Small business marketing and the internet go together very well if the owner has a good understanding of how to use them both in concert. Obviously knowing the right target audience will dictate which methods will work the best. All businesses have a fair amount of start up costs and a part of these costs should be budgeted toward getting the business recognized by the general public. There are many methods both paid and free that can get the business owner the exposure they desire so that they can grow their business.
Here are a few of the no cost internet marketing examples you can use: Blogs and forums, Craigslist, Ezine ads, Facebook, forum marketing, forum signatures, free online classified advertising, Squidoo, Twitter, viral marketing, car magnets and decals and many more. The obvious advantage to these methods are that they don not cost you anything. They do however require you to put some work into them and can take some time before you see the results you desire. The advantages do outweigh the work since many of these methods such as article writing may get you exposure in a search engine and may stay up for months and sometimes years.
The paid internet marketing methods such as pay per click, Google AdWords, banner advertising, paid classified ads, and outdoor advertising banners or signs will get you near instant results. This is great if you need to generate prospects and income in a hurry. The disadvantage is of course the money you have to lay out. The other negative to these methods are that as soon as you stop paying for them the traffic also stops. This means there is no residual effect compared to the free advertising methods listed above.
Knowing about these different marketing methods will not profit the business owner unless he has a good understanding of how to use these methods. They say education is the key, and the small business owner or internet marketer newbie can save himself time and frustration if he invests in learning how to put all of these internet marketing methods together. After all, creating the life and business of our dreams is not hard once your equipped with the knowledge of how to do it.