How to promote your online business

Online businesses now have a wealth of digital tools and techniques at their disposal to help them get noticed in the global marketplace.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb, founder of juice and health food delivery service, Nosh Detox, was using social media to promote her business long before it became fashionable.

Ten years ago, in fact.

On a tight budget and needing to convince a sceptical public, she tapped in to the power and reach of bloggers to promote her diet and wellbeing products.

“Juice fasts didn’t really exist in the UK at the time,” recalls the former corporate lawyer and single mum of three. “In fact some people actually thought a detox could kill you.”

“We couldn’t afford PR agencies or expensive advertising campaigns, so we’d talk to pretty much anyone with an online presence and persuade them to take photos, film us on YouTube and write about us,” she says.

The bloggers would include a link to her website on their pages - occasionally in return for some Nosh Detox freebies, Ms Sidhu-Robb admits. This helped push the business to the top of organic - not paid-for - search rankings.

An over Sh200m turnover and Hollywood A-list clientele followed, along with significant followings in Russia and Australia.

It shows how, on social media, a little can go a long way when it comes to brand promotion.

Now social media marketing is a business in its own right. Convenient and low cost, with a potentially vast audience reach, the platforms have overtaken all other media for small businesses, says research firm BIA Kelsey.

One of the main advantages of an online business compared to a traditional bricks-and-mortar shop is the amount of data you can gather about your customers.

You can find out which search words people use to find your business, for example, which images they respond to the most, and which website content they share on other platforms.

This helps to refine and target your marketing efforts.

Free monitoring tools, like BuzzSumo and Metrixapp, not to mention Google Analytics, are powerful helpers for the small business.

Recent insights reveal that Android mobile users visit more web pages than those on an Apple phone, and images of cooked food generate more views in a digital ad campaign than images of raw ingredients.

Adapted from BBC.