December 5, 2008

Biznology Blog by Mike Moran

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Small Businesses Need Internet Help, Not Hype

A lot of what I read in the internet marketing space has a particular ring to it. It seems to be almost always directed to one of two groups; those who are pure online plays or "traditional" companies that have established marketing budgets and some cash that will help them through the current economic times. I still see, read or hear precious little about the bulk of the businesses in the US; the small and medium business (SMB) and the internet.

It seems as if the SMB's live in the "Land That the Internet Forgot" when you read most internet / search marketing pundits. They talk high theory and re-adjusting of budgets that have been cut but still dwarf the budgets of those who do the bulk of the country's business on Main Street rather than Wall Street.

You see, I target the 'Main Streeters" with my approach to Internet marketing because I am one of them. I have worked for companies of all sizes over my career, so I can talk to someone in the Fortune 100 as well as someone who has a coffee shop in Nowhere, USA. It's the Nowhere, USA folks that we as an industry seem to simply overlook. To me, it's those folks who are the most interesting of all and stand to gain the most...if we as an industry would truly pay attention to them.

Here's what I mean. There are several sites and blogs that talk about small business search and internet marketing. Many are quite good. Problem is they are clubby. They cater to people like me who are in the Internet marketing industry, rather than reaching and educating the people who would most benefit from this information which is the small business owner themselves.

I have even seen Internet marketing "providers" (and I use this term in the most loose fashion possible) who claim to specialize in a particular small biz area (lawyers, accountants, and even carpet cleaners) who have put together programs for Web design and Internet marketing that are done for the masses but often end up severely hampering the business person's ability to do the right thing on the Internet in the future.

A great example is a rug cleaning firm I spoke to that gets hijacked for monthly hosting fees ($100 plus per month for basic hosting) after they were built this "great" site by a specialist in the industry. Trouble is the site is in frames. That's right. Good old fashioned frames that can't be properly indexed by the search. Same holds true for an accountant I know. These "providers" are able to do this because of small business owner ignorance of the Internet and its best uses for their bottom-line success. Personally, I think this sad, because it is predatory.

I would be interested to know how many of you reading this are actual small business owners, or are people who are industry types looking for insights into the mysterious world of Internet marketing. Please chime in with a comment or two about who you are as you read this. Tell me what it is you look for or desire from the Internet marketing industry. Tell me why you are different from the Fortune 500s of the world, and share what YOU are doing to survive these rather difficult times. What is it YOU need? Maybe I am a tree falling in the forest here and no one will hear me. I am more than curious.

I hear people all the time talking about how the Internet is the great equalizer. It levels the playing field where the little guy can take on the big guy and have a fighting chance. The Internet is the rock in the sling of the business David's fighting the mighty corporate Goliaths. Seems to me that there is more hype than reality to that kind of thinking. If the Internet were so egalitarian, then why would so many SMB's know virtually nothing about the Internet, and take the first thing that comes down the pike without even knowing the possible impact (positive or negative) on their ability to make bottom line impact?

Maybe this sounds a bit like whining. I don't know. I do know though that many good, hard-working people are struggling right now because they are ignorant of the Internet opportunity that could be there for them. I am honestly amazed by this fact as we approach 15 or so years of true commercial Internet applications. Seems to me that in this world of change that everyone is clamoring over, this is one change that could be of real impact to real people in real hard times. I'm out.

Posted by FrankReed at December 5, 2008 2:48 AM

Comments

It's strongly recommended to make popular your business on Internet. In the new age, all are looking to purchase or handle through Internet. They don't want to go outside or your retails office. If you have better score on Internet then your business is popular. The old trend of marketing has gone, now try the new things.

Posted by: Hot Tubs at December 5, 2008 10:18 AM

Hi Frank:

I am CMO for MotiveQuest LLC - defnintely a small business - though we work almost exclusively for very large organizations.

I think the thing small businesses should think about WRT the internet is not "website" but web presence.

When people search for your company, or your type of product/service what do they see?

It is true for companies of all sizes - but google is really your homepage, how do you look there?

Also, there are lots of utilities out there you can use for content. I think all companies should put their best content out there on YouTube, SlideShare, etc. You should have a digg and del.ico.us account where you post all your articles - and all the smart articles about your business.

There is lots that can be done without spending huge amounts of money - just get it going.

Tom O'Brien

MotiveQuest LLC

http://delicious.com/motivequest

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=motivequest&search_type=&aq=f

http://www.slideshare.net/motivequest

Posted by: Tom O'Brien at December 5, 2008 4:15 PM

Hey Frank,

I think you are right on with the thought that the SMB just doesn't get it. It is not their fault either. They work hard, especially if they are consultants or brick and mortar. The problem as I see it is that the SMB wants one thing when thinking about the Internet, and that is to get new business so they can grow and make more money. Vendors do not do enough or do not know enough about how to use the Internet to drive walking or call traffic to their SMB customer. This is a fundamental issue, otherwise the SMB is just throwing money away. I would rather see an SMB build a free 3 page site with some crappy Website program and get listed in the local search engines: local.google.com, local.yahoo.com, etc. to drive local targeted traffic than waste thousands of dollars and hosting fees on a framed website. It is just a waste.

My 2 cents...

Jack

Posted by: Jack at December 9, 2008 10:03 PM

Right on, Jack. And it's not just SMBs. Large companies have no clue how to connect the dots from online interest to offline sales either. Which is good, because I make a lot of money explaining it to them. :-)

Posted by: Mike Moran at December 9, 2008 10:08 PM

I couldn't agree more with what you say about small businesses. In the UK things are probably even worse particularly in terms of predatory web companies. I run a company where we specialise in content production and delivery and our message is "tell your story to the world". We actively encourage our small business customers to start simple and build from there. More often than not we are delivering single page web sites to new start ups and then encouraging them to expand to a blog based site when they become more confident and can begin to add their own content.
So many of the clients who come to us are mistrusting of the web and see development of their site as a bottomless pit into which to throw their hard earned resources. They have not been told by their former web designers of simple techniques to measure success or introduced to tools such as Google analytics.
I hope you don't mind, but I adapted the theme one of your earlier postings about the most important part of a web site, for our marketing blog, as it seemed to perfectly phrase what we are trying to achieve.
Keep posting, I enjoy your regular email updates from feedblitz.

Cheers
Ian

Posted by: Ian Smith at December 10, 2008 11:11 PM

The Internet has proven to be a boon for small businesses with limited advertising budgets. It is only through this medium, that you can reach out to millions by spending almost nothing and yet get the desired results.It is really your "Office On the Move"!

Posted by: AstucesWeb at December 12, 2008 3:04 AM

Posted by: last minute at May 18, 2009 2:06 PM