Why should small and medium companies embrace internet marketing?

When Internet was invented, it was hauled as one of the great invention that will change the business world by storm. It as hailed as a great advertising channel for businesses to reach customers beyond the geographical boundary. It was for big corporations who have the money to purchase the web service and lease the infrastructure to advertise the company beyond the geographical boundary.

However, a gap existed between the expectation of the surfers and the organisation. Organisations viewed internet as a great tool to promote their products to a bigger market which used to be unavailable to the corporations. Surfers were using the internet to search for information. The mis-match slowed the growth of the internet. At that point, infoseek and then northernlight were the search engine that provides information to the surfers. Yahoo offers organisations sponsored links where organisation place banners on the top of the search results. At that time, only big organisations which have a big advertising budget could benefit from the offer, because the listing were given to those who could pay more to yahoo.

The entry of Google into the internet scene changed the way people are using the internet. It manages to integrate the business needs of organisations (advertisement) with the needs of surfers. Between organisations and surfers, Google choose to focus on surfers. As a result, it levels the playing field and provide even individuals with the opportunity to use internet as a means and also a low cost means to promote their products and services to the world. While there has been much focus on individuals gaining success in using the internet to start and grow their businesses, the small and medium size companies are neglected. Furthermore, the SMEs always look towards the bigger organisations for success formulas and neglected the successes of these individuals. As a result, SMEs continue to hold off their plans to use the internet to promote their business. As a result, SMEs put themselves at a disadvantage as they continue to focus on the traditional business models and neglected a potential opportunity to grow their businesses to the next level. Here are some reasons why SMEs should make use of the internet to grow their businesses:

1. A low cost approach to regional expansion.
2. Using internet as a market researching tool.
3. In time to come, internet will become a major means to operate a business.
4. Expanding your market potential outside Singapore without the need to set up a physical shop in another country.
5. Expand their sales channels overseas and at the same time retain the control in Singapore.

The cost of embracing internet marketing?

1. We recommend site sell as the tool to built a website site.
2. Site sell cost about S$500 compared to $120 for a simple web hosting plan in Singapore but it includes the following tools.
1. Search Engine submission tools to help you get listed in search engines and gain free traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN
2. Monitors the page rank of your pages in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves
3. A website planning tool similar to the conventional business planning tool
4. A community which is willing to share their experience with you.
3. Examples of websites that are built using Sitesell
1. http://www.advanced-excel.com
2. http://www.benefits-of-honey.com

Is this the right time to make use of internet marketing?

1. The lower penetration rate is a good opportunity to explore the market.
2. You need to learn and cultivate the traffic
3. The cost is low now because the number of participants is few. When the penetration rate increase, the cost of setting up a website will go up.