As promised here are some supporting notes from my talk at Bizcamp in Newry. Click here for PDF
5 Ways you can grow your business online in 1 hour
Presented at Bizcamp Newry February 2011
1: Group Buying Schemes:
What are they?
They are falling under the banner of social commerce at the moment. Basically you offer 50% off your product or service and the Group buying Website will guarantee you hundreds or even thousands of new customers using your vouchers.
But!
You need to think of the consequences of having this many new customers all of a sudden. Try to restrict the number of voucher customers you take on any one day and ask yourself how can I make this person a repeat customer. One idea is to insist on an email address so you can follow up with them afterwards.
See: CityDeal.ie, Boardsdeals.ie, Featured.ie, Livingsocial.ie
2:Search.Twitter.com
Again in one hour, find some appropriate people to follow. Ask yourself who would you want to see your tweets. Use search.twitter.com to find this person and then look at who they follow and who follows them. By following a logical trail you can easily connect with your target audience.
Tip!
If you are looking for a local audience you can search for #yourtown or you can do a location based search which will find any tweets that have been sent from nearby locations.
Examples: Company that makes towels. Search for hotels.
Local restaurant. Search for people in your town and follow them and their followers.
3: Facebook Places/Facebook Deals
What is it?
Using a Smart phone such as an iPhone users can now check into locations to let their friends know where they are.
What to do
Make sure your business is on Facebook places, you can do this through any smart phone with Facebook app installed. Search for your business on the app and if it doesn’t show up you can simply click the add or + button on the app and add your business details.
Add a deal
You can entice Facebook users into your business by offering one of three types of deal. These are individual, loyalty or Friends.
Tip!
Offer a deal that will bring in new customers to your business not just offer discounts to your existing customers. For example offer a discount on the first check in or require that 10+ people are checked in at once to activate a deal (this is the friends type deal).
4: QR Codes
What are these?
These are 2D barcode type images. They can be read by Smartphone and are used to redirect a phones browser to a Web page or a piece of online content.
How do they work?
All you need to know is how to generate one. You can go to http://qrcode.kaywa.com and paste in the address of your Website then print off your QR code. Your code can be printed on business cards or receipts and makes your business information more accessible to tech savvy customers.
5: Email marketing:
Email marketing is simple, free and easy. You can set up a mail chimp account allowing up to 2000 recipients receive a custom email from you. Find something interesting to talk about, new products or promotions and give it a try
Tip!
Get into the habit of collecting email addresses from all your interactions such as networking events or promotions you might run in store. Your emails will have an unsubscribe button on it so if people don’t want your mail they can easily opt out.
Visit
www.mailchimp.com
I hope these tips work well for you. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to get in touch, Gerry (at) screengrab.ie
Thanks
@gerryhanratty
