You may not have heard of BT Tradespace, but it’s a popular and fast growing way to promote yourself or your business on the Internet. BT Tradespace is a hub, a meeting place where buyers and sellers, companies, businesses and customers can come together. BT Tradespace emphasises the interactive relationship between business and customer.
BT Tradespace is a free service and you do not need any particular technical skills in order to use it or set up your own space online. It describes itself as ‘a community of people who want to do business together’. For business users, it’s primarily a free way to advance your online reputation and web presence.
Anyone can use BT Tradespace. So potential customers or clients come to the Business section to look for businesses that might fulfil their needs. In the BT Tradespace Marketplace, they get details of products and services and can make a purchase and then rate or review that business. Think of it as a huge network of businesses connected together and open to the public.
The site itself is designed to bring people together, particularly in this case, businesses and customers. For that reason, they work very hard to try to help you understand and improve your own Internet Marketing. There are pockets of advice and assistance everywhere you turn on BT Tradespace; this includes some very helpful videos full of instruction.
Building on the success of Social Networking, BT Tradespace has recognised the increase in take up for Social Media. In response, they’ve created an opportunity for the likeminded people that they’ve brought together to communicate with each other. So they’ve created a Social space called Communities. It’s a nice touch, although at the moment, it seems rather under populated and a bit low tech, but over time it will grow.
To begin using BT Tradespace for business, you need to register and set up a personal profile. It’s a fairly simple process to join up. First off, just fill in your personal details, the usual name and email address type questions. Once you’ve joined, you can start creating your Tradespace right away. This is the place that will function as your virtual shop front to the world.
Before you start this stage, have a good think about how you want to present yourself on BT Tradespace. What information do you want to have publicly available, what is the vital information that needs to be in your shop front in order for potential customers to trust and buy from you?
Don’t forget the old sales motto ‘Benefits over Features’; tell your potential customers what you can do for them, not what you do. It’s as Zig Ziglar used to say ‘You can have anything you want, as long as you help enough people to get what they want’. So focus on ‘what’s in it for them’?
Membership
Your BT Tradespace is highly customisable. You can add video, text, images, podcasts, whatever you feel best assists you to promote and sell your goods or services. The standard free basic membership offers:
• A Company Profile
• Company Description plus Interactive Map
• Ability to Feature up to 50 different products and services
• Only 5% commission on sales made through BT Tradespace
• Upload Unlimited Blog Posts
• Limited Video, Image and Podcast Uploads
If you pay to join BT Tradespace Contact, the upgraded paying members area, which at present is a reasonable £15 + VAT per month, there’s a host of inclusive extras and improved benefits such as:
• Free Calls from Customers in the UK and Abroad
• Priority Website Positioning
• Reduced Trading Commission (currently 0% until March 2009)
• Unlimited Products and Services Listing
• Buy It from my Website Button
• Limitless Video, Image and Podcast Uploads
Six monthly and annual memberships are available at moderately discounted prices. But whether you choose the free or paid service, you’ll get lots from BT Tradespace.
Optional Extras
For people who could use some additional help, there’s a feature called BT Tradespace Extras. This is a product that ranges from a little bit of brand development assistance, right up to website that’s fully designed and operated by BT Tradespace on your behalf. Prices for this range from a reasonable £49.99 to £999.
Blogging on BT Tradespace
Blogging is a very powerful tool for businesses on the Internet. The more often that you blog, the more you will promote the value of your product and services to the world. And that’s the great thing about BT Tradespace; it’s highly visible for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) purposes. For SEO value, BT Tradespace gets you noticed by Google because unlike so many other spaces on the web, Google just loves BT Tradespace.
Not only does BT Tradespace offer plenty of free SEO advice, but also you can post limitless blogs. If you optimise each of your blogs for the best Search Engine relationship, that’s a high quality (free) advertising space to direct people to your business, your website, as well as increasing your online credibility.
For this reason, and like much of the Internet, it really helps if you have something to say. If you don’t have the writing skills yourself, you could perhaps get someone else in the business to write a blog for your company, or you could hire a low-cost writer, and there are plenty of them about.
Benefitting from BT Tradespace is quick and easy to set up. Simply visit www.bttradespace.com and extend the power of your online presence right away.
Need some help? Ask about our BT Tradespace set up and management packages right now by emailing nikki@nikkipilkington.com
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