For those of us that live in small rural towns that surround Worcester, it is easy to enjoy the slower pace of the countryside and to leave the fast paced, technology driven and business orientated life that we associate with the city, to those that actually live there. For those that resist the draw of the internet for whatever reason, be it fear of the unknown, security reasons or a belief that big brother is watching, the end result will be the same. Those that choose not to develop and learn will be left behind.
In 2009, nearly 80% of the UK population was using the internet. For Worcester with a population of approximately 94,000 that means there are over 75,000 internet users just in Worcester. If we then apply the same calculation to the county of Worcestershire it is fair to assume that we are looking somewhere in the region of 433,000 users! So why would any small business not want to tap into this vast potential customer base?
As an example lets imagine a small bookshop in Pershore, now the shop owner may wonder how the internet can be of any benefit to him. It is well known that Amazon is the place to shop online for Books so how could he possibly compete. He has his regular customers so business is ticking over nicely. Could a website bring him more trade and Business? The answer is yes of course it would. Without a website the book shop owner is invisible to the thousands of internet users that live in the county, with a website he can draw in business from all over Worcestershire and even beyond if he uses and thinks of his website as a marketing tool.
One of the advantages that the book shop owner has over Amazon is the same advantage any small business has over a multi-million pound company and that is the personal touch and customer care that most small to medium enterprises have built their reputations on thus far. By simply collecting e-mail addresses of regular and new customers through the website and from visitors to the shop, the book shop owner can then send out regular newsletters reminding them of new releases or sale stock so that instead of sitting in his shop waiting for customers to come to him he can actively reach out to his captive audience and shout about his business.
The beauty of living in rural Worcestershire is that most people living here would still rather support local businesses if they can rather than use the bigger companies, the only difference now is that we need to be reminded to keep it local when surfing the net and scanning our emails.
Marketing a business is still all about communication but the way we communicate is changing fast. Gone are the good old days of paying for an advert week in and week out with the local paper. Newspapers are slowly becoming extinct and it will not be long before advertising on TV follows suit. More and more people are turning on their computers and searching for the things they want to know and blocking out what they are not interested in, likewise with TV, with so many channels available why should anyone waste their time watching adverts when they can press a button and flip channels or better still use sky planner to skip through the commercial breaks. This means that businesses need to change the way they think. Learning how to market a business to the best of your ability on the web is now a must for any business these days.
A lot of small businesses in Worcestershire have been hit hard over the last few years; with flooding of the river Severn and the river Teme followed by the current recession we find ourselves in it is amazing that we haven’t lost more small businesses. Yet despite everything some businesses have had to endure many still ignore the power of the internet and are unwilling to find out how they can promote themselves online. The question is why? Why stay invisible to 433,000 local internet users and why continue to spend money on traditional advertising and marketing when advertising online is far more cost effective and in some cases free?