Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi people, I have been running my own business in my hometown and I’m wishing to offer my services to a wider range of customers, so I decided to get a domain, a server and some IT staff to run an online Business. I have spent some money at the moment and I read on several sites that big businesses spend money by the million! I wonder if I also have to spend this amount of money for a site with some e-commerce tools, member base and some news like myTino for example. Thanks for your feedback.

I work for a software company and the vast majority of our sales come from our own website. The biggest cost isn`t the IT or the e-commerce system - it`s getting people to visit the site.

If anything is going to be expensive it`s going to be your marketing ;)



-------------------------

Aaron Stannard
Editor of Working Smarter
Owner of Marketing Ninja

Thanks aarons, but what is the most effective marketing method for a medium business? For me, the first step is to build up a website, but it seems I am lack of human resource and money. Do you have any recommendation in this field?

For any website, you need to do search engine optimization.

Then, good PR will help a lot.

After that, advertising.

I`ve found that establishing personal connections with influencers and then using basic content marketing (opt-in emails, blogging) is the most cost-effective. A few basic primers on SEO couldn`t hurt either.

The #1 best thing you can do for organic search rankings with Google, by the way, is to sign up for a Google Webmasters Account, Claim your site, and Submit a sitemap to Google. This is the single most powerful thing you can do to ensure better site rankings with Google organically.

Try that stuff before you think about throwing down a lot of money on expensive PR campaigns.



-------------------------

Aaron Stannard
Editor of Working Smarter
Owner of Marketing Ninja

Well, thanks you guys. The marketing methods you give are great. How much do they cost, in money and person? I am thinking about outsourcing the set-up and marketing part, is it doable?

You can outsource your set-up and marketing, and if you scale appropriately, you can contain costs.  You might want to consider leveraging social media as well, as it helps with some of the things others very astutely pointed out. You don`t want to go cheap; but you probably don`t need to spend a million bucks.

Biggest thing to keep focus on is who is your target market - and yes, marketing is the focus.  So many people I`ve seen fail is because they`ve spent (a for instance) 25k on servers and 1k on marketing and design; they overbuilt their site in development spending $100k when their message just wasn`t there yet; or they didn`t have the patience or foresight to see that getting traction can take a little time - definitely more than a month.

It`s a holistic strategy.  Just like a brick-and-mortar store (even if it`s not directly e-commerce), you want it to be inviting (Design and User Interface), easily found (SEM, SEO, Social Media, Marketing), and have regular operating hours (IT Infrastructure, Quality Programming).

As to costs, it really varies greatly and no one can tell you honestly what it will be until they have a sense of size, scale, and target market. 

What you should do before any of this is see if there is actually a niche you can serve and why you could serve it better.  What makes you different?


-------------------------

"It`s not work, it`s network!"

Portage Media Solutions
http://www.portagemedia.com
My Blog: http://www.interactivemediatips.com

You will have to distinguish between money that will be spent on developing/creating your actual site and marketing dollars that will help you promote it once the development process is complete. Sites like “MyTino” can vary greatly in scope and complexity because it really depends on what services or key features you want to offer to your customers/subscribers.

For instance, sites such as “Guru.com” or “Elance.com” have in fact required millions of dollars in initial development costs with rather meager returns for investors, whereas others such as “GetaFreelancer.com” can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars.

I think you would be well-advised to take some time to map out your concept, before you actually embark on building an online business. Just keep in mind that if you have a site and services offering that are in tune with what users are interested in today, it will be so much easier to market them later on.

As far as subsequent marketing is concerned, you might want to look into developing a marketing plan that establishes a marketing mix that is suitable for your site. You can then measure the effectiveness of certain campaigns and stick with the ones that do work rather than employing a trial and error type of approach.

I hope this helps.



-------------------------


Jackson Steiner
http://www.JacksonSteiner.com

Advanced Document Design for entrepreneurs, intermediaries, and the financial services industry.
http://www.Publications.FastVentures.com

Very interesting information there FastVentures....

Thanks a tonne for sharing...



-------------------------

Proven Home Based Business Opportunity...

Your recommendations are great! I am thinking about spending 1/3 money in set-up and the rest to marketing. I think I will outsource the set-up part and do marketing by myself. Can you suggest some outsource sites or company? And what do you think if I use SEO to market my website?