writ trig: Small Business Marketing Advantages to Knockout Your Competition

The following is an excerpt from one of IMPACT?s most downloaded Ebooks, ?Small Business Marketing Made Simple.? For more expert tips on optimizing your small business marketing campaign, be sure to check out the full Ebook.?

It?s no secret that inbound marketing has become the future of small business marketing. Lower costs per lead and sale, long term benefits and more authenticity are some of the basic things that are attracting more and more businesses to adopt an inbound marketing campaign.

Thanks to the enormous influence of the internet, marketers are now paying more heed to internet marketing because it is an easier way of generating traffic, leads, and as a result, sales. According to HubSpot, inbound marketing costs 62% less to generate each lead when compared to other traditional outbound marketing strategies. ?So, whether yours is a giant corporation or a small business, inbound marketing has its own place in your marketing strategy.

Small Business Marketing Made Simple

Businesses are also clearly starting to see the benefits of inbound marketing over outbound marketing too.? A recent survey has shown that businesses feel that methods like blogging, social media, and SEO are far more valuable than outbound marketing, as per the graph below:

Small Business Marketing Made Simple

Realizing the value that inbound marketing plays on their return on investment, businesses are beginning to spend more and more money each year on inbound marketing and less on their outbound marketing strategies. This is particularly true for small businesses.

Marketers and analysts estimated that 2012 would not bring about any revolutionary changes in the way marketing is executed. But, some of the most commonly used techniques are going to be implemented more effectively with slight changes to various platforms. However, following is the list of the most effective marketing platforms that marketers are going to use in the following year

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Yes, search engine optimization strategies are going to be the top inbound marketing strategy in 2012. One of the fundamental reasons why many of the marketers prefer SEO over anything is that generating traffic from search engine giants like Google, Yahoo! and Bing is because it does not require any money but only some enthusiastic efforts. But, experts claim that in 2012, Google will give priority to websites that are more readable by users. So, if you want to expand your small business into a giant corporation, reserve some budget for SEO purposes.

Looking to optimize your website for the search engines? Contact IMPACT today and get started ranking higher in the search engines!

Blogging

Blogging, an important part of inbound marketing will take its due place in the next year. lead generation report from Wharton Marketing (www.wharton-marketing.com) suggests that companies that have blogging platforms get 434% more indexed pages on search engines compared to the ones that do not blog. In addition, blogging offers significant impacts on search engine results as well. Another important benefit of blogging is that it allows more buyer interaction that any other component.

If you?re still pondering the idea of a blog and aren?t sure if it?s worth your time, then consider the savings you?ll see in your marketing costs.? Most businesses are reporting that their blog leads are far less expensive than any other lead channel, including social media and SEO:

Small Business Marketing Made Simple