Online boosts small business by 20 per cent

More people are online than ever before. Internet advertising revenues are continuing to grow at a pace completely out of kilter with most other sectors, and now accounts for a whopping 19 per cent of the market, which is only 0.6 per cent behind total press display advertising and 3 per cent behind TV.

But what does this mean to the SME?
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) conducted recent research which indicates that businesses that use internet advertising smartly can expect to grow their revenues by around 20 per cent. The FSB’s annual survey of its 8,700 members showed 43 per cent of respondents reporting notably positive sales increases by internet-related advertising.

So how can I make it work for me?
Internet advertising solutions can be cheap and simple. In its simplest form you can start by reviewing and improving your website and making sure you get smart with tagging and blogging (see TT blog, 20/01/09). Beyond this, you should be thinking about getting your web links added to as many relevant websites as you can – speak to suppliers, business colleagues, networking associates. And ultimately if you can demonstrate decent footfall figures for your site, you can take this to the next level and sell space on your site to other advertisers. Equally if you want to place ads on other sites, when compared to other media, online is very competitive both in the costs and the increasingly large numbers it reaches.

Right I’m going to move all my marketing budget to online…
Not so fast. It’s worth bearing mind, that what is a very attractive marketplace today could be very crowded in the not too distant future. At TT we try to keep ahead of the game by combining our online advertising with offline and by allocating our advertising budgets across a few options, to maintain an effective business profile to a variety of audiences. Additionally we try to keep abreast of developments in digital/online media by looking out for courses and seminars to keep our online work smart. To this end we found a great site, http://www.netimperative.com which offers tips, predictions, news, courses and much more for internet advertisers.

Please share!
As always we’d be interested to hear what you have to say, please get in touch or post your comments below.

TT