The days are getting warmer, and we’ll soon be seeing young entrepreneurs opening their lemonade stands in front yards across the country.
Some things don’t change all that much – wisdom taken from time-honored lemonade stand marketing strategy can be applied to your online marketing efforts.
1. Perform market research. Talk to the kids who run other lemonade stands around your town and find out how much they sell their lemonade for and what kind of lemonade seems to sell the best.
Find out what keywords searchers are using when they’re looking for your product. Research your competitors’ sites to see what they’re doing to get business.
2. Choose the best location. People don’t look up lemonade stands in the phone book, so you have to make sure they can see you. Find a place with a lot of traffic.
Google PPC ads are a good way to bridge the gap while you’re waiting for your link building efforts to take effect organically.
3. Find your niche. So you’ve got the best lemonade in town, but what if other stands have lemonade that’s just as tasty? Set your stand apart from the crowd by providing something a little different.
Research niche keywords that will bring in traffic that’s considered “low hanging fruit.” This may mean adding content specific to these keywords to draw in those searchers.
4. Advertise your stand. Be sure to have a big, neatly written sign in front of your stand. You can also ask friends to stick a couple brightly colored signs on themselves and ride their bikes around the neighborhood, advertising your lemonade stand.
Make sure your site is correctly optimized and contains content with keywords that reflect what your site is about. Place social media “chicklets” on your site that visitors can click on to recommend your site to others.
5. Keep track of your sales and experiment a bit. You can learn a lot from running a lemonade stand, and the more you learn the more money your stand will make. Use some trial-and-error to make your stand the best it can be, and learn from your mistakes.
Use Google Analytics to learn who is visiting your site, what they’re looking for, and where they’re coming from, and use these metrics to make your marketing efforts more productive.
