The essentials of online business promotion

8 Essential Steps to Promote Your Online Business

According to a Google report, the number of Internet users in India is expected to reach 900 million by 2025. India is the second-largest online market in the world. 87% of Indian small businesses believe that digital platforms are important for their growth. Today, with increasing users of e-commerce, social media, and other digital marketing channels, small businesses too can reach a wider audience and grow their business without having to invest a lot of money.

Here are some tips on how small Indian businesses can promote their online business:

Build a website: The first step to promoting your online business is to build a website. Your website should be easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and provide all the necessary information about your products or services. Choose a trusted website developer to create your website. With MarketCentral, this service is completely free of cost.
Make your website friendly to search engines: Search engines are how your customers will find your website. By ranking higher on search engines, you can drive more traffic to your website and increase visibility. To rank higher on search engines, make sure to write correct and readable content on your website, have good page quality for all your pages and product listings, and use keywords that are relevant to your website. Read more about this here: seo-can-help-your-business
Use social media: 93% of businesses in India use social media for marketing. Social media is a powerful tool for promoting your online business. Using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can connect with your audience and share updates about your products or services.
Email marketing: Customers will keep coming back to your business if you give them a good customer experience- and email marketing is the first step towards it. With a 122% return on investment, email marketing is an extremely effective channel. Use email marketing to send newsletters, promotional offers, and updates about new products or services, or reach out to your entire customer list using features like MarketCentral's bulk email marketing.
Use Local SEO: Local SEO is the process making sure that your website ranks high in local search results. This can be done by optimizing your website's content with local keywords, creating a Google My Business profile, and getting listed on local directories such as JustDial, Sulekha, or your business association directory.
Offer discounts and promotions: Offering discounts and promotions helps attract new customers and retain existing ones. You can offer discounts on your website, social media, or email marketing campaigns. This will help customers keep buying your products or services, and also put you on the top of their mind.
Tell your friends and family: You've started an online business. The first place to put out the information about your website, social media, or online market is in your friend or family Whatsapp groups, your Facebook pages, and your neighborhood. Make sure that your website link is part of your Instagram bio, and your Facebook page description, and send out the link to the website to all your Whatsapp customer groups. This way, you can showcase more products and services to your customer at no cost to you.
Track your results: Always track your results to see what promotion is working for you and what isn't. On MarketCentral, your dashboard will tell you details about your bestselling products, your website visits, and more important data that you can use to keep improving your online business.

As your business grows, you can use a lot more marketing ideas to promote your business. This includes hosting social media contests, offering a referral program for your loyal customers, participating in online or virtual exhibitions, offering free trials or demonstrations online, etc. In today's age, standing out from the competition via online business is a way to make your business safe from future shocks, while also adding more revenue to your business.