In the previous article, we talked about “The Rise Of An Intelligent Consumer”. (If you haven’t read it…I recommend you start there)
From the previous article, we now understand:
- ‘Intelligent consumers’ are the buyers that small businesses must focus their marketing and sales efforts towards.
- ‘Intelligent consumers’ are driven towards becoming more educated on the topics of the products and services they plan on purchasing.
- Most mainstream publications and consumer research resources tend to over look small businesses, even if they are the best at what they do.
- In order to target these ‘intelligent consumers’ you must provide them with VALUE, and become their expert resource for information related to your products and services.
So how do you…a small business owner become an expert resource and provide information for these ‘intelligent consumers’?
Well…If you’re reading this article, you’re looking directly at the answer.
The internet
The internet has become the leading factor in the evolution of small business marketing. It’s affordable, reliable, effective, and has the fastest growing popularity of any technological breakthrough in the 20th and 21st century.
Small businesses, who fail to implement an effective online presence, are unfortunately doomed to see little to no growth in the coming years.
So, how do you take advantage of these opportunities and secure your small business’s ability to compete in the 21st century?
The average American citizen, with internet access, spends roughly 4 to 5 hours a day on the internet. This means 4 to 5 hours of researching, shopping, socializing, listen to music, watching movies, and playing games.
Small businesses now have a huge opportunity and new responsibility for future success and growth in the 21st century.
SEO, Information (or article) marketing, and Social Networking.
These factors have paved the way for an effective, affordable, and necessary method of marketing for any small business looking to grow and compete.
Most small businesses have some form of online visibility, some with local phonebook directory websites, and many with their own websites. The sad part about this is that most of these small businesses quickly acquire a bad taste for internet marketing, because of the poor results they received from their past efforts.
The issue here is that there is a level of complexity when creating an effective online presence in all of the right places, at the right times, and in front of the right people. It takes an effective online presence campaign to really see any form of results from the efforts put forth on the internet. You may own a website…but do you know if it has had any SEO (search engine optimization), does your website provide any added value to your current and potential clients, is your website being promoted anywhere else on the internet, and do you have a method of capturing possible leads for future sales and marketing efforts?
If you don’t know, you can click on any of the above terms to learn more about what they are and how they are implemented. Or you can personally give us a call (281–764-1164) or shoot us an e-mail, and we will be more than happy to take a look at your website or talk to you about how easy it really is to get you moving towards securing your small business’s opportunity to compete and grow in the 21st century.
Travis Gutierrez — Owner
Phoenix Small Business Solutions
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