own business, so saving a few dollars in the short term will give the wrong impression with the potential to cost thousands in lost sales long term.
• Using an ISP or free email address such as a BigPond or Gmail account – is a classic failure to market your own business. By default you are promoting someone else’s business name instead of your own and it is especially bad when used on your own website because it reflects an unprofessional approach to business that could also be interpreted as an indication of your approach in general. As an example, if your website address is www.sample.com then your email address should be something like sales@sample.com not mybusiness@gmail.com.
• Out-of-date content – shows a lack of attention to your website that may make customers wonder how casual you are about the service you provide. Old and obsolete products are a dead giveaway that you aren’t keeping the site updated. Avoid web pages that display a “last updated” date unless you are very confident each of those pages will be updated regularly.
• A poorly constructed website – will turn customers away. Information should be logically structured under relevant menu headings and easily accessible. Photos and graphic elements will improve the aesthetics of your site but ensure that this isn’t at the expense of speed.
• Site availability – is another consideration when looking at free and ultra-cheap website design and hosting. Spend just a little more and get something with support, reliability and speed – your customers will appreciate it.
• Ensure that your web address is promoted everywhere you would put your phone number. We have prepared a checklist that you can download here.

It is worth mentioning that any online marketing campaign should be considered only as part of an overall marketing plan that takes into consideration other media such as print and television.