Marketing Tips for Small Business

By Larry Franklee


Little businesses are going under by the dozen daily in this difficult economy, but there are several free or minimal cost promoting ideas for small business. Tiny shops will continue to fail as retailers like Walmart and Target continue to tough it out for market domination by offering ludicrously low prices on everything from clothing to electronics to food. When small businesses become a victim of this insurmountable competition, people lose their livelihoods and communities lose irreplaceable resources.

Therefore how is a small business to remain floating in these difficult times?

If you're a bricks and mortar business, you have a battle on your hands, particularly if you offer anything that the enormous chains offer. You have to become unique, a pro in what you do, and offer the best purchaser service possible , then market that fact.

Those are three of the things these large box stores don't offer : uniqueness, expertise and consumer service. Personally I mostly try and go shopping at small local businesses, because they're the spine of a community and they're often more well informed and useful than big stores, where you are lucky if you can get any help at all!

Its remarkable how many small businesses do not feel the need to have a domain. They probably don't know that Google really loves small business and always will pull a small business to the top of a search page, by somebody putting in the name of a town and whatever they are looking for. This is a great advantage to a business owner. There are always local directories, for example through the local Chamber of Commerce, where you can list your internet site, frequently for a small fee or free.

Many small business owners are also of the opinion that starting and maintaining a site will cost them a lot of money and is tough. Offering cost-effective website construction and upkeep for small local businesses has become a home-run industry in itself.

Little local businesses should always have a website offering a short outline of what they offer, what they are skilled in doing, a map to where they are found, opening hours and contact numbers and a mail address, any successful use of income-producing Google Adwords and affiliate advertising on those sites, can become a really pleasant added bonus. By offering an opt-in box, a small business website owner can build a list, and then offer kickbacks and offers to those customers by initiating a promotional program.

Web businesses have a much more hard task on their hands. They have much larger competition and must employ S.E.O and a myriad of other promoting methods, especially to build up a list of subscribers. A website's popularity reflects a bunch of things : the age of the site, the consistency with which it is updated, the value of its content and the relevancy of its content and the quantity of backlinks it has . Just like a small high st business, an internet site should offer useful information, great buyer service and brand itself as being unique. It's all about attraction promoting.




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