Welcome to Online Marketing for SMEs

Hi my name is Deryck, and welcome to my first post on Online Marketing for SMEs. I have been working in IT for 18 years, the last 8 of those years I have been involved with business large and small promoting them online. Currently I run Newcastle Based Web Design and Online Marketing Agency Mancala Technology Limited.

I decided to start this blog because I often come across ideas and suggestions that will help businesses like yours get a competitive advantage in the world of online marketing.

What is online marketing?
Online marketing covers a whole range of functions - I will list a few, but this is not an exhaustive list.

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the ability to get your site listed high is search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN (to name but a few). As someone once told me, getting to the top of Google does not happen by accident. By implementing a good SEO strategy over time you will see your site climb the rankings.
  
• Google AdWords Campaigns, or Pay Per Click (PPC). PPC campaigns allow you to target the customers who are looking for you! Think about that for a minute. You only target people who are interested in what you have to sell at the moment thet are thinking about it - what other form of advertising lets you do that? I had a client come into my office yesterday who had tried all forms of offline advertising, back of newspaper, specialist magazines etc - he also tried Google AdWords and now he is scrapping all other forms of advertising. Why? Because the ROI from Google AdWords was streets ahead of any other marketing he did. I, of course am a compete convert to AdWords and I am now an Accredited Google Advertising Professional.
  
• Email Marketing, how often are you getting in touch with your clients and prospects via email? for most SME's it is not often enough. The best chance of future work and product sales are through people who have bought from you before.
  
  There are two types of email marketing that could benefit your business - Broadcast Emails, where you send all or a specific group of people an email containing an offer or any enticement. And then there are Auto Responders - these are great and I will be covering these a lot over time - basically an auto responder will allow you to set up a sequence of emails to go out over time. The recipient will receive these emails dependent on when you started sending to them.
  

That is the start of what I will be covering. I will try and get a post up every week, if not more often and I will be sharing my experiences which will hopefully in turn help you.