Some small business owners I've spoken to recently have told me they are getting very confused about all the various online marketing options, so I've written this post for them...
Now, every small business owner knows only too well that a well planned and executed marketing strategy will keep them in profit regardless of the ups and downs of the economy. I know some business owners tend to plough much of their marketing budget into offline advertising, like press ads, magazine ads, radio and television commercials.
Whilst others prefer to invest their hard-earned cash in online advertising like pay-per-click and flashy banner ads.
With the trend increasingly in favour of online advertising, simply due to the huge volume of online shoppers, many business owners who are trying to promote their products and services online are obviously facing a few problems.
Not least is the problem of e-confusion.
This embarrassing and uncomfortable condition is brought about due the numerous streams of marketing options now available to all internet based businesses. Anyone who has been soundly educated in the bricks and mortar type world of business and marketing is now finding it increasing difficult to know which way to turn.
Should they focus all their efforts and resources on pay-per-click or have a few banner ads circulating cyberspace too? Well, it would appear that the outcome of this little decision is the very least of their problems. The real dilemma, which is striking fear into all but the very savvy of internet marketers is, where does social network marketing fit into their strategy?
It can't be ignored. There are millions of potential customers frequenting the social sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, not to mention LinkedIn, Bebo, Hi5 and Friendster. And every dedicated businessman and woman worth their weight in salt knows that you have to ply your trade where the masses gather.
It's what's called a marketplace!
As offline advertising becomes more and more expensive and much less effective, many small business owners know they must get a foot firmly on the threshold of as many streams of new media marketing as possible. And herein lies the problem for many, because they simply don't know how to.
New media marketing is not even remotely like marketing in the real world and it goes against everything business owners have come to know and trust. So here lies a big opportunity. Master the many facets of internet marketing and you master the web.
It might sound simple but in practice it takes work, effort, training, learning and a bit of trial and error.
So why is internet marketing so complex?
It's because there are so many options, and a business that wants to survive, grow and prosper needs to explore most of them before deciding on which marketing option is right for them.
The social networks have already been mentioned and come high in the list of avenues waiting to be explored. A search on Google for "social network websites" returns a page count of more than 295 million, which at least suggests its importance. That's certainly a lot of web pages devoted to the subject. But social network marketing is only part of the equation.
Today, the modern savvy internet marketer, AKA online business owner, needs to be conversant with or at least familiar with article marketing, affiliate marketing, referral marketing, viral marketing, video marketing and forum marketing.
Then there are blogs and RSS feeds, search engine optimisation, keyword optimisation plus joint ventures and online press releases to consider.
All these avenues represent the various options, in which a business needs to apply its marketing techniques, strategies and formulas.
So is it any wonder why so many small business owners are e-confused?
Well thankfully a solution is at hand. Myself and my colleagues at Anglox are helping to unravel the many mysteries of internet marketing by producing a complete marketing toolkit, appropriately called the eMarketing Toolkit. It's a comprehensive training programme, which covers just about every aspect of e-commerce marketing.
It's now available as a 2 CD set.
And because the Internet is a global marketplace, we have made the eMarketing Toolkit available worldwide. For businesses in the UK we have created this website: emarketingtoolkit.co.uk and for businesses everywhere else we have created this website: e-marketingtoolkit.com
Having this toolkit in your marketing armoury will save a lot of time and wasted effort. It will also open up many new marketing possibilities. I highly recommend it to any online entrepreneur or small business owner.
More to come later.
BFN,
Bill
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