Help With Marketing Your Business On The Internet

The Café forum on ‘Biggest Business Challenge in 2010’ has been one of the most visited and replied to of the year so far!

We wanted to know what  challenges women in business faced, so we could help you build your business and have a successful year.

By far the most common theme was internet marketing. Questions were:

· How do I turn traffic into customers?
· What’s Twitter all about?
· How do I use Facebook?

How can the Café help? We’ve done some research, and have decided on our ‘Top 5 Internet Marketing Books’, that actually tell you what you need to do – from which buttons to press to how to create an integrated marketing plan online.

Each of the links takes to to Amazon where you can buy the book of your choice.

Will these books bring instant success? Well, depends how you use the advice!

Alongside these books, our 3 tips for internet marketing are:

· Be consistent  and persistent– like any other form of marketing, online needs strady effort. We didn’t get our 2000 Twitter followers overnight, it took a good few months to connect and tweet

· Be original. If you have a product that everyone else has, then its how you market it that makes the difference.

· Add value. On the internet, hard selling is really unattractive. Give a little. This can be information, testers, giveaways, extra product, anything that develops customer loyalty.

The Business Women’s Café Top 5 Internet Marketing Books

‘Twitter Power: How To Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time.’ Joel Comm.

If you are wondering how we learnt about Twitter – we read this book. It gives the bigger picture (why you should bother) and includes step-by-step instructions on which buttons to press, how the pages look, and then how to turn your twitter fans into paying customers.
If you buy one book on Twitter, we suggest its this one. And you can follow him on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing All-In-One For Dummies.

A lot of people are put off by the Dummies title – don’t be! These books crowd my shelf and are very useful in giving practical advice. Which is what you need! This all in one book covers Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and is a good place to start. Then, once you need to know more, you can move on to the more specialised books.

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools and Strategies for Business Success.

This is a doorstop of a book. Buy this if you already know a bit and are ready to really use the internet strategically. It is very good, and very comprehensive.

Turn Clicks Into Customers: Proven Marketing Techniques for Converting Online Traffic into Revenue.

This is the next step: you know how to Twitter, have got some Facebook fans, are posting on the Café and now want to make some money. Which is the point of it all, isn’t it? This book tells you what works and what doesn’t. May save you a lot of time.

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers.

I would recommend any of Seth Godin’s books. This one is last on the list, but by no means least. Godin tells us that old marketing – talking at people – just does not work anymore, and particularly on the internet. A new kind of relationship building for the 21st century. I love it. Buy it!

For the Business Challenge 2010 Forum click here!

Karen Margerison & Sue Roberts

Business Women's Cafe; women in business and female entreprenurs networking online. Join us here!