Internet marketing is just a fancy way of saying, “Promoting your product or service online.” Because the Internet is so massive, there are many ways to get the word out about your business. This report will briefly summarize some common Internet marketing strategies and how they can be applied to the hemp products industry. Additionally, this report will assume that the basic preparatory steps have been completed, i.e. setting up a website, merchant account, etc, and deal strictly with website promotion.
The internet is the single largest medium in the world, reaching more people than all other mediums combined. As with television and radio, advertisements are prevalent on the Internet as well. As a business owner, we hopefully know that we must advertise in order to make sales.
In other words, we need to find people who ALREADY have an interest in our product or service, in this case, hemp boxes.
The question remains, HOW do we find these people?
When it comes down to it, there are only two strategies. However, in order to understand these strategies, one must first know how the search engine giant Google, works.
Google is the search engine most frequently used when internet users are looking for content. In the Internet world, Google is #1 for this reason. When people want to find something, ANYTHING, they go to Google, type their keywords in the search box, and from there visit one of the listings. Over 75% of the time, the top ranked listing is the first one clicked by users.
Keep that in mind as we go over the strategies.
Strategy #1: PPC (Pay Per Click)
When Google brings up the listings after a search, it also adds its own advertisements. No, they are not ads for Google itself. Rather, they are ads, placed by companies much like yours, which Google places AT THE TOP of the search listings.
In other words, when a surfer searches for a keyword, “natural hemp products,” for instance, they will be brought to a series of listings. Above those listings, Google will place a few links to websites which have agreed to pay Google a certain amount for each time a surfer clicks through to that site.
The most powerful benefit of PPC is that you ONLY pay for qualified prospects. You only need to pay Google after a customer has searched for a keyword related to your product or service, seen an ad, and clicked on that ad to head back to your website.
In order to advertise with Google, you must sign up for a Google AdWords account. This can be done for free at http://adwords.google.com.
Strategy #2: Direct Traffic
The first strategy deals with paying for website traffic. While it will get you immediate results, if your website is not converting, then you’ll lose money. Fortunately, there are also free ways to get qualified prospects to your website that do not involve paying Google.
However, they do involve lots of work. In general, these free strategies involve what’s called content marketing.
In other words, you or your marketing team will create media about your product or service and post it on the internet. Once the content is posted, there are [MANY] free ways to promote it. Entire books are devoted to mapping out this process, but here are a few ways to get free targeted traffic (qualified prospects) to your website:
1) Blogs – These are increasing in popularity. By writing a blog about your topic, you establish yourself as an authority in that industry. In a business, this is invaluable! Imagine if your brand was considered to be the leading authority on natural hemp products. Do you think you would increase sales?
While blogs can be incredibly powerful if used correctly, they do require some time and effort to build. However, presumably you started a business with the long term in mind, so a few months of writing articles may not seem like a high price to pay (its free!).
2) Social bookmarking – This is another tool that will help you bring targeted traffic to your website. Sites like Twitter and Digg are designed so internet users can “bookmark” websites of interest to them, in order for other users to also enjoy them. By utilizing these sites to promote your hemp products, hemp articles you’ve written, etc, you’ll be attracting even more attention to your website and your brand.
3) YouTube – Videos are another great source of content. These days, YouTube is being used like a search engine. In other words, when people are looking for information, they don’t only go to Google anymore. After all, watching a video on something is easier and more fun than reading some dry text articles about it.
Consider making a video showing the benefits of one of your hemp products. How-to videos are extremely popular, and a string of videos about your brand will help drive targeted traffic to your site.
That’s just a few of the free ways to get traffic. As mentioned earlier, it will take more time to see results using this strategy, but the results will be longer lasting than just buying traffic from Google
