The digital age has arrived, we are no longer in a transitional period, making internet marketing for small businesses a critical step on the road to success.  The wide variety of marketing opportunities that the Internet provides can confuse and often scare small business owners, causing inaction or even worse, damaging behaviors to occur.  From social media and brand management to search engine optimization and the many other pillars of Internet marketing for small businesses, they each deserve attention and proper planning.

What Does Internet Marketing for Small Businesses Encompass

The principles of internet marketing for small businesses and corporations are fundamentally the same, they just vary based on scale and demand.  Often referred to as online marketing, internet marketing is the process of promoting services, products, brands or a combination of them all, over the internet. The practice covers a wide range of activities including email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM) and any other advertising or promotion conducted through the web.  The best way to summarize internet marketing is that if covers anything and everything that is meant to create engagement of some kind throughout the web or connected devices.

Considering the definition we provided, one must understand that internet marketing is not just a website.  It is your entire digital brand rolled into one neat and clean buzzword.  Outside of the websites, consider local search, social media services, comments, affiliate sites and so much more.

The Hard Facts on Why Internet Marketing for Small Businesses is Important

Consumers have turned to the internet as the default mechanism to research products, services and people.  In fact, recent studies have indicated that nearly 80 percent of all consumers use the web during their decision making processes.  Putting that into context, for every 10 customers walking through your front door, 8 of them checked your company out online before coming in.  Or perhaps if  you have not embraced internet marketing, you only saw 20 percent of your potential customer base come through the door.

The competitive landscape is unforgiving, your rivals won’t wait for you to catch up to them.  Instead, they will gladly absorb your potential customers and move on.  However, this fear often leads small business owners and executives to try and boil the ocean, leading to poor implementations and results.

Don’t let that happen to your business.

Take the approach of manageable short projects while being mindful of the constant change happening in the marketplace for the best results.  If this seems daunting, partner with a trusted internet marketing agency, such as iFame Media, to help you through the process.