Carol HIle

When your business is SERVICE based and your competition is part of a large "bundled" conglomerate how do you get the message out to the public when your advertising budget is limited and your competitors are big. My company is Independent and my staff are the best in our business and in many cases we are less expensive, BUT the "big guys" hold the decision making of the clients at the time of contact without offering a "Choice" for services plus they get more commission on the more affiliated services they sell under their companies umbrella. Ive been in business 23 yrs . How can I use the internet to capture local business?

Topics

Marketing

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Carol Hile

asked on March 8, 2010

John V

Director

Posted on March 31, 2010

Hi Carol It would be useful to know what industry you're in and the kind of marketing you've been doing to date.

In the meantime, have a look at the free article on B2B and Professional Services marketing here which I think you'll find an interesting read: http://blog.everythingdesign.co.nz/b2b-marketing/

John V

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Reg Charie

SEO Guru - Owner, DotCom-Productions

Posted on July 15, 2010

Carol,
What are you doing for Search Engine Marketing?

SEO returns the highest ROI and done correctly, enables the "little guy" to compete on an even footing in getting their information in the eyes of potential purchasers.

best,
Reg
http://NBS-SEO.com

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Prasad Rao

Director - Marketing, The Nines Consulting Group Inc

Posted on July 23, 2010

Hi Carol,

I also run a business growth consultancy (service based). Our target market is Small Business and some medium sized businesses. We have found that our flexibility, personalized approach to solving the clients business problems and pricing are our biggest differentiators.

Right now, we don't advertise, and we are very good at networking, creating relationships with existing clients/partners and leveraging these relationships to create new business.

With regards to using the internet to capture new business, it isn't an on/off switch. It takes time and needs to leverage your existing relationships to make it successful. Yes, having a good website is valuable and ensuring ranking is necessary.

I would suggest you create a plan for the next 6 months to see what approaches you can take to enhance your online presence. There are many free solutions out there that can help generate organic rankings (directories, link building, blogging, etc.) Speaking with a consultant can help, but reading up on the subject and doing a bit of learning makes you a more informed customer.

Would love to hear what kind of strategies you deploy.

Regards,
Prasad

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