The Internet as a marketing medium offers exceptional sales and brand building potential for the small or medium-size business owner. Internet marketing is highly cost effective, offers many unique advantages that traditional advertising can't match and almost gives smaller businesses an unfair advantage over much larger firms (read on to find out why).

Internet Marketing activities are generally focused on two goals; generating traffic to your website (to prospect leads, increase sales etc.) and enhancing the value of your brand. These are typical goals, even of traditional marketing, but on the Internet they take on an entirely new dimension.

Search Engines, Banners and Beyond
By now you may have noticed a recurring theme on this website; the fact that an Internet presence is worthless unless people-- your customers--can find it. It's the 'Being Found' in our ABC's of Internet Success and it's a critical component of any Internet Solution. Fortunately, the Internet offers many affordable ways to increase your online visibility.

For delivering more traffic to your website, search engine marketing is hard to beat. Search engines are the #1 method consumers use to find everything they're looking for online. Being listed and achieving a top rank on your industry's keywords can deliver a significant stream of prospects that are actively looking for the kinds of products or services you offer. Experienced sellers know that reaching a potential customer during the right phase of their buying cycle is key to converting interest into a sale. Search engines have the unique ability to connect with prospects at the exact moment they're researching a product or service to buy; they want to find your business... so make sure they can!
 
Five Reasons You Need a Search Engine Marketing Strategy:

1. Build an ongoing stream of profitable traffic to your website
2. Connect with customers when they're making a buying decision
3. Maximize your ad spending by targeting only relevant keywords
4. Most cost effective way of expanding your market
5. If customers can't find you they'll find your competition

Other methods of traffic generation can help round out your overall strategy and reach those consumers who may not be savvy searchers. These methods include banner ads on other websites, link exchanges, even offline promotions that direct people to a sale page or other area of your website. Success with these, as with any advertising, lies in making sure your ads are being seen by the right group of people at the right time, and that means knowing who you're targeting and where they can be found. The Internet can give you more information about your prospects than any other advertising medium and your Internet Business Consultant can show you how to best take advantage of this in your own website marketing plan. 

Email Marketing - Fast, Affordable and Effective
Email marketing is so effective (when executed correctly) and so inexpensive that an entire industry has emerged to support it. A new millennium counterpart to traditional direct mail, email marketing offers unprecedented targeting capabilities allowing you to customize your messages to appeal to different groups of customers for much higher response rates.

Building a client email list should be a top priority for any business owner, but there's more to it than just collecting names and addresses. Email advertising systems, such as those offered by your WSI Consultant, are capable of categorizing your customers on just about any criteria you can think of. This is important because the more relevant your message is to the recipient, the better your results will be. Want to run a promotion for customers in a specific ZIP code range? You can do that. How about sending a different message to male customers than you do to female customers? You can do that too. You can even get really creative and categorize customers based on the types of items they buy from you (and then notify them about new accessories, styles or models)! WSI Internet Consultants can show you how to build this type of capability into your email advertising efforts quickly and easily.

The Top 3 Advantages of Email Marketing:

1. Unmatched customer targeting and tracking capability
2. Lowest cost per unit of any advertising medium
3. Creates ongoing awareness of your brand and offerings

So why is email marketing important to your business? Put simply, today's consumer has a long list of buying options and a very short memory. Staying in regular contact with your customers is one of the best ways to remind them that you still exist and appreciate their business. Regular newsletters, promotions and announcements will keep your business fresh in their minds, and they'll appreciate the personalized and relevant information you're sending them. It's about building customer loyalty and the Internet makes it easier than ever.

Big Branding on a Budget
In addition to the traffic and sales generating benefits of website marketing, there's another advantage that can't be overlooked. For many business owners, "branding" is a concept that seems reserved for big national and international companies with millions of dollars to spend on advertising. Granted, for a long time that was true and the big brands have spent billions of dollars over the years to make their companies a household name. Then the Internet came along and completely levelled the playing field. Thanks to the virtual nature of the Internet, smaller businesses can have an online presence that looks every bit