Guest post by Cathy Lamothe-Taylor
If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy even less.
General Eric Shinsekii
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
The following is a sad true story (I have changed the owner’s name). My husband and I often frequent an adorable ice cream/candy shop. There are a myriad of things that make this ice cream shop adorable. Once you walk in, the set up of the shop is immaculate. They sell many specialty items such as chocolate bars from the ‘olden days’, a variety of homemade fudge, specialty coffee, and hand dipped ice cream. What really draws my husband and I to the ice cream shop are two things: The warm and welcoming atmosphere and the husband and wife team that run the shop. We often visit the shop after watching a movie and when we enter, their eyes seem to light up. I imagine they treat all of their guests this way. Every time we left the shop I would say to my husband, “It would be so much fun to handle their Internet Marketing!”
Here is the sad part, a couple of weeks ago we stopped by the ice cream shop. Mark, the owner, sees us, as usual his eyes light up and he says “What movie did you guys watch this time?” I proceed to tell him that I would love to talk to him about doing his Internet Marketing. He looks at the floor, then tells me that their lease is up and they won’t be renewing because business is not doing well. Through further conversation he states that he wishes they started marketing over the Internet years ago. Right now, their main clientele are the movie goers and a retirement community that occasionally brings their grandchildren in for treats. Mark said that he now knows that if he had started marketing on the Internet years ago, he probably would have attracted more clientele as well as a younger crowd. I felt so sad knowing such a wonderful establishment was closing down.
There are so many business owners going through the same scenario above. Why do you think that Mark ‘thought about Internet Marketing’ for years and never actually did it? Was it fear of change? Or maybe fear of technology? Or he just didn’t know where to start? I think the answer is all three.
My daughter and I started our company, Endless Visibility, precisely because of business owners like Mark. It breaks my heart to know that there may have been something we could have done to help save his company. Something that we LOVE to do which is to help small business owners gain visibility on the Internet!
Here’s an interesting fact: Last month, for the first time in Broadway history, the performance of GODSPELL created a designated section of the theater called “Tweet Seats”. GODSPELL‘s social media marketing team chose 15 of their most vocal Twitter fans and granted them each a free ticket to tweet live during the performance. One of their reasons they made this move was because they wanted to reach a younger demographic. Another reason was to help spread the word of the performance.
Internet Marketing can help ALL BUSINESSES, from a mom and pop ice cream shop to a Broadway show.
In June 2011, comScore puts Google’s worldwide reach at 1 billion unique visitors per month. Let’s face it, if we had a dollar every time we heard the words “Google it”, we’d be millionaires!
If you have a small business, whether online or offline (brick and mortar), here are just a few important questions to ask yourself:
- How many different Internet Marketing Techniques are you using?
- How are you tracking what works and what is not working with the Internet Marketing Techniques you are currently using?
- How is your business ranking in the keywords for your niche?
- Do you feel you are doing a good job of building relationships on a daily basis with your potential clients/customers as well as your current clients/customers?
Remember, Google gets 1 billion unique visitors per month, and many of those visitors are looking for YOUR company. How easy (or how hard) are you making it for your customers to find you?
After answering the questions above, if you feel you may need some help or advice on marketing your business on the Internet, please feel free to contact us at info@endlessvisibility.com.
Cathy Lamothe-Taylor helps small businesses around the world obtain Endless Visibility on the Internet. Get her bi-weekly tips on helping your clients or customers find you on Google, as well as her free report on getting started with Facebook and Google + business pages at www.EndlessVisibility.com.