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[F225]Financing Of Small Business

by Sagar, Sag

This HAS to be part of any Internet marketing strategy you develop. This is actually a basic marketing principle. Customers are not going to look for you; you have to look for them. Promoting your web site on-line and building traffic is the subject of thousands of web sites, e-zones, books, courses and seminars. Using the web to promote your site, however, assumes that your customers are surfers. But there is a large percentage of our population that is not as savvy with the internet as we would like them to be.

So, what about the large percentages of the population who are not? They will only find out about you through traditional marketing and public relations media. Unless you have a high budget, the TV, radio, classified ad route is not recommended but if you do run ads, be sure to mention your web site everywhere. Make it part of your Internet Marketing Strategy. Another guiding principle is that your off-line internet marketing activities should make it easy for your prospect to go straight to your web site. One of the best ways to market your website off-line is direct mail postcards.

If your prospect sees your website on a billboard as she's driving home, she probably won't look you up when she gets to the office the next day. This is not the only medium that has problems like this. Newspapers are bulky, radio has to spell it out and like before most people are driving at the time. On the other hand, if your prospect is sitting at her computer and a post card comes in the mail announcing your web site, she can just turn around and type in your URL and she's at your web site.

Now if someone is in the office reading a trade journal and comes across an article about you in the magazine, it's not difficult for him to copy your URL into his browser and pay your site a visit. I don't mean to say that those other avenues won't drive traffic to your site, but it will take numerous impressions and repetition to get them to remember your address. On the other hand, direct mail postcards are generally received at the home or office where a computer is present, and if received somewhere else they are small enough to keep with you until you can get to a computer. This way, your prospective customer will be able to take the take right over to their desk top computer, type in your address and go right to your site.

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) has just published current statistics for internet marketing. The group reports that Search Engine Marketing spending, including paid placement, paid inclusion SEO and purchase of technology platforms, is expected to double by 2011. The aggregate spending total will be $18.6bn.

This will have a dramatic effect on how small business does business on the Internet. More companies are enhancing services to make it easier for small businesses to access consumers.

Google has released its voice service, along with Adobe, to improve web conferencing. Combining this with the stick released recently for VOIP services, has enabled small businesses to expand their markets content wide.

The improvement in technology, and the flexibility, has increased the amount of money spent on search engine advertising.

Organic SEO is still the strongest marketing tool. Three quarters of all advertisers use it. A close second is paid placement 86% of the total advertising dollar, at $8bn.

The market is still driven by companies trying to generate direct sales, however, brand awareness is growing as advertisers learn to use the net to improve PR and customer relations.

No surprise is MSN's gain on Google. It has now captured 68% of the market, up from 29% in 2005. The surprise came last fall when random reports claimed that myspace had surpassed the number of hits sent to websites.

The increase in use of MSN is no surprised as online shopping increases. MSN still leads the way with ?decision to buy? or ?impulse buy? visitors, resulting in a lower Cost Per Click (CPC) than the other search engines.

Despite this, Google still dominates the field in 2007, with 95% of all respondents advertising on AdWords, followed by 86% on Yahoo.

One fifth of all respondents claimed they were shifting money from print magazine advertising, while this is a bold move, only time will tell whether it is a smart move. Currently, trade and regional magazines top all other media in dollar value when considering ?decision to buy.?

Magazines now have a higher retention rate, even than television, on a single view. It is not sure if this will transfer to the web, but if it does, then it will level the playing field for small businesses that lack the marketing budget to advertise in national magazines.

Myspace is showing itself to be a powerful branding tool, so much so that many companies, including Pepsi, McDonalds, and Nike are trying to force Myspace to discontinue profiles and hubs with URLs that use those trademarks.

Many business owners are using the Myspace option in the same way that YouTube is, creating channels that allow business owners to improve Internet Marketing by ?riding the coat tails? of the large companies ? for a price.

Either way, the release of Web 2.0 this spring, set to coincide with the release of MS Vista, will have hard hitting repercussions which will change the internet forever. Smart webmasters are already taking advantage of Social Networking, by creating Myspace.com, Squidoo.com, Youtube.com and other hubs, as well as optimizing for Web 2.0 to gain the advantage when the web changes.

This foresight is not optimistic thinking, but a learned behavior. Any change in the Internet's SEO algorithms shatters the SEO marketing objectives of the best sites and brings small business sites to the forefront, at least for a few months. Not bad, when taking into consideration that a few months on the top of Google can equal hundreds of thousands, or even millions, in extra profits.

Article Source : Pg. 89

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Both Sagar & Bruce Chandler are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Sagar has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home, Management and Internet Marketing. http://www.marketers-traffic-course.com http://www.website-con. Sagar's top article generates over 5400 views. Bookmark Sagar to your Favourites.

Bruce Chandler has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Home Management and Internet Marketing. Bruce Chandler helps businesses understand technology match it to their needs http://www.voipwolf.com Please stop by and review his FREE guide to web conferencing and technology at http://www.videoconferencingstar.com. Bruce Chandler's top article generates over 8100 views. Bookmark Bruce Chandler to your Favourites.