Online marketing for small business owners can be somewhat tricky, but, if done successfully, it can make running a small business simpler. Online marketing can make a business successful while, at the same time, allow a business owner an easier time running her business. So, how does online marketing for small business really help business? Does it really make things easier for business, or simply simpler?
Online Marketing For Small Business Or Fail
Well, let me put it this way, small business needs to be aggressively marketed, no matter what, or the competition will eat it alive. If your business is not marketed properly, it will fail — plain and simple. As it is, the never ending race for new business is exhausting and consumes the bulk of my time. I love courting great prospects and the challenge to convert them into great customers. What’s better than bringing a great customer into your family? How can business get any better than growing your family of great customers?
So, why should a business be marketed online as opposed to marketed elsewhere? Let me show you several reasons:
First of all, marketing online gives small business owners a greater sense of control over where and to whom the business is marketed. To whom ought you to market your business? Understand your two or three best customers intimately and coalesce that intimacy into buyer personae. Focus on your buyer personae. If you’re not selling Pampers or used cars, do not market to Pampers and used car buyers. Online marketing is much better than traditional marketing for laser focus on target markets.
Focus On Online Marketing For Small Business
If your business sells rare antiques, you don’t want teenagers to be the majority of people seeing your advertisements. With online marketing, a business owner easily chooses on which online media to market her business. She can monitor the demographic viewing her website to help determine whether or not that online media is where she wants her business advertised. Marketing to the right demographic is one of the most important factors in generating sales, because targeted leads are more readily closed. This is accomplished most easily marketing small business online.
Furthermore, online marketing for small business makes growing business easier because online media are more readily changed. They don’t need to be as on top of marketing strategies as they needed to be when they ran ads in print or some other offline media. Have you ever tried to change the color palette on a billboard? How quickly can you change from black-and-white to color Yellow Pages spread?
What does this mean? Well, I’m not saying that a business owner won’t have to monitor her marketing strategies closely. Whether they are online or off, one size never fits all. Some techniques will work and others don’t. Some strategies may work today and no longer work next year.
Measure Online Marketing For Small Business
Nevertheless, it’s far easier to monitor effectiveness online, and easier to test multiple alternatives simultaneously. With a simple click of a button, the business owner can see how many websites visitors she’s attracting from particular advertisements.
More to the point, it’s easier than ever to gather metrics and measure crazy stuff like visitors to leads to sales ratios. How profitable is your Yellow Pages campaign? Traditional offline marketing cannot provide clear cause and effect metrics. It’s exceedingly difficult to monitor how much interest in a business is being generated from TV commercials, newspaper ads and telemarketing calls. Online, these statistics are readily monitored.
Online Marketing For Small Business Is Smart
Overall, online marketing for small business is just plain smart! Making the business owner’s life much simpler is perhaps the single greatest benefit of online marketing.