16 Effective Ways To Promote Your Business Online

16 Effective Ways To Promote Your Business Online

Start a business, they said.

It’ll be fun, they said.

Maybe, they even said it’ll be easy.

But creating a business isn’t necessarily as simple as they said it would be — it might be fun and it might be life-changing…

But only once you’ve figured out how to promote and grow your business.

After all, if you don’t have customers… then you don’t really have a business.

In this guide, we’re going to show you 16 effective ways to promote your business online. The tactics will fall under four sales funnel stages: brand awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty.

We’ll give you a brief explanation of each tactic and then point you to a resource to learn more.

Let’s dive in!

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Brand Awareness

These tactics are all about brand awareness.

The more people who know about your business, the more direct traffic you’ll drive to your website, the word-of-mouth you’ll generate, and the general buzz you’ll create about your business and its products.

Here are five ways to build brand awareness.

1. Search Engine Optimization

A lot of attention is given to the first page of Google results.

If you want people to find your business when they search Google (or any other search engine), you need to do SEO.

Search engine optimization is the ongoing process of improving your website to make it more visible on search engine results pages (SERPs).

This means making sure your site is technically sound, has great content, is well-linked, and lots more.

If you’re selling running shoes, for instance, it’d greatly benefit your business to be on the first page when people type in something like “best running shoes”.

To give you an idea of just how much brand awareness and traffic SEO can drive for your business, check out the results I’ve got for one of my clients, REISift, by just publishing a blog post or two every month for the last year.

Brand Awareness, Search Engine Optimization

We’re driving 3,000 visits per month entirely through Google — and Ahrefs estimates the value of that traffic at about $11,000 per month… but we’re getting it for free!

Want to learn more? Here’s our quick start guide to SEO.

2. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers — people who have a large following on social media.

It’s an effective way to reach a larger audience with your brand message without having to put in the hard work of building up a large following yourself.

For example, if you were to partner with an influencer who has a following of 100,000 people on Instagram and they mention your products in just one post, that’s massive exposure for your business.

Here’s an example of what this looks like in action.

Brand Awareness, Influencer Marketing

If you want to learn more about how to find and work with influencers for your business, we recommend the Dream 100 process. Click that link for the details.

3. Guest Appearances

Guest appearances are another great way to get in front of a new audience and promote your business.

You can be a guest on podcasts, write articles for other people’s blogs, or appear as a guest expert on webinars or TV shows.

This tactic is similar to influencer marketing but with one key difference…

You’re providing some sort of value and getting yourself and your brand directly in front of another audience.

For example, if you were to write an article for the Huffington Post, that’s valuable content for their readers.

And since your author bio will include a link back to your own website, you’re also getting valuable exposure and traffic for your business.

If you want to write for popular blogs that your target market reads, check out the video below…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=r8LeTJGQGF8

If you want to get on podcasts, check out the video below…

4. Viral Attempts

Viral marketing is a bit of an art and a bit of a science.

It’s the process of creating content that has the potential to be shared over and over again until it reaches a large audience.

Easier said than done, right?

But extremely powerful if you take the time to figure out the formula.

Here’s an awesome TED Talk about how to make content that goes viral. If you’re an entrepreneur or marketer, it’s definitely worth the watch.

5. Social Media (Organic)

Organic social media is the process of building up a following on social media and then engaging with that audience on a regular basis.

The key word here is “organic.” That means you’re not paying for ads (more on that later).

You’re simply creating valuable content and sharing it with people who are interested in what you do.

If you do it right, you’ll slowly but surely build up a following of people who are interested in what you have to say.

And that’s when the real magic happens.

Because when you have an audience of people who like and trust you, promoting your business becomes much easier.

You can share your own content, sure. But you can also share other people’s content, mention other businesses, and so on.

The options are endless.

And the best part is, once you’ve built up a following, it’s relatively easy to maintain. You just have to keep creating quality content and engaging with your audience on a regular basis.

If you want to learn more about social media, check out our social media marketing guide.

Consideration

Now we’re moving on to the consideration phase.

This is the part of your sales funnel where you’re explaining the value your business has to offer, helping people make a decision, and persuading people that you’re their best option.

6. Affiliate Marketing

You want to promote your products and services.

But why not have other trusted influencers do it for you?

Affiliate marketing is the process of having other people promote your products in exchange for a commission on every sale they generate.

It’s a win-win situation. You get more sales, and they make money from promoting your business.

The key to success with affiliate marketing is finding the right affiliates to work with.

You want to find people who are respected in your industry and have a large following.

And you want to make sure that the products you’re having them promote will appeal to their audience.

If you can find the right affiliates, affiliate marketing can be an extremely effective way to promote your business. Check out the video below to learn more about how this works.

7. Educational Content

One of the best ways to promote your business is by creating educational content.

Think about it. When you’re trying to make a decision about something, what do you do?

You probably go online and look for information that will help you make a decision, right?

That’s what educational content does. It helps your target market make a decision about whether they should work with you or not. It teaches them about the ins and outs of your product.

Ahrefs, the SEO software, is great at this. They write content like this…

Consideration, Educational Content

…that then teaches people how to use their software.

There are all sorts of different types of educational content you can create. You can write blog posts, create infographics, make videos, and so on.

