Why Small Businesses Need Online Marketing fast

Online marketing is essential for small businesses today and is a cost-effective way to increase revenue, customers, and brand presence. Consumers are now online, and online marketing is only growing more important.

Studies have been carried out around the world, showing that most businesses are convinced that websites do not benefit their type of business. Other business owners believe that having a website exposes their company secrets to the competitors hence will lead to their down fall.

Internet experts believe that if businesses do not deal with their fears and anxieties, they are likely to be left behind in this competitive world.

Small businesses — with limited marketing budgets — are competing with national brands when it comes to advertising. Due to the online nature of commerce in this era, local businesses have no other option but to compete with corporations that have marketing budgets much larger than merely a couple of years of revenue. The online attribute required of companies demands that small businesses compete on a larger scale, but how do entities do remain competitive?

Small businesses can best stay relevant through online marketing. Thanks to the rapid growth of the internet, small businesses are better positioned than ever to compete alongside big companies through the utilization of an online marketing strategy. However, many small business owners believe that online marketing is ineffective and useless. Many owners will say things like “My customers aren’t online,” or “Online marketing is a fad.” Some go as far to say that, “Online marketing doesn’t work for me.”

The truth is, a company will never gain new online customers — and even in-person consumers — if the business does not have a strong online presence. There are close to five billion Google searches a day and over one billion active Facebook users. It’s hard to argue that at least some of those users won’t be interested in searching for a local products or services. With online advertising alone, small businesses can target specific demographics and geographic regions; reaching hundreds of potential customers online.

The rapid growth of online marketing can be most evidently seen in the retail sector. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, online retailers were found to be the overall drivers for retail sales for more than a year, while traditional department store sales declined.

Online marketing is, in fact, a necessity. Here’s why:

1. Consumer expectations have changed

When most consumers hear of a new business, they immediately look up the website and social media accounts to learn more. To find you, they plug your address into their smartphone and use Google maps to get there. People expect you to have a website. If you cannot be verified digitally, individuals searching out information doubt your existence and legitimacy. Also, more consumers are increasingly searching for products and services on the web and these trends are expected increase exponentially.

2. Your competitors are online

You might not have launched an online marketing campaign yet, but your competitors most likely have.The reason why online advertising doesn’t work for so many small businesses is that their websites do not engage or connect with potential customers online. It’s not a question of how pretty the website is designed, but rather, how effective it is in converting online visitors into customers.Providing a unique brand value proposition, user experience (UX) design, and click-to-action (CTA’s) buttons on a site are key to a successful digital marketing strategy.”

3. Low Advertising and Marketing costs: Did you know the one time cost of designing a website and annual fees you spend on renewals (domain & hosting), website maintenance is just a smallest fraction on the cost you spend a year on printing out brochures, billboards, flyers and many others? And yet with you having a website, whatever is printed out or shown in adverts can be in the website and you’re guaranteed of wide market coverage.

4. 24/7 business operations: With online presence, your company or organization is open for business to anyone, anywhere around the world for all 24hrs a day, 12months a year. Imagine finding an order or Inquiry about your products waiting for you to just click reply and business transactions start on another or different level. So with a website that has a form, email, and order online function will obviously prompt a client to leave a message or call you later.

5. Communication and Customer care at its best: Imagine just sitting behind your computer and click on the send button?.and in just seconds you have notified all your existing and prospective clients about your new products, promotions, achievements in quickest move possible.

Imagine you providing answers through website (FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions) to those constantly boring questions that you have had over and over again about your business. Do you think this would be possible with poster letters?

6. A complement in branding: Did you know that having a nicely designed website can strengthen your corporate image and improve your branding? That is why hiring a professional website designer or company is very essential. Because you want to emphasize the branding then usability, easy access, friendly look of website is so important. I will give the basics of nicely designed website next time.

7. Your online presence adds confidence, trust, belief and hope into your clients. This shows how your business is a step ahead of the others and how your products are easily understood. I have noticed that customers always want to purchase a product or service they have understood. No one wants to buy something is ignorant about! Or Do you?

8. Increased business relationships: Research has proved that enhanced marketing and management in business relationships bring big sales to companies. This is characterized by an exchange between two or more parties. In simple terms your website could contain information related to other businesses your clients might show interest for.

9. New consumer generations: even though the majority of the companies do not make vendor selections based on Google or yahoo searches, you cannot rule out the possibility that an employee of the company might make some initial searches on the internet to research information and find potential vendors. It makes sense to put a quality website in place for them.

10. Survey (Market research): You want to know how your products or services are fairing on the market? Well, website can just do that with help of tools like opinion polls, survey, statistical tools and many more out there.

11. Contact information ? With website, your contact details are accessed by a click away. This makes it easy to be located by anyone, anywhere which actually is the hardest thing in business (reaching you).