Harness The Power Of The Internet

About a decade ago it could take you forever to do market research, to find sales leads, and to advertise effectively.  This is because it was all done offline, using antiquated things like libraries, books, and newspapers.  (Who would have thought our kids today would not know how to use the Dewey Decimal system or look something up in an actual encyclopedia?)

If you are a small business, you should be using the power of the internet to aide you in accomplishing your marketing goals.  The internet is a WEALTH of information for doing thing such as:

1.  Networking. Find other people in your industry.  You can learn from people who are in the same business as you.  Learn from their mistakes.  Learn what they have done that works well.  Get advice.  Have them review your work.  The best way to find these people are to join groups on some of the more popular social networking sites such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, or Twitter.  If you’re not familiar with all these types of social networking sites, I will have a blog post soon describing what they are and how to use them.

2. Advertising. When you advertise online, your ads can be focused and yet reach many people.  Typically a much bigger “bang for your buck” as when compared to traditional print advertising.  Check out Google AdWords as a great place to learn about starting to advertise online.

3. Finding Sales Leads. Having your own website of course is a great starting point.  But just building a website does not mean people are going to come to it.  Using some popular online services such as craigslist is a good place to post your product or service, and it’s quick & easy.  Posting to the groups of the social networking sites mentioned above is another great place to produce leads.  Email marketing campaigns are another great way to produce leads, if you have a good email list you can send it to.  MailChimp is one of the best email marketing services I have come across.

Take 30 minutes out of your day today and do a little research and browsing around on the web.  Maybe explore some of the links above. See what’s out there that could help your business.  And then maybe just pick one of those things and work on it this week.  Then see what happens to your marketing efforts when using the internet.  You will see results.