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Why Offline Local Businesses Should Seek Online Marketing Help
"Most local offline businesses have no knowledge of online marketing"
By:
Richard S. Cannon
Most local offline businesses have no knowledge of online marketing. Nearly 95 % of small businesses are clueless when it comes to this skill. And, that's not surprising. Running a business is hard work and takes a lot of hours to just manage that business... when would that business owner find the time to learn online marketing?
To find new customers, most local offline businesses use the old methods to reach potential new customers. This includes newspaper advertising, direct mail, Yellow Pages, radio and cable TV advertising. Things that cost a fortune and things that most local businesses are getting very little return for their investment.
Most small businesses are not aware of how much benefit that online marketing can provide to their bottom-line. They are not aware of how much money they could save on their advertising costs by using marketing online methods. Business owners care about these things, but things are changing so quickly that it has just gone over their heads.
For example, take the Yellow Pages. It's expensive to advertise on the Yellow Pages. In some cities, a full page ad can cost as much as $6000/month and that price has been increasing. But, did you know that the Nielsen Rating Service recently reported that Yellow Page usage is down by nearly 40% in only the last two years alone. That's huge!
If they're not using the Yellow Pages, what are they using? The internet! When my wife wants to go out to eat, she doesn't look in the Yellow Pages... she looks on the internet. Almost everyone is doing that now!
Take coupons. We use to have a subscription for the local newspaper so that we could watch for coupons and we would cut those out. Now, my wife goes online and looks on dozens of sites for coupons and she just prints out the ones she want. We canceled our subscription to the newspaper.
Look, if you are the owner of a local offline business, you need to look at online marketing. If you want to keep your existing customer base and find new customers to add to it, you have to start using online marketing methods. Just having a company website is not enough...it's only scratching the surface.
If you don't know much about online marketing, then you have to study it...study it in-depth. And, if you don't have the time or desire to do it, you need to hire a local online marketing company to do it for you. That is... if you want to keep your business!
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_S._Cannon
Richard Cannon is a Local Online Consultant and Business Coach. His passion is to help local businesses to be successful online.
For more information and tips for finding an online marketing firm to help you, go to Marketing Columbia SC
To learn what kind of things a small business should be doing with online marketing, go to Marketing Columbia - 10 Things
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