Knowing how to make money online can be a powerful boost for your offline business if you understand exactly why people get online, what activities they engage in, and how they like to be persuaded.
Research indicates that most people get online to communicate (email, social media), be entertained, and to gather or learn information. For most offline local businesses, the path to gaining clients and profits from the internet will be to target those people who come online for information.
Internet Information Marketing For Local Business
You can build sales and profits in your local business through internet information marketing, regardless of whether your business is a professional services firm (i.e. Dental, Accounting, Medical) or a consumer services firm like an auto repair shop, plumber, etc.
The key is to understand what types of people use your services, how to demographically group them, and how to identify what information they tend to look for online. By identifying what they look for online, and the language of their searches, you can provide that information as a way to get in front of them.
Although the strategies may differ slightly between a professional services firm and a company like an auto repair shop, the core idea is still the same ? provide attractive and relevant content to your target audience, use that content to attract their online traffic to you, engage them, and then systematically sell them products and services.
How Professional Service Firms Can Make Money Online
Here is an example of how I recommend my clients in this category approach online marketing.
An accountant who wants to leverage the internet can invest in building online-based information marketing profit centers. Starting with an information product that a target prospect would be interested in, you can develop a robust system of products, podcasts, video presentations, lead generation sites and membership sites that all sell information and pre-qualify the best leads for your ?premium? services.
This is especially effective if your services can be transacted by phone, mail, and fax. However, even in cases where your customer base must be local, you can tie down your virtual information business into your local presence through search engine optimization of your online presence and products.
Internet Strategies For Auto Repair and Household Services Businesses
If your business is not what I would call an information-intensive business, meaning that your average customer doesn?t benefit by knowing in-depth information on your work, you can still make money online for your offline business.
One simple strategy is to create local community-focused websites that aggregate local traffic from your area to which you can then be the prime advertiser, advertising your services to a captured audience.
The problem with a strategy like this is the perception that creating such a site is inordinately difficult ? it is not. One of the biggest websites focused on a popular Caribbean destination was created by a teenage girl who started it when she was just 16 years old. By creating a community-focused website that informs, entertains, and educates, you can attract a crowd of locals and continuously expose them to your services.
Additionally, it is very possible for a consumer services business like an auto repair shop to leverage the power of the internet for business success through information marketing. An auto shop owner could create (or pay for the creation of) an ebook teaching customers how to extend the lifetime of their car, or ?shave 60 percent of the cost of annual automobile maintenance?, or even sponsor an ebook that aggregates DIY or cost savings advice for a bunch of services.
By sponsoring such an ebook and connecting it to a digital marketplace and affiliate program (like ClickBank.com), you can virally spread get the word about your local business and your website. When you support this effort with some local SEO strategies, there are tremendous opportunities to make money online and generate customers for your business.
Gogo Erekosima, The Small Business Digital Coach recommends a Comprehensive Video-based Training for individuals seeking to leverage the internet to make money online, build profitable email lists, generate internet traffic, win influential partners and grow sales in record time.
Author: Gogo Erekosima
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