Small business internet marketing is such a significant topic today. Virtually all large companies have now switched all their marketing focus (and budget) to the internet. The same techniques can totally transform the fortunes of small businesses, many of which are struggling in the recession.

Traditional marketing is dead!

The traditional methods of marketing such as Yellow Pages and newspaper ads just don’t bring the results that they did just a few years ago. It used to be essential to be in the yellow pages. Not any more. In fact you may well be wasting your money entirely. Last time I put a decent size ad in yellow pages, we didn’t have a single response. Not one. Over a whole year. The same applies to brochures and flyers – when did you last get a decent response from any of those? People just get so much junk mail these days, it all goes straight in the bin.

There are plenty of customers – you just need to find them!

The demand for local services hasn’t changed. There may be a recession, but people still need everything from plumbers to dentists, from decorators to lawyers, from hairdressers to opticians. And many of those people are searching for the services and products provided by small and local businesses https://www.industryspotlightreport.com/. The difference is that they aren’t looking in yellow pages or their local paper any more.

Over 90% of buyers of local services search online first!

No wonder those old methods don’t bring in customers. The buyers are still out there, but today they spend a great deal of their time online – and that’s where they go to find what they want. From books at Amazon, to toys, gadgets and even cars on eBay. So it’s exactly the same when they want to find an emergency heating repair company, a garage, a restaurant or hotel, an estate agent, a roofing company – or perhaps a local club or a new training course. They simply search online.

Problem 1 – You don’t know anything about Internet Marketing

You’ve got a website, but you don’t get much business from it, as it doesn’t even come up on Google anyway. You’ve no idea why some businesses come up in those local results too, but yours doesn’t. You’ve watched some funny videos on YouTube, but wouldn’t know how to make one. Isn’t Facebook what all teenagers spend all day on?

Problem 2 – You’re flat out running your business

You haven’t got time to learn about it either. You’re too busy looking after your customers, your staff and your suppliers. Plus your premises (and the bank of course). Not to mention all the admin and red tape from the government and the EU – the accounts, VAT returns, tax, PAYE… health and safety regs, fire regs, food and hygiene regs… employee pensions, working time directives…the list is endless.

Here’s Your Opportunity!

Most of your competitors don’t know much about internet marketing either – and they are also flat dealing with their businesses. There’s a huge opportunity for small businesses to use internet marketing to get new customers. For a start it’s very cost effective. Your website is open 24/7 to tell prospects about your services and products – and for sales. You can email your customers as often as you like – there are no printing and postage costs. Sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are completely free to use – and these are the biggest sites in the world. Google is also free. It isn’t that difficult to come up on the searches, if you know what to do. You can publish information about your business in all sorts of directories and on all sorts of sites at no cost whatever. All these can be used to attract new customers – as all those commercial giants know only too well.