Moving With the Future 2.0
Those with Long Term Vision Can more readily navigate when the going gets rough. As the European situation becomes more and more bleak it is apparent that the politicians and financial elite have no real solutions for the global debt and derivatives mess. You might be asking how this is related to internet marketing and moving digital. However, the stagnation and depreciation of an economy is not necessarily a bad thing for those with long term vision. Investing in the right technologies and marketing tools to get new business is what will keep the businesses afloat while the poorly managed business fail. Those with the ability to foresee the internet marketing potential of the future are those that will survive the upcoming economic disaster we are heading towards.
Building an eCommerce website that is optimized to be found online is the only way for local retailers to build a national presence. Sitting in a small town in a non-optimal location is going to be impossible without a strong online presence in today’s fast paced and digital world. What business owners need to realize is that building an online presence with discounts and incentives for people to purchase their goods and services is the only way to survive the sluggish economy that will most likely see anemic 1 to 2 percent growth at best for the near future.
eCommerce is one of the fastest growing sectors of the United States with double digit growth in many quarters, whereas the rest of the economy is growing at just over one percent. Additionally, people searching for products and deals online are increasing because getting a deal has never been so important in such a sluggish economy. Having user friendly and well-designed content grabs attention to those searching for that industry or product. Internet usage worldwide has grown by over 500 percent from 2000 to 2011. What else in the economy has grown by that much besides the price of gold. That is just the percentage of people who now have internet access, that does not take into account how much longer each person now spends on the internet compared to 2000. When you really break it down the amount of internet usage is skyrocketing from both an percentage of population who have access perspective and hours spent online per person.
Making sure your website is mobile friendly is also more and more important. Tablets and smartphones are going to explode this decade and almost every adult with reasonable purchasing power (consumers that actually buy things) in the United States will have mobile internet access by 2015. Moving with the future is not about being staying up to date with technology, it is preparing for the technology that is going to come out in the future. Staying one step ahead of the game is how you stay in business and how you become a superstar in a sluggish economy. It is the business owners that lack the foresight of a global rapidly technologically advancing economy that watch their products and services decay in their store. It is not lack of demand that is hindering their growth, it is lack of awareness about their products and services, and the internet is the best way to generate such awareness without spending millions on television.
Marketing is what has made the fortune 500 companies so massive so quickly. You know McDonalds, Wendys, and Burger King because they are everywhere physically, on television, and on the internet. Big companies spend massive amounts of money on marketing because it works, and it continues to work. Small businesses cannot afford television ads or even radio ads and newspaper ads that have very little effect because they are a dying industry. However, small and medium sized businesses can afford internet marketing. There are ways to do internet marketing for a few hundred dollars a month and sometimes even less, which is nothing compared to the thousands it would take to create television ads and other advertisements.
The companies that prepare for the massive web 2.0 acceleration of this decade are those that will succeed. Think about this. Who is going to watch television when you can get internet on your television for much less and watch movies, shows, youtube videos, browse websites for a fraction of the cost of paying for expensive television programs. The answer is very few. More and more people will start using internet on their televisions and simply just pay for internet access which could save them thousands annually. This is the future, so you better get used to it whether you like it or not.