Promote

Once you have your product/service ready and a suitable platform to showcase it, the next important thing to do is to PROMOTE. This is really essential in ANY business. Without any promoting, there is a low chance to get any viewers which ultimately means low buyer rate. In my opinion, this is the hardest thing to do after getting your product or service. Promoting your online shop does not necessarily mean advertising and spending money. There are a few ways that you can do this, be it online or offline, free or using some money. Here, I am just going to share with you the things that I have done to promote my business. There are other things that you can do also and there are a few links at the bottom of the page to help you more. So, here is what I did to promote my businesses.

1) Social Networking Sites (SNS)
I just cant tell you how important it is to engage in a social networking site to promote your business. As the name already suggest, 'Social Networking Site', it means that there will be tons, thousands and millions of people there. Therefore, why not make use of it? Like I've said before in the previous page, when you have a SNS, you can share your product/service and ask people to help spread the words too. And when this happens, your product/service can reach out to more people. Even though not everyone whom you shared it with might want your product/service, there is bound to be some people who would.
When you engage in a SNS, my advise is to keep it updated to signal that it is still alive and going. It is good too to have more than 1 SNS. For me, what I did is to have Facebook and Twitter synced to update my customers of the new apparels that I have. You can also go for other SNS platform if you want.

2) Create an App
You might think that this is difficult, but it could be simple with the help of some people. There is a lot of free software to create an app and where you can upload your product pictures or your service to. You can even have a QR code for your online store.
Having an app with a QR code is not just interesting, it is easy for people to track your online store and to buy things from. You can create an app to further promote your business to people who are using smart phones. And you do not right, that the number of mobile buyers are increasing.. So, let's tap on their market.

3) Forum
Certain group of people like to post at forums and ask for opinions on where to get a certain product or service. What you can do is, to Google for your own product and read forums that talk about it. You can suggest to the readers there of your shop and the things that you offer. Be genuine in doing so and not impose that they should or must go to your online site or say that you are the best etc.
You can also open up a thread for the product/service that you offer and display the information or details there. This could help some people who are searching for it in the forum.

4) Flyer
I noticed that a lot of my customers came from not within my living area. Therefore, what I did was to make some flyers and distributed them in my area. This really help as I noticed that the number of people ordering from within my living area were increasing.
However, when giving out the flyers, do give it to your target customers only. This ensures that you don't waste your money printing the flyers and it ended up in the bin. Your flyer should also clearly show the thing that you are selling as well as the website or link to your online shop.

5) Third Party Site
If you have your own website or is selling your product/service at another platform than a Third Party Site, you can actually promote your product here. Put up one of your product/service here and maybe include, 'for more item/service, visit xxx...'. I have done this before and it works!
Even if you are selling your item/service at a third party platform, you can sell it also at another site. So if you selling at Ebay, you can sell it also at Craigslist or Amazon etc.

These 5 ways are some of the things that I have personally tried to do to promote my online business and it works for me. So, you can give it a try too..Some of them are free while some you would have to fork out your own money. If you are looking for other ways to promote, there are links below to help you out too:



No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)