Thursday 10 September 2009

How Can An Offline Business Use Internet Marketing to Their Advantage?

Should bricks and mortar businesses use internet marketing techniques? Will they help you grow your business?



If you're an offline business, you might not believe that you need to do internet marketing. But if you don't, you're probably missing the boat on opportunities for growth. Even if you don't sell anything online, you can benefit from having an online presence for your customers and your prospective customers, too.

People who are your potential customers are probably searching the internet to find out where to get whatever it is that you are selling. People today use the web as their personal shopper. Even if they're looking for a taxi, a pizza shop that delivers, or a salon to get their hair done, they're looking on the Internet for phone numbers, addresses, and recommendations.

This isn't just happening with teens and young adults either. The largest demographic of shoppers for anything and everything that's for sale (products and services alike) are Mothers and the vast majority of Mums in the free world have a computer that they use as a time saver to help them.

They use computers to read product reviews, look for skilled professionals, and to read recommendations from other Mums who talk about what they buy and use. People in all demographics want to know who they're buying from as well so they like to research local companies for more information.

If you're doing internet marketing you're also going to take opportunities to communicate with your customers (and prospective customers) because you can use tools to remind people who you are and what you sell. Internet marketing techniques like newsletters, e-mail marketing, white papers, and other marketing tools can help you communicate continually with your clients and today's tools let you put that process on autopilot so that very little work needs to be done by you but with the result that you'll gain more exposure for your business and improve brand loyalty as well. If you're having a big sale, you can tell your customers. If you want to talk about a new product you're carrying, you can send out an announcement. You can create a blog for your website that lets you talk about what you sell and this can help you bring increased business to your doorstep.

Not only can you market to your existing demographic with the internet but you can also learn more about your customers through patterns and data related to your website. The internet is a phenomenal business intelligence tool.

Internet marketing is something that's not an exact science but it's something that you can definitely make headway with, especially if you get expert advice. This can come in the form of books, newsletters, blogs, and through internet marketing consultant services. An experienced internet marketing consultant can look at your business and help you create a marketing plan that suits your business model and improves your chances of growth, profitability, and success.

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