Marketing on a budget still needs to be approached in the same way as marketing with a huge budget.  In fact it is arguably even more important to allocate your available funds appropriately.  You cannot afford to waste money on methods which won’t get the desired results.

Invest properly in your website

Many people expect to get thousands of visitors.  And yet they are not prepared to invest in a website that will attract the right people.

If funds are limited then a significant proportion should go into your website.  Since 1997 the art of creating a website has become more involved.  Professionalism is by far the most important aspect now.  Basic sites no longer have a chance to succeed.  Online marketing does mean paying to bring people to your website.  And you need to have a good quality site to send them to in the first place.

Taking advantage of free marketing methods

Free does not necessarily mean it isn’t worthwhile.  Organic search engine efforts can bring in plenty of visitors.  You must appreciate though that spending less money can mean spending more in the way of time.

Every business uses free methods to some extent.  A big multinational business may have a budget stretching into the millions, but they still use word of mouth to garner new customers.  And you can learn from them even if you do not have a fraction of their budget.

Spending wisely

This is the most important aspect.  A budget of $100 should be considered just as carefully as a budget of $1,000,000.  The amount doesn’t matter as much as what you do with it and how you spend it.  If free methods are worthwhile by all means use them.  But there are lots of directions your budget could go in, and finding the right one is crucial to the success of any advertising campaign you launch.

Be smart with your budget

All big companies spend a lot of time researching their market before launching a product.  The same method can easily be used for smaller companies on a scaled down basis.

Furthermore you will not see a multinational company repeat a marketing plan that does not work.  If they pay for a search engine marketing campaign that ends up losing them money, they will make changes before attempting their next promotional efforts.  Complete records will be kept of every success and failure so that those who control the advertising budget know which direction the money should go in the next time they are searching for new customers.

You can search for cheap advertising deals.  You can choose cheaper words and phrases to bid on for your search engine marketing campaign.  And you can constantly try to trim costs without losing out on the quality of your advertising.  Cheap online marketing is possible – you just need to work at it.

The answer seems to be yes.  Twitter in particular has been in the news a lot recently.  A wide and diverse range of people are using this site in particular to connect with various audiences.  Famous people are connecting with their fans in real time, while people with passions are connecting with other people who have the same interests.  And even Barack Obama (or at least his team) used Twitter to help promote his run for the Presidency last year.

So why is social media such a hot topic?  Part of the reason has to be that it covers the best of the internet.  The interactive website design of every single social media site online today draws in more and more people by the day.  And they are designed to appeal to different people too.

For instance, some are focused on providing short videos for other members to watch.  YouTube is the most successful of these sites, although there are many more.  Twitter keeps messages to a shortened length of just 140 characters, while Second Life enables people to live a virtual existence.  And before you think that Second Life really isn’t a social media site at all, just consider this.  There are a significant number of businesses and individuals who are actively using the site to further other ambitions.  People don’t just use the site to connect with different people for personal reasons.

Social media has come a long way in recent years though.  There is every reason to suppose that this will continue as well, since technology and the internet are both advancing at a rate of knots.  We’re seeing this already with the ability to send your tweets to your Twitter page via your mobile phone.  You don’t even need to be in front of your computer to talk to your Twitter followers.

So perhaps the question is not so much whether social media is still going strong.  Maybe the question should be whether it will continue to go from strength to strength in the future.  It may well do, as more and more people discover the benefits of being part of one or more social media outlets.  Regardless of what your reason is for joining one, whether it is for personal reasons or to promote your internet marketing business, there are plenty to choose from.

That is part of the versatility they offer.  If one site doesn’t appeal to your needs, there will no doubt be another one out there that will.  The smaller, less successful ones may fall by the wayside, but it is hard to imagine a world without Facebook or Twitter, for example.

Social media looks set to stay.

It seems they are.  After all, a podcast is a means for communicating with a potentially large group of people.  And therein is a reason for using them to enhance an existing business still further.

