With the proliferation of high speed Internet access and smart phones, more and more consumers are using the Internet to search for local and small businesses.
Consider these stats:
- 90 million people spend time on the Internet every day.
- Over 60% of consumers use the Internet to search for local businesses.
Thus, if your business is not represented on the Internet, your prospects will just click and check out your competitors’ business instead. Your competitors would then have great opportunities to promote to local consumers in your market. Eventually, your competitors will take away all your customers and your business will crumble to ground!
And if you are still relying on traditional methods of advertising such as advertising in the yellow books, TV, Radio, newspaper, I got bad news for you. The traditional methods of marketing are costly as well as ineffective!
Advantages of Internet Marketing Methods
Here are some compelling reasons why you must implement Internet Marketing for your business now:
- Internet Marketing Methods are either FREE or cost very little.
- Internet Marketing has a wide reach – You can reach many consumers efficiently.
- Internet Marketing levels the playing field for everyone. You don’t have to be a big corporate or have big budget to be successful.
- Internet Marketing tools allow you to tap into your creativity and communication skills. It’s fun!
- Internet Marketing methods are trackable. You can quickly find out which methods are yield results and which are a dud.
What are the different Internet Marketing Tools & Methods
The number of Internet Marketing tools and methods can be overwhelming. How and where to start? Below, I list some of the main tools and methods that are most effective for small businesses:
- Create a website and perform some basic SEO so that your site can be found by the Search Engines for keywords related to your business, products, services.
- List your business information on Google, Yahoo, MSN maps as well as local directories and local review sites
- Create profiles on Social Network Sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
- Set up a blog and start blogging
- Produce videos and submit to video sites (Youtube)
- Pay Per Click advertising
Now, some of you may think that the Internet is just too complicated. Well, you just need to break them into smaller steps and do one thing at a time. If you still find it complicated or don’t have the time, then you should get the right training or hire the professionals.
Regardless of how you go about it, it’s critical that you take actions NOW to implement the latest Internet Marketing methods to grow your business!