Internet Marketing Barnsley

Internet Marketing Barnsley – why do we need it. Well, if you’re in business you need Internet Marketing Barnsley because it is a cost effective form to reaching your prospects and generating those oh so important leads.

Your prospects are online searching for you

In the current UK recession, consumers and business decision makers are looking for value. Purchase are made much more warily. People use search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing to check out products and services before they purchase them. They read reviews and gather opinions before going for it. Long gone are the days when consumers go into a shop and buy items speculatively. People trust other buyer’s opinions. Honesty in enforced when people get together. Community. Online communities are now growing. Communities of people with niche interests are forming online and have been growing for some time. This trend looks set to continue with the advent of Social Media.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing – what is it? Communities online such as Facebook, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Why is Social Media Marketing useful to your business? All businesses have their ups and downs and all business owners make mistakes every now and again. Afterall, humans run businesses and humans have flaws. If we make a mistake in business and our product or service we get bad PR. It is how we respond to this that differentiates us from a good business or a bad business. It is hw we sort out the problem. If a printing company sends 250 business cards which are cut incorrectly we expect to have another 250 cards hand delivered and money off our next purchase right? We expect to have the problem solved and a little extra to show that we truly are valued customers. Oh and, the quality control is tightened up for next time right?

Social Media highlights problems about our company

So consider the above scenario then think about the unhappy customers who don’t phone us to complain and just go elsewhere next time. We don’t find out about our quality control issue until it’s potentially too late and another 500 customers have received the same faulty business cards. I know, I know, our quality control should also be subject to quality control but this is just an example. But how do we find out about this problem? Google yourself. Check social media sites. If someone wants to complain these days they can reach a wide audience online for free.

Social Media helps you keep more customers

So continuing from the above scenario – what do we do next. Well, Dell famously started to reply to their unhappy customers and sort out what was wrong. They entered dialog, got to the route of the problems and provided resolutions, proactively. Rather than reactively.
That’s fantastic right? So how does your company start using this? Just sign up to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace. Also, have a blog created for your website. Your website will probably be updated less frequently than your blog. So direct your social media visitors to your blog rather than your homepage. That’s it in a nutshell but you’ll probably need an Internet Marketing expert who knows about Social Media Marketing to aid at some point to get the most out of it.

Social Media isn’t just for proactively dealing with problems

Social Media Marketing also allows you to develop a relationship with your prospects online. As I said early about people in a recession looking for value and trusting less. Well, people are more likely to trust their friends and colleagues. If I want to go to a new restaurant I ask for referrals. Word of mouth works very well online too. So how does this all work? Well, as you develop connections and followers using social media people get to know you. People tend not to trust the usually marketing spiel on websites. Then when you need to impart information about a new product or services, or an event that you are involved in then they get to know about it straight away. Whether it’s via RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook or LinkedIn. Updates and messages can go directly to your email. Also, imagine being able to speak to decision makers who you wouldn’t normally be able to get to using telesales because of gatekeepers.