Why is Online Presence important to Small Business?

Placing your small business in the internet is not simply just creating a website with your name, address and phone anymore; although name, address and phone usage this has fully evolved, we will get to this later.
 
Nowadays, being online is actually establishing a virtual version of your business but without the human physical interaction you would get from a brick and mortar spot.
 
The essence of any business is to generate money by providing value to someone who perceives this value and is willing to pay for it. So how can you do that without having the physical factor? Challenge alert!
 
Modern marketing concepts still preach about the importance of price, product (or service), location and promotion. But added to that is the importance of customer experience.
 
If you can imagine, now there is this new challenge to deliver all these things plus making sure your client has a good time. If you do all this well you can beat your competition and win a good chunk of market share.
 
What does it have to do with the importance of online presence to small business?
 
The answer, is simple: The clients are all online and connected, and now more than ever, small business needs to adapt fast so they can cater better their client's needs!
 
 Here are some numbers:
 
- 69% of Americans Shop Online, while 25% shop online once a month and 50% of those are using mobile devices.
 
- 63% of Shopping Occasions begin online- when people want something, they go online to research first, prior to leave the house.
 
- 75% of shoppers expect something new every month

A interesting thing to note is that many customers are leaning towards local products and independent companies (did someone say small business), however they still use the internet to find them.
 
And because the internet is so open, it gives a chance for small businesses to beat the big guys.
 
There are so many tools that allow a small independent company to be found by a customer that lives in the same neighborhood that was always interested about their products, but never knew they were neighbors.
 
Remember when we mentioned about Name, Address and Phone? That sounds like a Yellow Pages directory right? Super Old School!
 
Well, now Google has enhanced this information and you build Google My Business (GMB) Listings with them
 
So basically, if you are a tiny Sushi Restaurant and you are located in the small town of Blaine, WA you want people to look for you when they Google “Sushi Restaurant” on their mobile devices when they are staying in Blaine, WA.
 
Guess what, with GMB management you can make this happen and if properly managed, you can dominate the sushi market at this specific location!
 
Those are the wonders of the internet and how they can impact the small business model. The tools are so vast, that we will need to go through most of them in baby steps.
 
On the next following days we will cover a bunch of Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses using the internet.
 
Because all your clients will eventually be there and having your business listed online does not cost much and it can increase revenue exponentially. Simple.