It’s No Good Being Where the Customers Ain’t
Jack Dyer, legend ex-AFL player once said ‘It’s no good being where the ball ain’t’. I’d like to suggest, as a entrepreneur it’s no good being where the customers ain’t. This article will help you find more customers online.
The online small business marketing environment has changed much over the last 2 years, becoming a lot more competitive. Small businesses that don’t invest time and effort in online marketing won’t keep up.
Changes
Old strategies like article marketing through directories no longer yield the results they once did. The more challenging – but also more rewarding – guest blog posting has replaced them.
The algorithm changes that Google continue to introduce also changed things. As far as content is concerned, quality has triumphed decisively over quantity. This is a very good thing!
Social media sites have also grown tremendously, as did social media marketing. One of the consequences of this growth is tougher competition between marketers on social media sites.
Challenges
The challenges that small business marketers face right now are many. Many businesses are still in a difficult position, having not fully recovered from the GFC. This often means small marketing budgets resulting in a lack of professional support. The small business owner is forced to do the marketing themselves, or assign an employee to do it alongside their normal job.
The increased awareness of online marketing has also made the online environment much tougher for marketers, even for local companies. Now it’s no longer enough to focus on your own marketing efforts – you must constantly check what your competitors are doing, and adapt. The online world changes quickly!
And then there’s also the challenge of doing successful social media marketing. Marketers flock to it because it’s free, but the amount of time it can consume is huge. The challenge is to learn to use it effectively, without setting unrealistic goals.
Opportunities
These days customers will be lost without Google search. For this reason, optimising your website and your marketing for the popular search engine, and adding your business to Google Places is a must. It will help you get more exposure with local searches.
The social networks have a lot of potential, not necessarily for marketing, but for branding and advertising (Facebook ads).
And then there is blogging and video marketing that have never been more effective as content pushers than they are now.
Small business marketing poses some challenges ahead. But if you get your message right and get it out there where the customers are, your business will thrive.
