Re: marketing strategy

From: Janet Attard <attard_at_businessknowhow.com>
Date: Wed 29 Mar 2000 08:22:50 -0500

DIANA SWENSON WROTE:
> * What can I do to attract more people to the site?
> * What are some internet marketing strategies that
> you think I should use?
> * How can I better reach some governmental agencies
> and their employees?
> * How do I go about attracting non-governmental
> agencies such as corporate businesses?

I don't like to plug my own things on lists like this,
but Diane, please go to a bookstore and browse through
my book (Business Know-How) or see if your public
library has it. It has literally hundreds of answers to
your marketing questions - including an entire chapter
on selling to the Federal government.

The US government has a push on to do more business
with women-owned businesses, too, so this is a good
time to be seeking out that business. You just have to
do it the right way. That's often through personal
contacts. You can often find out who to reach by going
to various agency web sites. The Air Force Office of
Small Business web site (http://www.selltoairforce.org)
includes a list of buyers and their addresses, email
addresses and phone numbers. (The email addresses are
being updated, so you may get some errors for a week or
so. If you do, check back. We set up the database for
them and we have requests out to get updated
information for those who have changed their email
addresses.)

Your web site could use a face lift, too. The first
thing you should do is to do away with the frames.
That's probably preventing search engines from finding
your pages. FWIW, as a woman business owner myself, I
would not use pink as a background color for pages on
a web site. It's just not a color used to leave a
professional, corporate impression, except sometimes on
sites for women- only - and then the entire pages
aren't colored pink. You'd be better off with a plain
background behind your text. Also, use standardized
fonts. If you use a font that doesn't come standard on
most computers, then the computer will put in its own
default font and the result will look strange.

Hope these help. There are many, many low-cost ways to
market services. You just have to be creative. If you
are, you'll get a lot better results than bulk mail.
(Actually you can use the mail too, just don't do bulk
mailings. Do little, very targetted "warm" mailings as
followups to people you meet at networking meetings or
talk to on the phone.

Good luck. (and don't mention the medical problems in
seeking new clients - they'll shy away. If they need to
know why you didn't work in a year, it was for personal
reasons, but if you just list clients and not dates,
they will probably never ask about when you did the
work.)

--Janet Attard
Author of Business Know-How:An Operational Guide for
Home-Based and
Microsized Businesses on Limited Budgets
http://www.businessknowhow.com
AOL Keyword: Business Know-How





Received on Wed Mar 29 2000 - 07:22:50 CST