If you do some research on some of the best known people out there with a hand in internet marketing, you will no doubt find that many of them indulge in podcasting of some kind.  But the key to really making this work is to do it on a regular basis.

The whole idea about podcasting is to provide a downloadable program that people can listen to or watch.  If you were to produce just one podcast, you would get some viewers/listeners, for sure.  But you would get far more by regularly providing a podcast and watching your audience grow.

Many businesses produce a weekly podcast for their followers.  It is a way of connecting with their audience regularly and getting them involved in what they are doing.

But one thing you will notice with many of these podcasts is that they are not selling anything directly.  You might think this is a wasted opportunity – after all these people have downloaded the podcast so they are voluntarily listening to it and have an interest in it.  Why not make the most of that opportunity and try to sell them something?

It sounds like a great idea, but in fact it can backfire severely.  If you listen to or watch the majority of the podcasts available nowadays, you will see that they offer something more.  They offer information, advice and knowledge.  And that puts in place something far more powerful than simply going for a sale.  It begins to foster trust between the potential customer and the business itself.

So what do you think will happen the next time that customer needs to buy something that is provided by that company?  They will very likely remember that company as being one they can trust.  It’s ironic, but in online marketing the business that doesn’t go for the hard sell quite often results in getting more sales in the long run.

And that is one of the reasons why good quality podcasting is one of the best things a business can do to connect with its customers.  That business should plan out a series of podcasts on a relevant subject, and figure out what they want to achieve from doing so.  If they can manage this, those podcasts could attract an ever wider audience as time goes on.

Of course there should be a mention of the business and how to make contact during each one.  But that subtle way of promoting themselves will be far better than constantly trying to sell, sell, sell.

And yet as with any other type of job, online marketing requires just as many skills (if not more) to make it a success.  After all, anyone who tries it is very likely to be starting out on their own.  Even if they eventually hire some employees they need to rely on their wits to get going.  And as such, it pays to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

If you’re going to set up a business online, you need to have at least a basic understanding of what that means.  It’s interesting to note too that skills are also closely connected with money in many ways.  For example, if you need to have your own website you have two basic choices for achieving that aim.  You can either build one yourself or pay someone else to do it for you.

Many people choose the latter as it means accessing people whose skills in that area are far better than their own.  Some people are loath to spend the money, though, and that means relying on their own skills – however good or bad they might be.

Practical matters aside, it’s also important to have skills in other areas.  Thinking ahead is virtually essential in the world of internet marketing.  Things develop so quickly that you cannot wait to see what other people start doing in your line of work.

Let’s say you sell practical, downloadable reports on a specific subject from your website.  Even if they are selling well and you are making a decent amount of money you shouldn’t settle.  You should continually be looking for other ways to develop your business – otherwise you can be sure other people will beat you to the punch.

But perhaps the most important skill of all is to be able to persevere.  Despite what some people would have you believe, setting up a business online isn’t always that easy.  It takes skill, effort, perseverance and knowledge to be able to truly succeed.  It may well take weeks of effort – perhaps longer – to truly be able to make the kind of income you want to make.

Of course having these skills to begin with is only half the journey.  It is equally important to develop your skills over time too.  The internet and the businesses that exist within it are constantly developing and moving ahead.  If you don’t move with them you’ll get left behind.  And that will almost certainly result in a loss of business that your skills could save you from.

So think about the skills you have now, and the ones you could add to the mix.  You might be surprised by what you find.

But nowadays things are very different.  Internet shopping has caught on in a big way, and many big name (and not so big name) companies can now see that they will get left behind if they don’t jump on board.  From search engine marketing to designing a website that furthers their brand, bricks and mortar stores are getting themselves completely up to date now.

Think about the businesses that are in shopping centres and other locations near you.  How many of them have an online presence now?  The chances are good that the vast majority of them have some kind of website to capture people online.  But how many of them can you remember as having their own website even five years ago?

