Online marketing has a number of critical differences from offline marketing – and most offline marketing techniques simply fail when applied to an online business. A few online job-search services have the ability to leverage their advertising and marketing team. Marketing comes easy to them because, well, they can afford the right advertising, marketing, and public relations team. Can you afford your own team of [M]Ad Men? Most cannot.

So, as a small resume business, where should you start? 

Begin your online marketing efforts by building a website. Before I scare you off, know right up front that services such as GoDaddy.com make domain registration and hosting services extremely affordable and easy. For less than $100 a year, you can secure both in a few minutes. Don’t know much about website design? No sweat. GoDaddy also offers “Website Tonight,” which boasts anyone can “build a website with no experience.” Other contenders to consider include Joomla.com, a content management system, or maybe think about putting up a blog instead of a traditional company website. Services such as WordPress.org are not easy, yet not super complex either. Plan on spending a bit of extra time to accommodate a learning curve, especially if you’re non-technical. 

Once you have the site established, you need to drive prospective clients or customers – leads, in marketing lingo – to the site. A good lead for your business is someone who needs your service but who doesn’t yet know they need it. For resume writers an ideal client base might include college students, career changers, jobseekers, and back-to-work parents. Capturing these leads and exposing them to your business message gives them the opportunity to realize their need and to realize that you can fulfill it. Translation: a new customer or client for your business. 

There are a number of techniques for capturing leads and keeping them in contact with you and your business. 

Paid advertising, such as Google AdWords, is one such route. While some shy away from [sometimes] costly pay-per-click advertising, highly focused advertising campaigns can be extremely productive when handled correctly. 

One underused technique is partnership – matching your business with other businesses which have a compatible client base but with whom you aren’t in direct competition. Resume writers and recruiters, for example. These deals can be as simple as an ad swap, or as comprehensive as a formal contract to swap email/mailing lists and generate referrals for one another. 

Another excellent way to generate online leads is to write about what you do using a blog. Write a series of articles about the subject area of your business that you place on your own site or on article sites (which have proliferated throughout the Web). For example, you might write about how resumes are changing in light of new personal branding techniques  – and then, of course, link to your own resume business website as a further source for information. 

Marketing online takes persistence and practice, but armed with the right tools and techniques can ensure a steady flow of customers and clients to your resume-writing business – and with that comes the success that you deserve.

Image taken on 2007-03-31 11:23:15. Image Source. (Used with permission)