Saturday, February 28, 2009

Online Marketing for your Business

By Rick Jenkinns

More and more businesses are taking advantage of the economical savings and ease of use that the internet offers in marketing their business. The internet offers many marketing advantages such as low to no cost advertising, worldwide distribution and the ability to target specific audiences

One of the main reasons businesses are looking to the internet for their marketing needs is the affordability factor. The internet is constantly evolving in a direction that makes it more feasible to reach larger numbers of people for less. While there are costs incurred through website hosting and internet access, these fees are minor when you consider how many people can be reached. Websites can be marketed for low costs, or even for free in many cases, via participating in forums related to your type of business, posting links to your website on other websites, or exchanging links with other businesses and organizations.

The ability to reach prospective customers anywhere is another great advantage of marketing your business online. Traditional target market research is not only time consuming but also can be costly and then your marketing methods are only reaching a limited audience through print media, radio and local TV campaigns. Now with the internet, you can drastically increase that reach across the globe, targeting your market niche in other countries that might not otherwise ever hear about you and your business.

The internet now makes it possible to do business with anyone around the world. This is possible regardless of where you live or work, as all you need is a connection to the internet, and website hosting services. The ability to reach a worldwide base of customers interested in your services or products is invaluable to the marketing of your business.

The Internet never sleeps it is up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including all holidays. Does your brick and mortar business do that? Think for a moment if you only advertise locally and you have standard business hours of say 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ? heck let?s make that 9:00 p.m. So your local audience is narrowed down to those who are interested in your product or service, then it is narrowed down more to only those who can make it to your business or reach you during the normal business hours. Just those alone brings the percentage of viable customers down. Now think for a moment about the business that never sleeps, that can be accessed from anywhere at any time. Do you see where I?m going with this? It is non-stop shopping. In this busy world, people are looking more and more for convenience and being able to get online when it is convenient for them, makes them more likely to buy the product or service they are looking for.

In case you have not realized it, your competitors are likely already marketing their businesses online. After reading this article, you should realize that it is very important to learn about online marketing, and to begin promoting your business on the internet as soon as possible. The more your competitors are marketing themselves to the world, the more likely they are to capture your potential customer base, and keep them loyal to their products and offerings. If you want to keep up with your competitors, or hope to get ahead of them, you need to start marketing your business online now. - 16755

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