You can then promote that content on social media, YouTube, to your email list, and any other channels you might have access to. The goal is to get it in front of people who are in the consideration phase.

8. Lead Magnets

A lead magnet is a free piece of content that you give away in exchange for someone’s email address.

It could be an ebook, a mini-course, a cheat sheet, or anything else that would be valuable to your target market.

The goal is to get people to trade their email addresses for your lead magnet. Then, you can use email marketing to promote your products and services to them.

Lead magnets are an extremely effective way to generate leads and grow your email list. But they only work if the lead magnet is high quality and relevant to your target market.

Here’s an example of a few lead magnets we use…

Consideration, Lead Magnets

To learn more, check out our lead magnet guide over here.

9. Facebook & Google Ads

Social media advertising is one of the most effective ways to promote your business online.

With social media ads, you can target a specific audience with laser precision. You can show your ads to people based on their interests, demographics, and even behaviors.

This ensures that your ads are being seen by people who are actually interested in what you have to offer.

Not only that, but social media ads are relatively inexpensive. You can get started with as little as a few dollars per day.

We use ads all the time…

Two of the best advertising platforms are Google and Facebook. 

Here’s our guide to Facebook ads.

And here’s our guide to Google ads.

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Conversion

The next phase of the funnel is conversion.

This is where we’re actually getting people to take action and buy from you — they know about your business and have already passed through the consideration phase.

Now they want what you’re offering.

Here’s how you convert traffic and leads into paying customers.

10. Soap Opera Sequence

The soap opera sequence is an email marketing technique that can be extremely effective in converting leads into customers.

It’s a series of emails that tells a story. The goal is to get people emotionally invested in the story and then offer them a solution at the end.

Conversion, Soap Opera Sequence

As you can see, it consists of five emails that introduce your brand, tells a compelling story, and offer the solution that your target market wants.

Rather than trying to get people to buy with just a single point of contact, this process keeps you in front of them until they’re ready to buy.

It’s an extremely effective conversion strategy that we use all the time.

To learn more, check out our soap opera sequence guide over here.

11. Front-End Products

Want to sell your biggest ticket item first to your new customers?

Don’t we all!

But we can’t — people need to be eased into buying from you.

That’s why you need to have a front-end product.

A front-end product is a low-cost product that you offer to new customers. The goal is to get them used to buying from you and build up trust before they make a bigger purchase.

It could be an ebook, mini-course, or any other type of low-cost product.

We love to sell books as our front-end product.

Conversion, Front-End Products

12. Sales Funnels

Websites are dead.

There. We said it.

We also made a video about it.

The fact is, websites act more like a brick wall in many cases than they do like an open door. They confuse visitors rather than direct visitors right where you want them.

If you want people to take a specific action — like buying your front-end product — then you need a sales funnel that guides them toward taking that action.

You can learn our tried-and-true system for building high-converting sales funnels over here.

By the way, in our Your First Funnel Challenge, you’ll build your first (or next) sales funnel side-by-side with the experts (100% free). Check out our full review here.

13. Funnel Hacking

If you want to have a successful online business, then you need to study what’s already working. You need to “hack” the funnel.

There are two ways to do this…

The first way is to find someone in your target market who already has a successful online business. Then you study their sales process and model it.

The second way is to find someone who’s selling a product that’s similar to what you’re selling and study their sales process.

You can learn more about funnel hacking over here.

Loyalty

At the bottom of the sales funnel, we have loyalty.

These tactics will help you turn your new customers into repeat customers.

14. Value Ladder 

The value ladder is a concept that’s essential to understand if you want to build a successful online business.

In short, the value ladder is a way of thinking about how you can offer more and more valuable products to your customers as they move further down your sales funnel.

Loyalty, Value Ladder

It starts with your front-end product and then moves on to your core offer, which is usually your flagship product.

After that, you can upsell them into a higher-priced product or service, and then finally cross-sell them with complementary products.

The goal is to keep providing more and more value so that they keep coming back.

You can learn more about the value ladder over here.

15. Seinfeld Emails

You’ve probably heard of the Seinfeld email strategy.

If you haven’t, check out the video below.

The idea is to keep sending your list emails (ideally, every day).

What should those emails be about?

They can be about anything!

For instance…

  • You could send them a funny meme that you found.
  • You could give them a quick update on what’s going on in your life.
  • You could share a useful tip or piece of advice.
  • You could tell them about a new blog post that you’ve written.

The key is to just keep sending them emails so that they get used to hearing from you.

At the end of every email, you’ll mention a product or offer that you want to promote.

The more you email, the more money you’ll make.

16. Reward Program

One way to keep your customers coming back is to offer a rewards program.

There are a few different ways to do this…

  • You could offer them points for every purchase that they make.
  • You could offer them a discount for referring their friends.
  • You could offer them exclusive access to new products or sales.

The idea is to keep your most loyal customers coming back for more.

Here’s an example of this from Sephora…

Loyalty, Reward Program

Final Thoughts on Promoting Your Business Online

We hope you enjoyed this guide on how to promote your business online.

As you can see, there are a lot of strategies that you can use to get more traffic and conversions.

The most important thing is to just start taking action and see what works for you.

If you’re ready to take the next step in your business, click the link below!

Take The One Funnel Away Challenge Now!

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