The 25th of July this year was my 28th birthday. Every birthday, I try to launch a new initiative, product or service that will serve as my birthday gift to the world.
I launched naijapreneur two years ago to celebrate my 26th birthday. Last year, I launched the unusual entrepreneur’s journey ebook to celebrate my 27th birthday. This year’s gift is coming in a little bit late, but as they say, it’s better late than never!
So what’s this year’s birthday gift?
This year, I am launching a complete internet marketing solution that works for smart businesses. It’s called "differentiate online". It is a combination of services, products, and education that will help unusual entrepreneurs leverage on the internet to find, attract, convert and retain profitable customers.
It focuses on helping smart businesses answer four critical questions essential to their success.
- How do we find potential customers?
- How do we attract them to check out our products/services?
- How do we convert them from prospects into profitable customers?
- How do we retain them to ensure a long term win-win relationship?
In other words, how do you get your target market to know, like and trust your brand?
A New Era of Marketing
In the past, there existed only three major marketing channels available for businesses to send out marketing messages to their target audience. Collectively they were called mass media. What were they?
- Print: newspapers, magazines, billboards, handbills, flyers, etc.
- Radio
- Television
With these three major weapons of marketing, the age of mass marketing was born. Businesses simply had to create campaigns and just spread them through these mass mediums. The war of winning the market was won by the business with the biggest purse which could spread their message or marketing campaigns through all three mass media.
The more of these three channels they could spread their message through, the more of their target audience they reached. This was how the marketing term advertising came to be very popular. The way it worked was very simple, hire some group of creative minds who called themselves advertising agencies to craft a marketing message or campaign for your business and simply spread them through any or all of the three major mass media depending on your budget.
Marketing then was all about the money; only those who could pay for exposure on these mass media channels had a higher market share. This made more and more small businesses to be left in the dark and contributed to their limited growth. Again, this is no longer the case. The game has changed because there has been an addition to the three major marketing channels available.
This new addition is not one-way communication or broadcasting as the previous three (print, radio, and TV) where only the marketer was allowed to spread their message to their target audience. This new addition is a two-way communication between you the marketer and them the target customers.
This new addition is not mass media, it is called social media and it is powered by the internet. The internet is the fourth marketing channel available to businesses to get their messages out to their target audience.
So today, we have the following marketing channels:
- Print: newspapers, magazines, billboards, handbills, flyers, etc.
- Radio
- Television
- Internet
The playing field of marketing changed forever with the invention of the internet. Why? Because it didn’t cost as much to be on the internet as it cost to be on the three previous marketing channels. Unlike other three marketing channels that existed before the internet which were privately owned and controlled by media companies, the internet is a public domain.
Meaning that no one person, company, country, or government owned or controlled the Internet. This simple difference made all the difference in the world of marketing. Because no one determined who uses the internet, it made it completely affordable for any one and indeed everyone to go online.
All it takes is a having website, which serves as your office online. Because no one controls the price or cost of being online, small businesses now have a chance to make their mark in the world of business. Now small businesses are giving the big marketing spenders a run for their money. How does that make you feel as a small business owner?
Don’t know about you, but I personally believe that this is the best time to be in business. The playing field has been leveled. Anyone with a product/service can find, attract, convert and retain their target market into profitable customers using the internet as a marketing channel.
Today, small, medium and big businesses now compete for the attention of the customer through the same channel: the Internet. Today, with some little funds backed with a lot of will power and creativity, a small business can out-market the big competition leveraging on the power of the internet.
How to differentiate online
Below are the four essential elements you need to differentiate your brand online!
Design
To differentiate online, you need an unusual website that stands out from the competition. Your website is your office/shop on the internet. It is the replica of your physical "bricks and mortar" office/shop. However, on the internet, you don’t have a second chance to make a good impression because the quality of what you are offering is judged by the look and feel of your site. So you need an unusual web design that is creatively crafted to reflect your brand, set you apart from the competition and captivate your target audience.
Content
To differentiate online, your website needs to tell a compelling story that captures the interest and attention of your target audience by clearly addressing their needs and wants. Your website is your office/shop online and the contents on it are your sales team. They have to be creatively crafted to help your target customers get one of the two things they are looking for online:
- A solution to a problem they have but don’t want
- A result they want but don’t currently have
Your site must be able to clearly articulate the benefits of doing business with you.
Traffic
To differentiate online, your website needs to be visible on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google+, etc., in order to attract visitors from them. The reason why you created an office/shop online (website) is to make the existence of your business known to your target customers. In other words, you want your website to be a lead generation tool for your business.
Conversion
To differentiate online, your website must be able to turn traffic (visitors) into sales (customers). The whole essence of internet marketing is to make more sales. But sales are not made in an instant. Sales are made by following up on leads and getting them to know, like and trust your brand. This is why you need an effective follow-up system. This follow-up system is your email marketing strategy, with it you can begin to nurture your leads to know, like and trust your brand through a series of sales letters delivered straight into their inbox!
