Having a great looking website is great at attracting custom and traffic to your site, but if it is not coupled with great functionality, it can be essentially useless. There are almost limitless ideas that can be incorporated into websites, be it a personal website or a big business.

Small to medium sized businesses

Starting out with on online presence or updating your website can cost a lot of money to get what you want, but it is nearly always worth the time and money invested to increase your online presence and the customer’s experience. One of the great things about getting a website built is the fact you can shop around easily without leaving your home or office. Ringing up or e-mailing a few companies who you like the look of can get you a range of options and prices. For example, you could be based anywhere in the country and get an ecommerce web design company in London to create your website. You could look even further afield too, although language issues may begin to be a problem.

Larger businesses

Multinational companies and luxury brands often have their own departments within the company to create excellent looking websites with great functionality. Obviously smaller clients cannot compete with these large amounts of money that get pumped into marketing and development, but for a fraction of the amount they can still get great results. Some companies used to neglect their web presence; increasingly now, companies are utilising social media websites. These formats are free, but it creates big business with people being paid a lot of money to manage these sites. For these big businesses, the brand awareness is usually already there in large amounts; brands such as Coca Cola and Adidas use online functions to interact with customers rather than selling, as their products can be bought from a wide range of places.

Personal websites

For people’s personal websites and blogs, design is hugely important to get people to keep coming back. Making sure your site is easy on the eye and has good information can greatly increase traffic. You may not think that functionality is that big an issue, but it is. Adding something as simple as social bookmarking tools can make people promote your website to their friends and family. Whilst it can be difficult to come up with an idea to engage visitors, this is only part of the problem. Once you come up with that excellent idea, you will still need the means to implement it.

Each of these examples is different and even similar companies can go down different routes to increase custom. Thinking about what separates you from your competitors can give you good ideas to help your website go from strength to strength.

Business promotion, a key element of marketing, consists of a set of strategies meant to take the business to a higher level by advertising, sales promotion and making public relations. Some entrepreneurs think selling products at attractive rates is enough for them to stay in the industry but it is not. Since competition is heating up in business markets globally, only those entrepreneurs who focus on business expansion and promotion from time to time are the ones who take a lead in the market.

No customer is loyal!

With so many innovative and competitive products being launched regularly in markets, customer loyalty has faded away. There is a great risk that your existing customers would shift to others in hunt for better deals. In order to mitigate this risk and increase the chances of your wholesale business’ viability, you must implement wise business promotion strategies form time to time. Just like oil keeps the machinery running smoothly, promotion does the same to the business. Promoting your business keeps business presence fresh in the minds of your customers or prospects and encourages them to be loyal with you.

Business Promotion – Top 5 Secrets!

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about business promotion? It’s probably seeing your business ads in newspapers, televisions or radios. However modern businesses know that if they want success at their feet, they must think outside the box and do something unique. I am enlisting five promotion tactics that can lead your venture towards more profits and greater viability.

1.    Promote through referrals!

The best tactic to increase sales, profits and scale of your business is by promoting it though referrals of your regular customers. There are many buyers who are not attracted by persuasive ads but believe in experience of their peers, colleagues or other trustworthy persons. For your customers to provide quality referrals to your prospects, you must work on satisfying them with respect to product price, quality, delivery, polices and customer services.

2.    Promote through documents!

Entrepreneurs distribute business cards as promotional tools but to exploit promotional possibilities to the full advantage, you must consider every outgoing piece of document as promotional tool. Print your business name, logo, slogan, website URL and complete contact information on your letterheads, envelops, outgoing faxes, receipts, bill payments etc. For whatever purpose you send emails to customers or prospects, use specific mail programmes with signature files containing your company logo and all the other necessary information.

3.    Promotion by sending PRs!

Be it a recent business activity or the launch of new product, any sort of business expansion, sponsoring any event, running any trade show, or winning any award, it’s always wise to share this information publically through engaging press releases. This news worthy information openly available to public brings in prospects. Though press release can be published in newspapers as well, it’s also pays to publish them in free online press release submission directories on internet.

4.    Give out freebies wisely!

You may know promotional items as freebies containing your company logo and contact information help you in business promotion but you may not know their use. Distribute those promotional items which you think would have a longer life on table of your customers. For instance, calendar is a perfect item since it remains on the desk throughout the year, Moreover, if your customer forwards some documents regularly to others, giving note pads would be a perfect promotional item for your business.

5.    Hold contests frequently!

Entrepreneurs mostly run a contest only during initial few days or months of their business. For instance, they run advertisements promising that their first 50 customers would receive a special gift. This is not enough, since modern businesses need to run improved and frequent contests. Especially during times of slow business, it’s wise to pump up traffic by inviting people to take part in contests and win unique prizes. Contests in the form of lucky draws offering winners lucrative and expensive gifts, like cars, are best for generating more sales.

Julie Robert is a B2B wholesale trade and B2B marketing expert. She writes frequently on the topics related to UK Wholesalers and trade suppliers.