Offline Businesses – Use Internet Marketing To Level The Field For Offline Businesses
© Doug Champigny, http://info-at-this.com/offline-businesses/
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
One of the biggest problems facing small offline businesses and new business startups has always been trying to compete against larger, established businesses with considerably more available capital in their advertising budget. Whether those larger offline businesses have been using flyers, consumer shows, focus groups, print ads, radio spots or TV commercials, traditionally they’ve just needed to outspend you to protect their higher market share and often nibble away at yours.
But now, thanks to the Internet, you have a way for your small business to level the playing field to one extent or another. Used properly, online marketing can have a major impact on your business for little or no cost, and for entrepreneurs and other solo business professionals can even give you a way to turn your small offline businesses into true family businesses.
For example, article marketing is a powerful online marketing tool that can be used by online or offline businesses alike at no cost. If you’re not a good writer or are usually pretty pressed for time, do you have kids at home of high school or college age? Knocking out 300-400 word articles is usually a breeze for them since they’re writing for school regularly, so enlist their aid in your online marketing efforts. Even paying them $5 or $10 an article gives them more incentive, keeps them in spending money and is a legitimate way to spread the income from the business. (Just check with your accountant to be sure it’s a tax write-off in your area before entering it as such in the books.)
Is yours a stay-at-home spouse? If so, seek their help in establishing a social media presence for your business using Twitter, FaceBook ‘fan’ pages, etc. If your small business lends itself to visual representation, use photos from your digital camera to get the word out on the photo-sharing sites and use the photos to illustrate points on your business blogs. Since most families have a digital video camera these days, learn to use the software that came with it to render your videos, then use them to market your small business through video sharing sites. Your videos can be you discussing your business, videos of you conducting business or teaching how the business operates, or even full-blown commercials like you’d see on television – any of those can help build small offline businesses.
And most importantly, be sure you have one of the best business blogs in your line of work. That doesn’t mean the fanciest or the most expensive – in fact it can be done quite cheaply. The best business blogs are those that are the most helpful to their target audience. You already know what information your potential customers need, what they should know about your area of expertise, what they should know about your and your small business, and what they should watch out for in your marketplace. You also know what goods and services are available to them, which they should use and which they should avoid, and why.
So get that information out there on your business blog – help your target market by educating them in the areas they want to – and should – know about. The more helpful you can be to them with the information you post on your small business blog, the more likely your are to turn those targeted leads into customers. And combined with the Internet marketing strategies above, your small business blog can help you level the playing field against those larger, richer offline businesses.
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Having gone from newspaper advertising manager to founding and operating 2 full-service advertising agencies, Doug Champigny had already mastered the world of offline marketing before turning his attention to online marketing full-time. Now, over a decade later, marketing mentor, author and speaker Doug Champigny is a world-famous marketer with a major online presence who often appears live onstage at marketing seminars, conferences, conventions and workshops around North America. With more than 35 years of online and offline advertising and marketing experience, Doug Champigny is uniquely qualified to teach you how to succeed in offline and online marketing through his numerous web properties and/or through direct marketing mentoring. Give your marketing the PowerStart it needs today – Click Here for more information!
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Technorati Tags: offline businesses, small business, small offline businesses, internet marketing, online marketing, offline businesses blogs, marketing mentor
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That’s the great thing about the internet, a business can expand and grow their brand, and target their specific audience a lot easier, cheaper, and quicker and offline marketing methods. For a lot of small offline business owners, the internet is still new to them in terms of marketing, but like you said, if they have kids of are willing to hire college aged people, than they should have no problem getting their message out there.
Joel Osborne´s last [type] ..2 Promotional Stumbling Blocks- Email List Marketing
says:
Yes it is very easy to create a large online presence relatively quickly once you understand how to do it.
Mike Paetzold´s last [type] ..Blog Commenting Question
says:
Really good points for an offline business person. I really like the idea of using your kids and spouse to help out with the business. I think they would enjoy it and I know the kids would like that spending money.
Hard to imagine just little things like that can help get the word out about your business. That internet really is a powerful little tool.
Andre Arnett´s last [type] ..Finding A Profitable Niche
says:
I absolutely agree with you. Internet marketing can definitely help businesses expand. Thanks for sharing your knowledge about it. I’m sure a lot of people will learn a lot from you.