5 tips on repeat business marketing for SMEs

Most small businesses treat their websites like business cards. This is an egregious waste of potential. Instead of viewing a website as something you "have" to have, start using it to drive growth.

Traditional small business generally has to rely on word of mouth to grow the customer base, but the rules have changed thanks to the Internet and Internet marketing.

If you aren't already generating revenue via your web presence, it's time you adapted to take advantage.

The following tips and techniques are aimed at doing two things:

• Build a community of customers and potential customers
• Engage and lock customers into your company

By keeping everyone and anyone who has shown interest in your products or services within your reach, you drastically increase your ability to spread ideas and communicate - market. The Internet is vast, and all you have to do is grow a tiny fraction of that into your business following and you're going to make big money.

Here are five powerful internet marketing tips that will help drive growth and profits for your small business through repeat business.

1. Integrate your traditional products & services with a website

Add an internet or online component to all your products and services - even if it is something as simple as support. Whatever it takes to get customers who have bought something to sign up to your website.

2. Add SEO enhanced, high quality content to your site on a regular basis

I know that writing content is a distraction from an already hard and full day's work. However, online content is an investment in your business' present and future marketing, and something that will start working for you as your online presence grows.

3. Offer incentives for customer to sign up to a newsletter

If you think that adding a newsletter is more trouble than it's worth, ask yourself this:

If you could email every customer who has ever bought (or even thought about buying) something from you, whenever you had some exciting new product, deal, special or so on, how much would that be worth?

Offering a newsletter with interesting content and information is a great way to expose people to more products and services.

4. Offer an online forum, group or chat for registered users

Give your customers a place to vent, criticize or praise and engage with them through your website. This not only provides valuable market research and feedback for you, but also serves to build trust.

5. Integrate social networking facilities

Encourage customers to like and share your content. Get them to follow you on twitter. Get them to join your Facebook group or connect with you on LinkedIn. In other words, keep them in orbit around your business.

In the current economic climate, when many small businesses are struggling to make ends meet, it is more important than ever to hold on to new and existing customers with both hands. If you look back over your accounts for the past year or so and find that a significant number of customers only completed a single transaction, then it is time to use these 5 internet marketing techniques to drive revenue and repeat business like never before.

If you didn't understand some of the terms, technologies or concepts discussed in this article, I suggest you look over one or two of my online courses that are designed to teach beginners about various aspects of marketing and generating revenue online:

• Social marketing crash course
• Good money crash course