Saturday, February 28, 2009

International Marketing for Your Business Via the Internet

By Rick Jenkinns

If you have yet to begin marketing your business online, now is the time to start. Among the advantages are lower costs, and the ability find your target audience anywhere in the world. While it is still possible for businesses to do well without the internet, most who decide to give it a try will see positive results. Businesses are now able to target their products toward specific consumers, based on such factors as their age, education, marital status, employment, extracurricular interests and more.

The affordability of marketing online is one of a few reasons why many business owners are turning to the Internet for advertising. When you take into consideration how far your marketing message can reach and how little you have to pay for it, you will see that it is incredibly affordable. Most methods of online advertising are low cost or absolutely free. One of the best free ways to market your business online is through industry forums. Here you can join in on the conversations pertaining to your business and be able to post links to your biz website when opportunity strikes. In this instance the cost of creating and maintaining the website is insignificant in comparison to the number of potential clients you are reaching to your very specific industry audience. Additionally, the costs associated with posting links to your website in various areas are small if anything. The cost for internet service will seem minimal once you experience the benefits it provides to marketing your business online.

The ability to reach such a wide audience is a major advantage of marketing your business online. You may have spent considerable money and efforts into conducting traditional market research to determine who your target market is and how to reach them. This is a very sound marketing principle for the old way of marketing. But as it applies to marketing on local television, radio and print media it only allows you to reach a limited audience. However, when you implement the power of the Internet you automatically and drastically increase your potential target audience because you now have the ability to reach around the world.

The internet now makes it possible to do business with anyone around the world. This is possible regardless of where you live or work, as all you need is a connection to the internet, and website hosting services. The ability to reach a worldwide base of customers interested in your services or products is invaluable to the marketing of your business.

The Internet never sleeps it is up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including all holidays. Does your brick and mortar business do that? Think for a moment if you only advertise locally and you have standard business hours of say 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ? heck let?s make that 9:00 p.m. So your local audience is narrowed down to those who are interested in your product or service, then it is narrowed down more to only those who can make it to your business or reach you during the normal business hours. Just those alone brings the percentage of viable customers down. Now think for a moment about the business that never sleeps, that can be accessed from anywhere at any time. Do you see where I?m going with this? It is non-stop shopping. In this busy world, people are looking more and more for convenience and being able to get online when it is convenient for them, makes them more likely to buy the product or service they are looking for.

In case you have not realized it, your competitors are likely already marketing their businesses online. After reading this article, you should realize that it is very important to learn about online marketing, and to begin promoting your business on the internet as soon as possible. The more your competitors are marketing themselves to the world, the more likely they are to capture your potential customer base, and keep them loyal to their products and offerings. If you want to keep up with your competitors, or hope to get ahead of them, you need to start marketing your business online now. - 16651

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