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Marketing used to be so simple. Big companies with big budgets spent lots of money on it, small companies with small budgets spent less. You could tell which company was which size by the quality of their marketing materials, and there was a nice, clear order to the world.
Not any more.
Thanks to the internet, upstart new businesses have access to all of the marketing tools and techniques offered by big business, and global boundaries disappeared. Let’s take a closer look at how the World Wide Web changed the face of marketing forever though.
The Rise of Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing used to be a complex matter of sending out a team of sales people, cold calling, corporate lunches and community events.
These days, it’s easier than ever to use relationship marketing online, to engage customers, establish a reputation, and ask questions about products, services and needs.
Auto responders allow businesses to set up personalized, automated mailing campaigns to subscribers on their list, blogs help companies to put a human face on their operations, and social networking offers an informal, fun way to connect with prospects.
These days, it’s easier than ever to build relationships with customers, without ever leaving your house!
Marketing That Never Sleeps
In the old days, your marketing team stopped working at the end of the day, went home, and didn’t work weekends.
Thanks to the internet, and the many different marketing options it offers businesses, from YouTube videos to article marketing and social media, your marketing campaign really need never sleep. It can work for you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.
While you’re on vacation, you can market. When you sleep, you can market. You can market at 8AM in New York and at the same time in Beijing. Time is meaningless in the world of internet marketing, and there’s no sick leave, overtime or other sales team hassles to worry about when you market online.
Marketing That Spans the Globe
Another way that the internet has changed the way marketing works is by opening up the possibility of sales to the globe – no matter what the size of the company.
Any business, of any size, anywhere in the world, now has the option of selling to businesses and customers anywhere else in the world. Whether they sell through a service like eBay, or direct from a website, it’s made global business accessible to everyone.
Unprecedented Presentation Levels
You used to be able to tell, just by looking at a business card, what kind of company you were dealing with. Printing costs meant that small businesses tended to have cheaply made, home printed cards, which looked a little bit shabby. Big businesses tended to have slick, exquisitely designed cards.
When it comes to internet marketing, with websites being a good case in point, it’s almost impossible to tell these days.
In fact, for less than $10, and with a little skill, a small business owner can use a free host, a free CMS, and a free Joomla, Drupal or Mambo template to create a site that looks as professional as everything you see from big companies.
Small businesses, located in their garage or spare room, can have a fantastic website (and a great online marketing campaign) without spending a fortune. Since presentation is everything in marketing, that’s a major boon for small businesses!
Marketing That’s Sociable
Business in the ‘old days’ was uptight, rigid, and fairly unfriendly. Anyone who’s old enough to remember the world before the internet will probably remember men in grey suits, elevator muzak and rigid policies as the hallmark of most businesses.
How things have changed thanks to the internet!
These days, nearly every company worth their salt has a social network page that puts them in direct, instant contact with their customers. Its fun, it’s free, and it helps to make your business more accessible and likeable. Since buying is as much an emotional decision as anything else, that helps your bottom line.
Infinite Targeting Possibilities
One of the biggest challenges for traditional marketing has always been reaching your target market. You’d spend ages working on the perfect ad campaign, then agonise about which newspaper to print it in, which radio stations to approach, or where to put your billboards.
Thanks to the targeting potential of the internet, from keywords to long tail keywords, PCC to social media, it’s easier than ever to position your brand exactly where it’s most likely to be found by the people you sell to.
The best thing is, these options are open to everyone, and it’s an even balance between effort and money. So if you’re willing to put in the effort as a small business owner, you can reach the same customers that big companies with huge marketing budgets can reach.
Marketing Without Effort
The internet has also taken a lot of the effort out of marketing.
Take article marketing for instance. Yes, you have to write the articles once (or pay someone to do it for you.) However, unlike print media, where you’d have to repeat the process over and over for each new issue, your articles online stay there, selling your services, forever.
Then there are even simpler options – like putting an ad for your latest promotion under your email signature. Every single time you send an email, you’re marketing.
Internet marketing is cumulative. Everything you do on the internet builds up into a giant, never ending network of marketing materials that do the job without you ever having to lift a finger.
What the Internet Has Done for Marketing
The internet has made marketing faster. It’s made it easier. It’s given it greater reach, and it’s made it cheaper and more accessible.
There’s a good chance that the internet will never entirely replace most of the most popular traditional marketing methods, but it’s added a new dimension to marketing, that makes it possible for anyone, anywhere, to reach clients around the world.
If you’re not already marketing online, ask yourself whether your competitors are. Chances are, if you’re not online, you’re being left behind.
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