Online marketing success stories can sometimes leave a small business owner wondering if it would really work for them. What if you don’t have a website—can you still reach customers online?
What about online-only companies? Fear not. With all the onlinemarketing options available, one (or more) is likely to help almost any business. Here are strategies to help four particular kinds of businesses. Use them to help start or improve your online marketing efforts.
STOREFRONT BUSINESS

Main Street is full of companies with a prominent storefront and no website.
Gift shops, restaurants, wine stores and other storefront businesses can
use an online presence to drive offline success. Try:
1. Claiming your Google Places page.
2. Promoting your business on
customer review sites.
3. Creating a blog.
4. Offering incentives for locationbased activities, such as visiting your store multiple times.

LOCAL BUSINESS

Traditional companies – plumbers,real estate agents and the like can
gain loads of payoff from online marketing by making it easy for customers to find them. Try:
1. Claiming your Google Places page.
2. Submitting your site to online directories. Don’t forget any trade
organizations you belong to.
3. Using social media to connect with target customers and prospects.
4. Setting up a search advertising account and place a geotargeted ad.

ONLINE-ONLY BUSINESS

Online retailers can spread the word about their offerings, stay connected
with customers and keep traffic flowing in the virtual door with
online marketing. Try:
1. Creating a blog.
2. Sending a newsletter.
3. Making a banner ad and place it on an ad network.
4. Starting an affiliate program.

ONLINE & OFFLINE BUSINESS

For businesses that are online and offline – think a bed and breakfast
or a toy store – the sky is the limit for attracting business and connecting
the two. Try:
1. Claiming your Google Places page.
2. Collecting email addresses from physical visitors to start an e-newsletter.
3. Distributing online coupons through your website.
4. Setting up a search advertising account and place a geotargeted ad.

Key Terms

Online marketing terminology can seem like a new language. Let us translate for you.

Ad Group: A collection of ads within a campaign that corresponds to a group of related keywords.

Ad Network: An advertising company that connects businesses wanting to run ads with websites that will host ads. Ad networks sell and serve most banner ads.

Affiliate Marketing: A marketing tactic in which one company pays another for each visitor or customer brought by its marketing efforts.

Banner Ad: A type of ad, usually with graphics, that appears on a web page and links to an advertiser’s website.

Campaign: A component of your account that allows you to focus your advertising on specific products or services. Each campaign can contain multiple ad groups.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR): The number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times the ad is shown.

Contextual Advertising: A type of advertising based on the content displayed to the user.

CPA, CPC, CPM: Cost per action / acquisition (CPA) is an online payment model by which advertisers pay for each action completed because a visitor clicked on their ad. With cost per click (CPC), advertisers pay for each ad clickthrough. With cost per thousand (CPM), advertisers pay for every 1,000 impressions.

Flash: A software plugin that enables browsers to play multimedia animations, such as video.