Growth Without an Online Presence?

Growth Without an Online Presence… Possible or Not?

LinkedIn is an ongoing resource for any marketer and should be for you. It’s a fantastic tool for keeping in touch, prospecting & developing new contacts as well as sharing your personalized message. As such, if you’re NOT using LinkedIn daily, I recommend you start.

One of the recent polls asked, “What is the next step in the development of your small business?”  What caught my eye, naturally, was the term “Online Presence”. My initial reaction to the question is that there is NO GROWTH without an Online Presence. Today it’s impossible to build your business without marketing and advertising. Just can’t be done.

This is a good example of my view that small & mid sized business is NOT really getting into or understanding this new era of digital marketing. 61% of respondents want growth, as does almost every small business, yet only 19% see an online presence as the next step of development.

There is a serious disconnect here and as professionals we see it with regularity. Why is it that the small business community is ignoring the primary communication vehicle? Email marketing is the first step in an online or digital presence (yes I’m assuming you have some kind of web presence), and what we see is that there are a large segment of business owners and marketers NOT willing to spend in this area.

Other areas being under funded, OR worse not funded at all, are Google Adword programs (PPC), Social Media Marketing and Digital Strategy (to correctly implement these new tools). I know at times I can be a bit sarcastic, but, really exactly how do you attain growth without building a digital or online presence? Sorry, I don’t get it … and how is it that every business owner isn’t jumping on these new GROWTH opportunities?

The bottom line, there’s no need to be embarrassed, no need to hide behind our Paparazzi glasses, all you have to do is call a digital agency, or digital professional. You want growth, you want expansion … the only step you have to take is to build out your digital strategy.

BTW, Paparazzi glasses are for sale, soon to be online, and if you are walking around saying “No Comment”, then seek professional help, ignoring digital marketing is not an option.

Michael Bickerton, Raven5 Ltd, Toronto, April 2012

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