The main thing of course is that they have now realised the benefits of going online.  And it isn’t all about making sales from everyone who visits their website either.  It’s also about brand recognition and reaching a much wider audience.  The catchment area of a business that goes online is automatically going to be much larger than it would be if they stuck to the bricks and mortar approach.

This is particularly important now as hard times hit people all around the world.  Many businesses have already gone under, and everyone is struggling to find a way to get through the downturn.  Internet marketing has far less in the way of overheads than a traditional business.  Having a fully functional website means that major stores can snag sales online too, and this is where people are more likely to go to shop for bargains.

In some cases businesses that started off as offline ones have given up the shops to go purely online.  But those are still quite few and far between.  It is more likely that both methods of selling are used to get the best profits possible.  Some people still like to go out and shop the ‘old fashioned way’, while others head to their computer to buy things.

Regardless of the method chosen, it’s clear that those businesses who defy the march of the internet are unnecessarily losing out on sales.  Not all websites are designed to sell goods directly, but even the most basic site with contact details and more information is better than nothing.

The trick is clearly to attract as many people as possible to a business.  Not everyone will walk past its doors on a daily or even a weekly basis.  But if that business can also be found online then it is automatically improving and extending its chances of doing business with people.

And in the current economic situation it is more than necessary to capture people’s interest in as many ways as possible.

But why is this? After all, if a business is well established offline why make the move to go online at all?

The answer lies in the type of customers they can attract. A lot of people go directly to the internet when they want to buy something or find some information, purely because it provides a quick and easy way of doing so.

Now if a business doesn’t have a website there is no way they are going to be found by those people. They may rely on people walking past their shop and deciding to drop in to see what they sell. They may also rely on people looking them up in the phone book, or finding an advert they have placed locally.

But if they take the time to go to a web designer they can also find customers online. A website doesn’t need to sell a wide range of products if that isn’t the primary purpose of it. It also doesn’t need to be very big. Many businesses that don’t yet have a website are put off by the grand scale of it – and yet quite often they are assuming it HAS to be on a grand scale.

If all they want to do is appeal to a new audience, then a home page and a few other pages explaining who they are, what they do and where you can get in touch with them will suffice. Marketing online can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it – and there is nothing to say you have to start off with the most complex approach.

There is clearly a lot of potential for businesses to reach a wider audience online. But there is no reason why locally based businesses would have to do anything more than advertising their services via a simple website. It’s getting that initial contact through a good web design that counts, and that is why a lot of businesses that are unfamiliar with the internet aren’t taking that first step.

Some businesses probably assume it’s all or nothing with the internet. That’s a shame because so many more of them could be taking advantage of the amount of traffic flowing through it every day. It’s true that setting up the facilities to be able to take orders online, fulfil them and send them all out would take some doing. Maybe this is what deters more people from setting up their own site?

In any event, it’s vital to remember that it will always be the business that is in control. If more people remembered this, then a lot more businesses would benefit from getting online in a basic way.

Of course, certain methods of promotion such as search engine marketing will always remain good ways to bring in traffic. But there are other methods being used heavily now that weren’t even thought of a few years back.

A prime example of this is social network marketing. Sites such as MySpace and Facebook are constantly being used to connect with people who might be interested in particular businesses. If it is done correctly it can work extremely well.

Who is to say that another such change in the landscape of the internet won’t happen in a few years from now? Web 2.0 changed the way a lot of businesses advertise and interact with their customers. It could happen again in the future too.

This is why it pays to be versatile. If a new way of advertising comes along you need to be ready to give it a go and think about how your business could benefit from it. The businesses that get stuck in a rut with their marketing are the ones that eventually run into problems.

Many people think that because something worked when they first tried it, it will always work. But of course this isn’t always the case. That’s why online marketing can sometimes cause problems if you don’t keep tabs on what is going on.

For example, you might try submitting an article to an article directory and you might get a fantastic response to it, with plenty of people clicking back to your website once they’ve read it. So you carry on writing and submitting articles because you know they work. You don’t even bother checking your stats to see how they are doing.

