Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Those are passive efforts. You need to find a target market and actively go after it.

Michael

Remember this...IT ALL COMES DOWN TO QUALITY LEADS!!!

What is a quality lead you ask? A QUALIFIED one.

However, these are tough to get, ESPECIALLY for a start-up without a TON of capital to spend on marketing & PR.

Since you are a start-up, we already know that virtually nobody has heard of you or recognizes your presence as of yet. But, you still need to sell to keep the business humming along. How do you do that?

Well for starters, I'm sure you don't have lots of money to throw around on unproven marketing strategies. But...there are a few old school marketing techniques that can work wonders when implemented...

1. Take a hundred business cards to the next trade show having to do with your business. Someplace close to home. Or, bus it, train, or take a cheap flight for the day. Once there, approach potential customers with your elevator pitch and hand each a card. Tell them to check out your website and mention that you will follow-up with them in the near future. If you do this 50 times in a day (not difficult), you now have 50 qualified, warm leads to call on. Call back roughly 2 weeks later. If you are a good salesman and you targeted realistic prospects, you should close at least a few sales. Provided of course you are offering a good product at a fair price :)

2. Get involved in as many online forums having to do with your business as possible. On most forums, you cannot blatantly "pitch" your services. However, give as many people as possible help with questions they have or get involved in some way. If you have your website posted, you should see at least a few leads trickling in from this.

3. Skip the google advertising and classified ads for now. Too pricey and unpredictable. Instead, try advertising on niche sites having to do with your services. Design a winning ad & wait for the leads to come in. There might not be many, however, what DOES come in will be motivated to buy & QUALIFIED.

Try the old-school marketing stuff for now. It's still around because it works!!! Then, once you have your feet wet & some money in the coffers, S-L-O-W-L-Y test a new marketing endeavor every 3 to 6 months.

Good luck!!!

Joegrss has given you some great advice and I'd like to add on.

Building the site is only half the battle. Now you have to tell people about it. PR can cost you nothing more than your time and effort when you have a limited budget (I recommend professionals, but hey, sometimes you have to DIY for a while). Come up with three ideas that can be turned into articles / blogs / etc. with your website information embedded in the article or at the end. Try to get them placed with traditional media in your target market.

Don't forget other search engines. While Google wins, there is a large market for Yahoo as well and Bing is coming on strong. All of these offer website optimization tips and trick free of charge. Read them, learn them, practice them.

How about YouTube? Your product is a very visual one and there's nothing more visual than YouTube. If you are creative then come up with a hook, borrow a camera and get to work. It may not be successful, but if it is and goes viral. . . wow. . .

Finally, don't understimate the power of local. While your site has a global reach, your marketing budget probably doesn't. Look into things like ensuring your YahooLocal ad is updated and detailed, post information on bulletin boards in your local area, etc. Once you get sales (even if they are local) you can start to fund marketing for a larger arena.

Good luck.