If there is one thing that remains constant in business, it is that change is inevitable. Change is an ever-present element in every aspect of business, but can be seen most evidently in how successful marketing is handled.
In the past, small businesses marketed their services in a number of ways: grassroots advertising campaigns, television marketing campaigns, and even radio ads. These tactics were extremely successful in helping to get the word out to a local customer pools and made many business owners successful. However, in today’s ever growing global economy, companies can’t survive with local advertising alone.
You might be asking yourself why these marketing strategies, which had a proven track record of success, are no longer viable in today’s business environment. There are several reasons.
First and foremost, television ads, radio ads, print ads and other forms of traditional advertising are expensive. In the past, efforts were focused solely on creating profits and there were no restrictions on the amount of money that was spent in pursuit of those profits. The ideology was that the expenditures to land the increased sales was temporary while the revenue streams they created would come through month after month. Unfortunately, in today’s world, there is ever-increasing pressure for companies to perform well financially. This means that increasing profits are great, but there is also a huge emphasis on controlling costs. This change in focus severely reduced the amount of money available for marketing, which meant that business owners had to adjust their strategies when it came to getting word out about their products and services.
In addition to cost, there are other problems with using traditional marketing tactics in today’s business world. As mentioned previously, these strategies have limited reach. Small businesses of today aren’t limited to tapping into local customer pools. Thanks to the advent of the Internet, business owners today can market their wares to potential customers all over the world. Not to mention, it was impossible to track the level of success that individual traditional marketing campaigns had on increasing sales, making it nearly impossible to control costs and focus on campaigns that were working while modifying or eliminating those that weren’t.
Internet marketing eliminated the disparity between small businesses and large corporations. It leveled the playing field by allowing small business owners the ability to streamline their marketing efforts and tap into global customer pools. Internet marketing campaigns are much less expensive than their traditional counterparts while offering the reporting metrics small business owners need to track their successes and focus their resources on the strategies that work, increasing ROI, or return on investment. Online Marketing strategies are also easy to launch and results are nearly instantaneous, allowing small business owners to be very receptive to what their customers want and how they want to be marketed to.
Online Marketing is the right choice for any small business looking to get ahead in today’s economy. Visit Click Ready Marketing today to see how they can help you grow your small business.