But supposing you hit on a good subject and a good angle that first time? If your other articles haven’t got the same response and you haven’t been checking on them, they could turn out to be a waste of time.

Being versatile extends to your budget as well. Some people have a fixed monthly budget that never wavers. No matter whether it’s $20 or $2000, that’s what they spend every month to bring in new business.

But what happens at Christmas, when there are more people out there spending money? Many businesses find that they are better off cutting back on advertising and promotion at the quieter times of year, and saving that extra cash to put towards extra ads in the run up to Christmas.

It’s clearly worthwhile not to get stuck in a rut when it comes to marketing. Just as the internet is constantly changing, so are the requirements of your business. If your marketing efforts are static then you aren’t going to be making the most of what you are capable of online.

So it is probably not too surprising that more and more businesses are starting to latch onto this idea and use it in their own day to day dealings with people.  After all, if their customers are using these methods to talk to each other, why shouldn’t businesses use them as well to become more accessible to the very people they are trying to sell products to?

Online marketing is extremely important when it comes to boosting any kind of business with an internet presence.  To put it mildly, if you don’t connect with your audience you won’t make many sales – and seeing as businesses are pushing hard to make whatever sales they can in the current credit crunch, it stands to reason that it is well worth trying as many ways of keeping in touch as possible.

Now of course there are several different messaging systems being used online today, but the more an individual business can offer the better the chances are of this effort being a success.  Testing is necessary of course to make sure that it is worth using, but many businesses have already implemented it to great success.

There are clear benefits for the customer too that make this type of internet marketing exercise worth doing.  For example, why spend time typing out an email and having to wait for a response, or picking up the phone and being put on hold for several minutes (if not longer), or even writing a letter to the company in question?  Why do any of those things when you can type your question in a box and wait for someone at the other end to come back to you with a response?  It can be far quicker and easier to get a reply that you want in this way, and it makes a business far more accessible as a result.

So how many more businesses can we expect to try this method of keeping in touch with their customer base?  Considering the relatively low cost of putting it into practice – and the fact that it can and will relieve the pressure being put on other departments who are swamped with emails and other enquiries from other sources – it is a good guess to suppose we will see instant messaging becoming a forerunner in this area of internet business.

The internet is notorious for putting up something of a wall of mystery between a business and its customers, and any way that you can find to break down that wall will certainly have a big benefit for both parties.

Live help is just one of the ways you can achieve this, but does it work as well as some people might think?

Firstly, let’s take a look at what live help can do.  The idea is a good one – after all one of the biggest problems with many online businesses is that they appear very distant from their customers.  You go online to look at a particular website and you have no idea whether there is a real person behind it who actually knows what they are talking about.  Would you order a product or try out a service from a company that is distant in this kind of way?

The chances are you wouldn’t.  And that is where live help can help.  It gives people the opportunity to interact with you instantly.  You are sitting at your computer desk (no matter whether that is in a purpose built office or at home in the spare room) and someone comes online wanting to know how much you charge for delivery.  Within seconds you can find out the relevant information you need to know – such as where the order would need to go to – and give them the answer they are looking for.  It’s a simple system but it can be very effective.

The way it works is much the same as any other internet messaging service except that it operates via your website, so people can arrive on your site and click on the appropriate place to get the help they need.

But is it suitable for all businesses?

In truth that probably isn’t the right question to be asking.  It doesn’t matter what type of business you have because this service can help your customers get the information they want every time.  The question is whether there is enough call for such a service at the moment within your business.

For example, if you have only just started up your website and you are thinking of using the live help system, you may want to postpone it until later on if you are on a tight budget.  There are arguably far more important things than using a system like this to begin with, so bear in mind that while your website design should be user friendly at all times, using live help may be something of a luxury that can be added at a later date.

The good thing is that live help is often offered on a free trial basis, so if you are unsure as to whether this service would help you there is at least the opportunity to find out before you start paying for it.